CITY AND SUBURBAN
The docks' scenic trains lose their drivers and the banks won't trade!
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Ihave taken to travelling on Reg Ward's scenic tramline. More politely called the Docklands Light Railway, it still bears the banners of its maker, GEC, and there have been moments when it has threatened to rank with the Nimrod airborne warning system and the Tigerfish torpedo as a brilliant piece of GEC technology which does everything except work. The Queen, who opened it, promptly shut it, and even now that it is open again, it is still susceptible to bits of silver paper blowing across the track. Still, the staff are cour- teous and the views are striking, which is the right way round. Any day now, the docklands will have a light airport as well. These are Mr Ward's most spectacular legacies to the 5,000-acre tract which, when he became chief executive of the London Docklands Development Cor- poration, was the largest derelict urban site in Europe. He has brought off a trans- formation scene — except in his relations with his minister, Nicholas Ridley. There is a tale of the two men in a helicopter flying over the disused Royal docks, Mr Ward enthusiastically explaining what his plans were, Mr Ridley coldly telling him what they were going to be. Before the election the Prime Minister was taking credit for Mr Ward's dockland revival as a triumph for government policies. Now Mr Ridley, without much grace, is taking the oppor- tunity of letting him go. I hope that some other derelict tract — in the north, I dare say — can now be transformed by Mr Ward's enthusiasm and willingness to give offence where that is due. It will be interesting to see how far his successor can improve on his efforts to promote the docks as a great financial centre. The idea has become received, and is doing wonders (as a glance at the Sunday papers' property pages will show) for the numerous de- velopers offering dockland pads at stiff prices for the aspiring City executive. I can still only find two banks which plan to move there, and these are the two invest- ment banks which were originally caught up in the project at Canary Wharf. Any number of banks are on the move, but in different directions — some to the West End, most recently American Express Bank. New Yorkers are used to the idea of midtown banking, and not used to the idea of moving further away from the trans- atlantic airport. Some banks are going to Fleet Street, some to new buildings going up along the frontier where the money district meets the garment district, many to glass and steel palaces just across the Thames. A friend of mine left his employ- ment at Grindlays soon after being heard to refer to it as the First National Bank of Southwark. It was something to be the first. By now everybody has lost count. In the City itself, big blocks from the 1960s are coming down, to be rebuilt to meet the market for open dealing floors. Faced with all this competition, the docklands have their work cut out. One of the bullion banks has resisted their blandishments, on the grounds that London docks, where so many things have fallen off the backs of lorries and ships and containers over the years, are not the natural place for a warehouse full of gold. A journey on the railway serves to show how much distance and how much usable space still lies between the City and the docks. As Lady Rothermere said about the proposal to establish a night club in Kensington High Street, I don't think people will want to go so far out of London.
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