Enderby Wharf Development

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Rebecca Pow

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Enderby Wharf development in Greenwich.

It is a pleasure to see you presiding, Mrs Main. I am pleased to see the Minister in his place; as the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Minister for London, he is the perfect person to respond on behalf of the Government. I am sure that he will have been briefed, and I hope that he can assist us. It is no surprise to see my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who has worked hard on this issue.

I first raised concerns about the Enderby Wharf development in 2014, when the matter was brought to my attention by my constituent Ralph Hardwick, who was subsequently joined by Howard Wynne, Martin Young and many others. Although this issue is in one sense complex, it is essentially simple: it is about air quality. As the Minister will know, there is a lot of evidence of the poor air quality in London. Evidence reported by the Evening Standard and others demonstrates that EU and UK Government clean air targets have been breached. There is clear evidence of the impact of poor air quality on human health. It adds significantly to the number of premature deaths and impairs our children’s healthy development.

Those data are not in dispute. We know that we have poor air quality and we know about its negative impact on our health, so why on earth are we allowing additional emissions to be pumped into our atmosphere in the centre of our great city, prospectively 24 hours a day, 155 days a year, by some of the biggest diesel engines ever seen on the Thames? Not only that, but why are we doing that when there is a simple, affordable and—most importantly—clean alternative already being used by other European cities and international ports? Indeed, it is required by many.

We are talking about cruise ships being moored on the Thames between Greenwich and Tower Hamlets. Let me be clear: I support the building of the terminal. Tourism is very important in London and we need the homes. I support more use of the Thames for business, commuting and tourism, since that is still cleaner and more efficient than other modes of transport, such as road transport. As a former shipping Minister and shadow shipping Minister, I also support the development as well as shipping generally, but why require these visiting vessels to run their diesel engines for the duration of their stay in London when a shore-to-ship energy source could power the ships more efficiently and more cleanly? Why not? This is where it gets complicated.

That is not required because there are no rules, regulations or laws obliging ships to connect to the grid. I have been raising this matter since 2014, when I wrote to the shipping Minister at the Department for Transport, but apparently it is not a transport issue. I wrote to the Planning Minister, the Minister’s predecessor, at the Department for Communities and Local Government, but apparently it is not a planning matter—certainly not for the Government. I wrote to the air quality Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but it is not singly an air quality issue, except that it is, it is and it is—it is all three. That is the problem: nobody has sole responsibility for this issue.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich is not—or was not—empowered to make it a planning requirement. It could have made it one, but I understand that it was advised against that and it was worried about legal challenge because it would have had no legal authority to require the developers to connect to the grid and use a shore-to-ship power supply. Therefore, although it cannot be held wholly responsible, it is the start of the problem.

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets has no locus because the development is on the south side of the Thames, even though Tower Hamlets residents—my constituents—will be primarily affected. The Port of London Authority has no locus for land-based developments. The Greater London Authority cannot overturn the decision of the Royal Borough of Greenwich because it is a local planning matter. I understand that the former Mayor of London reluctantly approved the scheme because he could not challenge it and although the new Mayor of London, our former right hon. colleague, is taking a keen interest in addressing poor air quality, there is no power to overturn the decision of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

The constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich who comprise the East Greenwich Residents Association and others have tried legal challenges, but so far there has been no success there, either. Therefore it is down to the developers, who could do the honourable thing and build a power source into their new development and still show a healthy profit, but they do not have to do that and, if that is not a requirement, why should they do that? Why should they do it? Because it is the right thing to do. The amount of money they would have to spend on that compared with the profit to be made off the site is negligible. I will come back to the developers later.

After I went through all the other Departments and having submitted a number of parliamentary questions and raised the matter in the Chamber, in Westminster Hall and in a variety of debates, the previous Minister of State responsible for air quality at DEFRA, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), before he was reshuffled, had promised to bring all the players together around the table to see if a voluntary deal could be agreed. However, he is in a new position and we, as Members of Parliament, local residents and campaigners, are almost back at the starting gate. As I explained informally to the Minister just before the debate started, it almost feels as if we are starting over again. We have had two years of campaigning on this, so I hope it will not take us two years to reach what I hope would be a successful conclusion. My question to the new Minister is: will he convene the meeting that was proposed and promised by the previous Minister at DEFRA, with his air quality ministerial colleague at DEFRA or off his own bat, because he outranks her, to get together with the developers, the Royal Borough of Greenwich, my hon. Friend and I to see if there is a way forward? Will he also look at the aspect of the planning regime and bring forward proposals to close the gap that exists not just for London but for other ports around the country? Especially with Brexit having been approved, we do not need European permission to introduce new regulations—even though other European ports in countries that are members of the Union do have such regulations while we do not. Why are we second class citizens when we could improve the situation for residents of our great ports and great cities?

The Minister may well be aware that the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recently held an inquiry into air quality. It looked specifically at this issue.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

indicated assent.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I can see that the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary is nodding. She and I are on the Committee and she will remember the exchanges with the air quality Minister. We looked specifically at this issue. Our report is about to be published—in fact, I am surprised to see her here because the report is being discussed right now in the Select Committee. We should both be there, but obviously we are here for this debate.

I am not aware of the final recommendations, nor the Government’s response because that is being discussed, but I hope that the Minister will look closely at that report when it is published this weekend. I would be happy to meet him to examine that aspect of the report, because I am pretty confident that the matter will be covered, that there will recommendations and that there will be a Government response, which may move this matter on.

In terms of the developers, Barratt, I checked its website this morning, which advertises properties at Enderby. There are some lovely graphics that advertise flats from £425,000, which I suspect is a one-bedroom version, to £785,000, which I suspect is for the three-bedroom versions. It says that residents will be the “envy of south London”, with views of Canary Wharf and the City. I was curious about why the balconies of the flats are enclosed in glass. Every other development that has taken place in east London that has balconies has left them open to the air. Given that I have been here 19 years, I am a cynical person. Perhaps it is because the developers do not want diesel fumes from the cruise ships coming into the brand-new flats that they are selling for £700,000-plus. As I said, that is my cynical interpretation—that may very well not be the case.

I have to say to Barratt that I expected more from it, being one of our premier building corporations. The development should be an even better showcase, not a cheaper, second-best, dirtier option. It would not surprise me in the slightest if the matter has been raised internally. These days, shareholders take a much greater interest in environmental responsibility and community responsibility and I hope that Barratt might be prepared to engage with us in respect of what more it can do to improve what we know will be a very difficult situation.

As I described at the start, this is a simple matter of air quality and trying to improve that which we have in London by not adding to the emissions already present owing to an absence of regulation. We have DCLG, DEFRA, DFT—the Department of Health will be picking up the pieces—RBG, LBTH, PLA, GLA and the Mayor of London, and no one is able to sort this out to the satisfaction of the residents. We all know that transport contributes about 20% to 25% of emissions and shipping is a fraction of that total, but, for those living on top of the new cruise terminal, that will be a significant contributor to poorer air quality as well as that of their community, east London and London generally.

Something needs to be done. We need a champion in Government. We almost had one, but he has been reshuffled. I say to the Minister: there is a vacancy, sir. He could fill that job and be the saviour who makes sure that air quality in London does not deteriorate any further. I hope he will think seriously about this issue, be that champion, engage with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich and me, the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the developers and try to ensure that the situation not only does not deteriorate any further but improves and gives a lead to ports and cities around the rest of the UK to ensure that no one else finds themselves in a similar situation.