Docklands: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Docklands can also refer to the urban redevelopment project in Melbourne, Australia - see Melbourne Docklands.

Docklands is the semi-official name for an area in the east of London, England, comprising parts of several boroughs (Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Newham) in Greater London. The eponymous docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. They have now been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name London Docklands was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 but has since become virtually universally adopted. With one exception the area is entirely north of the River Thames.

Dockland areas

London's Docklands comprise a number of former dockyard complexes along the Thames, which are (from west to east):

• St Katharine Docks (Wapping)
• London Docks (Wapping)
• Regent's Canal Dock (now Limehouse Basin, Limehouse)
• Surrey Commercial Docks (now Surrey Quays, Rotherhithe)
• West India and Millwall Docks (Isle of Dogs)
• East India Docks (Canning Town)
• Royal Docks (Royal Victoria Dock, Royal Albert Dock & King George V Dock)

Another dockyard exists much further downstream at Tilbury, but this is not generally regarded as being part of the Docklands.

Development of the docks

In Roman and medieval times, ships tended either to dock at small quays in the present-day City of London or Southwark, an area known as the Pool of London. However, this gave no protection against the elements, was vulnerable to thieves and suffered from a lack of space at the quayside. The Howland Great Dock in Rotherhithe (built 1696 and later forming the core of the Surrey Commercial Docks) was designed to address these problems, providing a large, secure and sheltered anchorage with room for 120 large vessels. It was a major commercial success and provided a template for two phases of expansion during the Georgian and Victorian eras.

The first of the Georgian docks was the West India (opened 1802), followed by the London (1805), the East India (also 1805), the Surrey (1807), St Katharine (1828) and the West India South (1829). The Victorian docks were mostly further east, comprising the Royal Victoria (1855), Millwall (1868) and Royal Albert (1880). The King George V was a late addition in 1921.

Docks and dockers

Three principal kinds of docks existed. Wet docks were where ships were laid up at anchor and loaded or unloaded. Dry docks, which were far smaller, took individual ships for repairing. Ships were built at shipyards along the riverside. In addition, the river was lined with innumerable warehouses, piers, jetties and dolphins (mooring points). The various docks tended to specialise in different forms of produce. The Surrey Docks concentrated on timber, for instance; Millwall took grain; St Katharine took wool, sugar and rubber; and so on.

The docks required an army of workers, chiefly lightermen (who carried loads between ships and quays aboard small barges called lighters) and quayside workers, who dealt with the goods once they were ashore. Some of the workers were highly skilled - the lightermen had their own livery company or guild, while the deal porters (workers who carried timber) were famous for their acrobatic skills. Most, however, were unskilled and worked as casual labourers. They had to assemble at certain points, such as pubs, each morning, from where they would be selected more or less at random by foremen. For these workers, it was effectively a lottery as to whether they would get work - and pay, and food - on any particular day. This arrangement continued until as late as 1965.

The main dockland areas were originally low-lying marshes, mostly unsuitable for agriculture and only lightly populated. With the establishment of the docks, the dockyard workers formed a number of tight-knit local communities with their own distinctive cultures and slang. Poor communications meant that they were quite remote from other parts of London and so tended to develop in some isolation. The Isle of Dogs, for instance, had only two roads in and out. Local sentiment was so strong that in 1920 residents blocked the roads and declared independence!

The docks in the 20th century

The docks were originally built and managed by a number of competing private companies. From 1909, they were managed by the Port of London Authority, or PLA, which amalgamated the companies in a bid to make the docks more efficient and improve labour relations. The PLA constructed the last of the docks, the King George V, in 1921, as well as greatly expanding the Tilbury docks.

German bombing during the Second World War caused massive damage to the docks, with 380,000 tons of timber destroyed in the Surrey Docks in a single night. Nonetheless, following post-war rebuilding they experienced a resurgence of prosperity in the 1950s. The end came suddenly, between approximately 1960 and 1970, when the shipping industry adopted the newly invented container system of cargo transportation. London's docks were unable to accommodate the much larger vessels needed by containerization and the shipping industry moved to deep-water ports such as Tilbury and Felixstowe. Between 1960 and 1980, all of London's docks were closed, leaving a vast area of derelict land in East London. Unemployment was high, and poverty and other social problems were rife.

Redevelopment

Efforts to redevelop the docks began almost as soon as they were closed, although it took a decade for most plans to move beyond the drawing board and another decade for redevelopment to take full effect. The situation was greatly complicated by the large number of landowners involved: the PLA, the Greater London Council (GLC), the British Gas Corporation, five borough councils, British Rail and the Central Electricity Generating Board.

To overcome this problem, in 1981 the Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, formed the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) to redevelop the area. This was a statutory body appointed and funded by central government (i.e. a quango), with wide powers to acquire and dispose of land in the Docklands.

One of the most important government interventions in the Docklands was the creation in 1982 of an Enterprise Zone, an area in which businesses were exempted from various property taxes. This made investing in the Docklands an extremely attractive proposition and helped to kick-start a property boom (or gold rush, in the view of some) in the area.

The work of the LDDC was controversial - it was accused of favouring elitist luxury developments rather than affordable housing, and it was unpopular with the local communities, who felt that their needs were not being addressed. Nonetheless, the LDDC managed to effect a remarkable transformation in the area. It was wound up in 1998 when control of the Docklands area was handed back to the respective local authorities.

The massive development programme managed by the LDDC during the 1980s and 1990s saw a huge area of the Docklands converted into a mixture of residential, commercial and light industrial space. The centrepiece of the whole effort was the ambitious Canary Wharf project that constructed Britain's tallest building and established a second major financial centre in London. It was not without its hitches - the cost of Canary Wharf bankrupted Olympia & York Developments Ltd., the world's largest real estate developers at the time, when the Docklands property boom turned into a bust at the end of the 1980s. Other developers similarly found themselves saddled with property which they were unable to sell or let for several years.

The Docklands historically had poor transport connections. This was addressed by the LDDC with the construction of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which connected the Docklands with the City. It was a remarkably cheap development, costing only £77m in its first phase, as it relied on reusing disused railway infrastructure and derelict land for much of its length. The LDDC also contributed to the development of London City Airport (IATA airport code LCY), opened in October 1987 on the spine of the Royal Docks.

Over the past 20 years, the population of the Docklands has more than doubled and the area has become both a major business centre and a highly sought-after area to live. Transport links have continued to improve, with the western Docklands gaining a Tube connection via the Jubilee Line Extension (opened 1999) and the DLR has been extended to Beckton and Lewisham. Canary Wharf has become one of Europe's biggest clusters of skyscrapers and a major rival to the dominance of the City. Further east, the Royal Docks have been regenerated with new housing and the ExCeL exhibition centre.

Although most of the old Dockland wharves and warehouses have been demolished, some have been restored and converted into apartments. Most of the docks themselves have survived and are now used as marinas or watersports centres (the major exception being the Surrey Commercial Docks, now largely filled in). Although large ships can and occasionally still do visit the old docks, virtually all of the commercial traffic has moved downriver to Tilbury.

The revival of the Docklands has had major positive effects in run-down surrounding areas. Greenwich and Deptford are undergoing large-scale redevelopment, chiefly as a result of the improved transport links making them a more attractive place for commuters to live.

The Docklands' redevelopment has, however, had some less beneficial aspects. The massive property boom and consequent rise in house prices has led to friction between the new arrivals and the old Docklands communities, who have complained of being squeezed out. It has also made for some of the most striking disparities to be seen anywhere in Britain: luxury executive apartments constructed alongside run-down public housing estates.

The Docklands' status as a symbol of Thatcherite capitalism has also made them a target for terrorists. On 19th February 1996, a huge IRA bomb exploded at South Quay. Two people died in the explosion, forty people were injured and £150m of damage was caused. In a 1998 trial James McArdle was imprisoned for 25 years after a trial at Woolwich Crown Court that ended on 24th June. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, McArdle was released on 28th June 2000.

The continued success of the Docklands redevelopment has prompted a number of further development schemes, including:

• Extensions of the Docklands Light Railway to Woolwich, North Woolwich (for London City Airport) and possibly to Dagenham.
• Crossrail mainline link between Canary Wharf, central London and north Kent.
• Expansion of London City Airport.
• Further development of Canada Water.
• Redevelopment of Blackwall Basin, east of Canary Wharf.
• Further development of the Royal Docks area.