I am always struck by the number of constituents I meet with East End roots. Many witnessed first hand the transformation of the area’s disused docks in the 1980s, when the Thatcher government turned the ‘Docklands’ into an enterprise zone that became the Canary Wharf financial district. 

There have been efforts over the years to replicate that successful regeneration story in the Thames Estuary but they have stalled through a lack of coordination. My predecessor as Hornchurch MP, the late James Brokenshire, tried to change that when he was Housing Secretary by creating a new Thames Estuary Growth Board and committing to appointing a ministerial champion for the area.

I am proud to say that I have this month been confirmed as that champion within government. My appointment coincides with the release of Michael Gove’s Levelling Up White Paper, which sets out our plan to spread opportunity more evenly across the country. Incredibly exciting things are happening in the Estuary - including a new free port, film studios, river crossing and the relocation of the City of London’s food markets. We hope these developments will lead to job growth, improvements in transport, better utilisation of the River Thames and new green energy infrastructure. 

My role will be to champion our region’s potential within Government and to private sector investors in industry, infrastructure and energy both here and overseas. In taking it on, I hope I can play my part in creating better places to live and increasing people’s skills and work opportunities. I also hope that I can make sure that impacts from development are offset, just as I have made the case throughout consultations on the new Lower Thames Crossing that there should be appropriate compensation for any land lost to the new crossing. I am glad that Thames Chase Community Forest in Upminster will now be gaining land south of the Forest Centre as compensation from Highways England.

Levelling up has been characterised as a North-South issue but London is a city of eight million people, while thousands more live in the wider Estuary in Kent and Essex. It would be wrong to assume there is no disparity of opportunity within our region. I hope the work to improve the Thames Estuary can be the next stage in a regeneration journey that started in Docklands and which once again puts one of our nation’s greatest rivers at the heart of our industrial prospects in the twenty-first century.