Something is brewing in the East End and it is not just the fallout from Big Brother, Channel Four's spectacularly successful gameshow-cum-docu-drama.
It is not especially big, and there could be many false dawns before anything concrete emerges, but something is brewing. Big Brother, filmed at Workspace Groups Three Mills Studio in Bow, has kept East London in the news for the past couple of months. But the land of Jack the Ripper, The Blackshirts, hard-bitten dockers and stylish football was starting to get fashionable well before nasty Nick, flirty Mel and the rest turned up.
The evidence is in small doses. A stroll along Bow Road, for example, reveals only hints. A long empty unit shop opens as a corner shop, and a distinctly downmarket second hand shop is transformed into another. One shop in a new scheme about half way between Mile End and Bow Road tube opens as a sandwich bar that would not be out of place in the City or West End. A sandwich bar? Some mistake surely?
It spreads further north. Ken Dytor chief executive of Urban Catalyst says: Ive been exploring the area around Victoria Park and everywhere you look, theres little things happening. It hasnt got the interest of mainstream developers yet, but I think its where the future is going to be and off of a low base.
Workspace Group has several estates in Bow and Hackney. Chief executive Harry Platt says: Overall occupancy levels tend to be pretty good. Small unit shed estates go well in the area. Platt sees potential elsewhere. Workspace has a long lease in the Kingsland Viaduct in Hackney, which may yet see the East London Line extension built on it, and has carried out a rolling refurbishment of the 101 arch units. As they are refurbished, the units are targeted at high value added occupiers, rather than more traditional car workshops.
Further east West Ham United has started the long-delayed redevelopment of the Boleyn Ground at Upton Park. Although primarily designed to increase capacity, the £35m scheme includes three-star hotel rooms and conference facilities, not forgetting a newly acquired wedding licence. The club, which trades heavily on its community roots, is aware of the spin-off potential. Spokesman Peter Stewart says: A focal point for Newham can only bring benefit to the community.
Making the hotel work may prove trickier than at, say, Chelsea, but even a few years ago such an idea would have been unthinkable.
Further east still, Urban Catalyst is leading a £25m programme to redevelop Barking town centre. Including shops, leisure, new community facilities and residential, with an innovative use of public art being developed to focus attention on the plans,
It is not hard to see the cause of this activity - in fact on a clear day it is visible from the M25. Canary Wharf has not just boosted Docklands, but has put east London's commercial markets in the spotlight for the first time in around 200 years. It is more in the perception than hard values — the rent gradient from Canary Wharf is very steep - but it is real. And, maligned as it may be, the Millennium Dome has also helped and the Excel exhibition centre will further encourage investors to look east.
Improved transport links have helped as well. The Jubilee Line extension did not just connect Canary Wharf to Central London; it provided new links across east London. This has created what Newham Council calls an Arc of Opportunity, running from Stratford, along the Jubilee Line and River Lea, across the Royal Docks and north to Beckton. According to Aktar Choudury [correct], strategic partnerships and projects manager for Newham Council November is going to be a big month for east London.
The council is working on a delivery mechanism that will allow it to exploit the Arc of Opportunity. It should be finalised by November. We will then take that as a business case to the private sector, he says. A key challenge will be to develop a vehicle that includes existing landowners for this cast area, which Choudury says, covers 1,000 acres London. We want the delivery agency to have the power to share equity and a structure to engage private and public sector owners. A centrepiece will be a new canal system.
Also in November, Railtrack is expected to decide whether to take up its option to but the second phase of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. And a month later, Chelsfield and Stanhope are expected to reveal their plans for 120 acres of railway land at Stratford station.
Workspace Groups Harry Platt is complimentary of the Stratford Development Partnerships work, which has been a catalyst, improving infrastructure and leveraging investment. Barratt, for example, is converting the former Manufacturers Hanover building in to flats and Platt, noting that this will bring is different types of resident says This must add up to positive news.
Moving south down the Arc of Opportunity, the huge Parcelforce site at West Ham station may be vacated and Newham wants to create a station square, giving access to the station from both sides for the first time. Meanwhile the National Power site at Canning Town is earmarked as a site for a contractor village,for exhibition companies servicing Excel.
At the other end of the Arc, West Silvertown Phase II, due to be given a more enticing name, is intended to become the town centre for the Royal Docks, says Choudury.
If everything that is proposed comes off, east London is set to be transformed more than at any time since post-war rebuilding. The sense is that the area is ready for it. Perhaps when Big Brother moves out, the Elstree-based producers of Eastenders might like to consider bring the soap opera home.
©Ian Cundell 2000