Research -History of the Docklands.
The Docklands was once the largest port in Britain 20 years ago 20% percent of imports arriving in Britain would have gone to the docklands.
In the mid Nineteenth Century the ocean going ship was small enough to sail all the way up to tower bridge but because of an increase in the amount of imports and exports larger ships where required this meant however that the upstream docks where to small for the now larger ships and so they where forced to dock further down stream where the docks are bigger. Ships continued to get bigger and so they had to dock further and further down stream. For nearly the whole of this century the docklands where very busy places and they all had lots of jobs to offer and so this provided employment for a lot of people. Because the docks upstream where not being used by the larger ships they had to close down and because of new trading centres in Felixstowe and Immingham the larger docks downstream have also had to close, this has resulted in the majority of the docklands in a state of dereliction this caused mass unemployment in this area and so lots of people have moved out. The Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine summed up the plight of the London Docklands in 1981 "The area displays more acutely and extensively than any area in England the physical decline of the urban city and the need for urban regeneration. IT represents a major opportunity for the development that London needs over the last twenty years of the 20th Century: new housing, new environments, new industrial developments, new architecture - all calculated to bring these barren areas back into more valuable use."
The Docklands was once the largest port in Britain 20 years ago 20% percent of imports arriving in Britain would have gone to the docklands.
In the mid Nineteenth Century the ocean going ship was small enough to sail all the way up to tower bridge but because of an increase in the amount of imports and exports larger ships where required this meant however that the upstream docks where to small for the now larger ships and so they where forced to dock further down stream where the docks are bigger. Ships continued to get bigger and so they had to dock further and further down stream. For nearly the whole of this century the docklands where very busy places and they all had lots of jobs to offer and so this provided employment for a lot of people. Because the docks upstream where not being used by the larger ships they had to close down and because of new trading centres in Felixstowe and Immingham the larger docks downstream have also had to close, this has resulted in the majority of the docklands in a state of dereliction this caused mass unemployment in this area and so lots of people have moved out. The Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine summed up the plight of the London Docklands in 1981 "The area displays more acutely and extensively than any area in England the physical decline of the urban city and the need for urban regeneration. IT represents a major opportunity for the development that London needs over the last twenty years of the 20th Century: new housing, new environments, new industrial developments, new architecture - all calculated to bring these barren areas back into more valuable use."
