Rising East Online

Displacing People, Dismissing the Past

Lennie Pothecary

The sparkling lights of London – that’s what I looked for when two years ago I moved out of my parents’ house in a Hampshire suburb called Fleet. And not just any part of London: East London. I had been told it was an up-and-coming media hub, the new home of the cultural industries. This was not what I was greeted with, however. Yes, there was Canary Wharf which had just opened a new shopping mall, but that was it! No modern buildings (except for the University campus), no beautiful people. Just a run-down area with a bad reputation.

For new students, it was the pits. But local people seemed to like it that way, and they were not too keen on changes, either. Whenever rising crime or a particularly violent incident came up in conversation, the popular refrain was: ‘that wouldn’t have happened a couple of years back!’ A case of rose-tinted spectacles, perhaps; but it prompted me to wonder who really benefits from ‘regeneration’.

Gallions Reach, a shopping park, opened a couple of months after I got here. It provided

entertainment and jobs, both of which were much needed in the area. Things were looking up: now we had somewhere to eat out and, apart from Asda, somewhere within walking distance to shop. But the shopping park was nowhere near the DLR station. Also the buses seem to stop running after 6pm, which means that the people for whom Gallions is reaching are highly, upwardly mobile. Students went back to making trips to central London by public transport. Locals without motors were left standing once again.

The regeneration of East London is reaching for incomers (of the right kind), not just as shoppers but also as residents and resident professionals.

With new businesses and big plans such as London 2012, come new people who have to be housed and slotted into the local area. The people the area used to accommodate, who grew up in the vicinity, are becoming increasingly uncommon. These people have memories of Docklands as a land of working docks – the last one was only closed in 1981. Some feel violated by having modern looking buildings and people who have no interest in the history of the area, invading their history. So many places redolent with so many memories are now unrecognisable, and the general view among longstanding locals is not positive.

As far as I am concerned some of these constructions have been a blessing to the area, and there are many more at the planning stage which will have similarly good effects. I especially welcome the Barrier Park, which came with public gardens and fountains that you can run through (shades of Somerset House on the Strand) – very popular with children in the summer. There are also new schools and doctors’ surgeries, occasionally almost a surfeit of facilities because in some instances the development of what seem like mini-towns is as yet in advance of the level of immigration into the area.

But as more buildings and jobs are brought in, an air of hostility is on the up among those locals who have been here a long time. From talking to some and even on the basis of my own experience (at two-and-a-half years’ residence I am something of a veteran myself), I feel qualified to say that the hostility is partly because of lack of consideration for the history of the area, partly a kind of resentment against the imposition on the area of houses and apartments far beyond the budget of those who traditionally live here, and partly muted anger against incomers who seem to think they are better than the rest. Of course such negativity can only add to the downside: facing hostility, incomers decide that they are not going to stay for long, and this only deepens the divide between upwardly mobile transients and those who feel stuck here for good (and ill).

Then there is tourism. By bringing in visitors, the Olympic site and the aquarium in Silvertown will help to regenerate the area and its reputation. But the danger of losing local history remains real. If not addressed, it could create problems not in the past but here and now.

I do not think the locals will easily accept changes until someone realises they are still going to be here, and takes on board their concerns about the alarming rate at which history has been forgotten. Yes, at present there are small tokens of history – a couple of old cranes, and a Museum of Docklands in Canary Wharf; but that seems about it. How much would it take to provide a heritage centre in each borough, or to organise events which are in line with local tradition while inviting newcomers to take part? Not a lot, compared to levels of investment in the area. But without some investment in continuity, the pace of change will be so much harder for the area to withstand.

If there is not sufficient reference to the past, this painful absence will eventually call a halt to the so-called regeneration of East London; because without it, ‘regeneration’ is not regenerating anything but building a whole new modern East London and creating new resentments in the process. Wiping the slate clean is not what East London is about. The area is founded on constant change combined with solid tradition, including memories of this being the busiest docklands in Britain, perhaps the world. This should not be forgotten or suppressed in the new architecture. Yet this is what’s happening at the moment, and it needs to stop!

Lennie Pothecary is studying Journalism

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