One Hour at Gallions Reach An apparently pointless excursion to somewhere on the edge of London, which turns out to reveal fascinating details about urban development and retail parks.
estuarine Gallions Reach isn't on the edge of London, merely at the far end of the Royal Docks, but it is unexpectedly remote for Newham and I did spend exactly an hour there. Officially Gallions Reach is the straight-ish mile of the Thames Estuary between Woolwich and Thamesmead but the name has been adopted mainly by the land to the west, especially since the DLR opened a station here in 1994. Things were very quiet round here then, mostly brownfield where docks and gasworks used to be, but with every subsequent block of flats a sense of artificial gravity has intensified. I'm not a fan.
disconnect
The fringes of Beckton were the ideal spot to hide essential infrastructure nobody would want to live near, most notably a gasworks and a sewage works, thus if you do choose to live here it's a long way to anywhere. But as the housing crisis has intensified it's become worthwhile building stacks of flats even here, that is once the ground's been suitably remediated, and future pressure ensures there's a heck of a lot more to come. An hour-long wander thus means exploring a peculiar mix of vernacular brick and dereliction, also if you've not been back for a few years gasping at the pace of change. Half an hour to the City by train, 40 minutes to North Greenwich by bus.
roundabout
The Gallions roundabout is a Ballardian circuit funnelling vehicles through to arterials and river crossings elsewhere. The DLR curves round on an intrusive viaduct, the station an annoying 50+ steps up, below which developers have recently created a sparse grey piazza called Silley Weir Promenade. That postmodern rotunda in the centre of the roundabout is the Gallions Surface Water Pumping Station, a reminder that the Thames would like to intrude on this land occasionally and that people only live here because we successfully keep the water out. For now at least.
remnant
All the action here used to be on the university side in what's technically Cyprus, while to the east were depots, contaminated land and a stripe of dockside development. But if you thread through the new flats there is one genuine Victorian leftover, a former hotel built for P&O passengers preparing to board liners berthed at the Royal Albert Docks. It's since been rebranded as a bar called Galyons, not a poncy nominal variant but the original name of the medieval family who lived out here on the remote marshes in the 14th century. All burgers come with rainbow slaw, every cocktail's £12.50.
upthrust
The new tranche of flats stretches from the DLR station to the estuary, a grid of bricky blocks with entryphones and occasionally interesting indentations. Construction is almost complete with just one wedge by the riverside remaining behind metal barriers. The resulting patchwork has all the sparkle of Barking Riverside, which is not meant as a compliment. Buildings rise gently in height towards the Thames where you pay extra for views of grey water, incoming planes and Thamesmead. Hats off to the developers for slotting an incredible number of tiny playgrounds almost everywhere, although older children are stuffed because the only garden large enough for ballsports has been deliberately landscaped with rolling humps.
private
The more you walk around the more you see the restriction signs and warning messages. ANPR & CCTV recording in operation. All dogs to be kept on leads. Cyclists must dismount before crossing walkway. Permit holders only. By remaining on this land you agree to abide by all the terms and conditions. That's because Gallions Reach is one of those new London suburbs where the public realm is privately managed and inherently sterile, part of the insidious creep of pseudo-public space beholden to unseen leaseholders. It's by no means unique, merely a modern exemplar, but if you live somewhere older without inbuilt coercion then count yourself lucky.
commercial
When you're this far from anywhere, the local retail offering is important. Hence there are now brief parades near the station, or rather rows of ground floor units nobody gets to live in because the risk of flooding is too high. First to open was a blue Co-op, and ridiculously across the street there's now a green Co-op with pretty much the same special offers pasted up outside (the currently independent Southern variant). Elsewhere it's mainly beauty, wellness and refreshment, from nails to Starbucks, pilates to desserts and haircuts to Mr Todiwala's culinary masterclass. Nothing about New Gallions Wharf says destination, merely local and inward-looking.
connect
Had road planners got their way the Gallions Reach Crossing would by now launch off towards Thamesmead, but funding never materialised and the latest consensus is it'll never be built so all the safeguarded land might as well be released for housing. A fresh DLR link is thus planned with a station where nobody (yet) lives, a fair hike north up Armada Way. I was slightly concerned to see the site's just been sealed off (Danger! Contaminated Ground! PPE mandatory!), given I've once sat where a man in a protective hazmat suit was prodding the ground. Incidentally the new DLR rolling stock withdrawn from public service seven months ago is still sitting there mid-depot, at least six strong, with no phased reintroduction expected before "late summer".
expansion
Beckton Gasworks was once so derelict that Stanley Kubrick filmed much of Full Metal Jacket here. A vast swathe is still sealed off forty years later, too contaminated for anything other than prohibited scrubby undergrowth, but all now pencilled in for the first stage of the Beckton Riverside development. Phase 1 will bring 2900 much-needed new homes, but also the same vacuous sterile grid ofskyhutches chronicled earlier in today's post. Expect no joy and no pizazz, merely bogstandard people-packing and a pitiful ceiling of 6% affordable housing because the cost of remediation is so high.
retail
The Gallions Reach Shopping Park opened in 2003 at the arse end of nowhere, sandwiched between ex-Gas and Sewage, but also readily accessible by car from the North Circular and A13. It's thus mostly car park with a rim of massive retail sheds from Puregym round to a mega-Tesco, though now with empty shells where WH Smith and River Island used to be. Streetfood kiosks provide diverting refreshment, even on a Monday morning, and a menagerie of bronze animals helps keep tinier visitors engaged. The ultimate plan is for this to evolve into Beckton Riverside's town centre, which I guess is bad news for everyone who currently shops here, but at current glacial pace it'll be a heck of a long time before Matalan ends up as flats.
