Chairman
Now, great pleasure to invite the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, to say a few words before she drives the first pile on the Limehouse link. Prime Minister.
MT
Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,
London Docklands Corporation is only eight years old. Before that many of you knew what this area looked like. It was an area that history had left behind, because the working practices here had not kept up with the needs of modern times and therefore history was passing it by. It lay like that for quite a time. We couldn't just leave this enormous asset so near to the centre of our capital city being unused. Local authorities were so numerous, it was not possible to get them together to rejuvenate the area. And so the London Docklands Corporation was born and came under the control and dynamism of very good chairmen right from the start.
It had what is euphemistically called ‘negative value’. That is to say, before the land could be used, you had to pour a lot of money in to make it useable. That was really the task of Government, and was done in the early days by the London Docklands Corporation, to clear the derelict land so that private enterprise could then move in. And, my goodness me, private enterprise did move in. Industries came, commercial buildings began to spring up, the newspapers began to move here. Seventeen thousand houses were built or under construction. It began to be an enormous success story, a visible sign that enterprise was alive and well in Britain and showing its paces.
Then, of course, you can imagine what happened. Some of the industrialists and commercial people came to see me and said, “We've done all you asked, Prime Minister. We're vigorous in Docklands, but where are the arteries that will deliver the people and the goods to our doors? And how can we see that people can get in and out easily so that what we have done will work and will work well?” And so we realised that we were to put even more money into Docklands. I appointed Michael Portillo to be in charge of getting the transport right, and I think he's been very vigorous in carrying out his duties and excellently realising what was needed. And we both had a go at the Treasury, hence, the … [laughter]. Well, our job is to keep the commerce growing. You can't create wealth if you haven't got the transport to get to the factories and the office blocks and the houses. And the Treasury are the first to realise that. And so, as you know, London Docklands Light Railway is being upgraded. Some of you will say, “Not before time” . And we have in fact announced the Jubilee extension from Green Park to Stratford in the latest autumn statement, and also the Limehouse link from the City to the Isle of Dogs. It will be just under two kilometres of tunnel, of four-lane tunnel. [end p1]
You've already heard from Balfour Beatty the difficulties of the tunnelling. It will not be easy and I just hope that the first pile is not driven through one of those relics of World War II [laughter] which we know are there but we don't quite know what they are. Now, that I think will be your responsibility. It's not my first experience of pile-driving in Docklands. I drove the first part of Canary Wharf. And, of course, they can't operate unless we get these roads which also go to Canary Wharf. So I hope that it'll be all right.
It is a fantastic success story. It means that we've had to move some people out of houses. Everyone has combined together to give those people a choice of houses in the future and to look after them very well, and the local authorities have been very co-operative. When it's finished—and it'll be quite an achievement to get it finished by 1993—it'll be tunnelling through London's history, including World War II. It really will be a technical triumph. And I hope then we shall drop our typical British reserve, instead of being very quiet about it, that we might proclaim it as such a triumph, so we might get more such orders abroad. I know Balfour Beatty do. Wherever I travel abroad, I see them doing work abroad—and Fairclough. And we must proclaim it as a triumph. It will make Docklands work. It will enable people to get there to see that it will eventually be the success we foresaw when we set it up many years ago. So may I thank you …[end of tape].