The East Thames Corridor Study

Since 1993, work has been under way in the Department of the Environment to produce a strategic planning and development framework for the `East Thames Corridor' (now renamed the `Thames Gateway'), in order to promote the regeneration of the run-down industrial areas on either side of the Thames in East London, Essex, and Kent. The area involved is one of high archaeological potential, ranging from internationally important Palaeolithic deposits such as those at Swanscombe in Kent to the military and industrial remains of the post-medieval period.

In order to ensure that archaeological factors are taken fully into account in planning for the much-needed economic regeneration of this area, English Heritage commissioned Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU) to undertake a strategic archaeological assessment study of the area and of the implications of its archaeological importance for future development. This has involved collecting information from the relevant County Sites and Monuments Records and from other sources, including OAU's own work on the archaeological impact of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the line of which passes through this area. Current work by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England has been concerned with the recording of historic buildings and standing archaeological remains in the East Thames Corridor, so the Oxford study has concentrated on buried archaeological remains and palaeoenvironmental deposits. The study has also sought to identify areas which have already been archaeologically sterilised (for instance, by quarrying) and where development can therefore proceed without archaeological difficulties.

The results of the study will be used to help the Department of the Environment, the local planning authorities, and the relevant County Archaeological Officers to plan for the future development of the area by taking account of archaeological considerations at a strategic level, notably in the formulation of development plans. With responsibility for dealing with the archaeological implications of individual development proposals now lying clearly on developers under PPG16, the provision of strategic frameworks to guide the archaeological decisions and judgements of local planning authorities (and of English Heritage) is increasingly important. English Heritage has a key role to play in providing such frameworks, and the East Thames Corridor archaeological study is a good example of a project directed towards this end.