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• Reference: 2004/0228-1
• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Where the Thames Gateway is concerned, we have not heard much about the provision of infrastructure apart from plans for transport in the area. What plans are there to provide gas and other necessary infrastructure in the Thames Gateway? Furthermore, the Thames Gateway area has a known risk of flooding and this being so, how does the LDA propose to defend development in Thames Gateway from this risk? .

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Do you share that view?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Recently I paid a visit to one of your flagship projects, the Centre of Excellence for Manufacturing and Engineering (CEME), which is just inside my own constituency in Havering. I was impressed with the building, which is quite a smart piece of architecture, but there were a lot of problems with the running of the building, rather like any new building these days it would seem. When I went the heating was not working; there was a lot of space that was under-utilised. What is being done to actually make that place work properly, and to get more involvement from...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Something else that I was concerned about when I visited was the condition of a lot of the equipment that is used for training there. I was told by one of the managers there that one of their visitors had recognised some of the machinery as what he used to use at Ford before he retired. Now, clearly that is not what we should be expecting from a centre of excellence. Will that be something that will be addressed sooner rather than later?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

What you actually said to Jenny (Jones) was that the flood defences will have to be improved because of environmental factors: global warming, sinking land, and the fact that the risk will have increased by 2030. Of course, we do not just flick a switch and the risk doubles in 2030; the risk is increasing all the time incrementally towards that. But you did not say anything, with respect, about the risk management element, which has to take into account the value of what you are protecting as well as the risk of something happening. I am not convinced that...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Nor, I assume, do you put your police stations and fire stations and hospitals and emergency services that will need to respond to a flood within the flood zone?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Is there a plan which is going to ensure all these things are placed back from the area that is potentially in danger? How do you actually, when you are doing that, speak to local residents and businesses who are in the high risk area and assure them that, just because you have not got public facilities there, that does not meant it is a no-go area?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Chair, I will not raise it again, because we have dealt with it. Thank you for the comprehensive response, which covered most of the issues that I wanted to raise. On the subject of waste disposal, obviously that is going to have implications for the waste authorities and for the local authorities there. What is being done to work with them and to deal with that issue?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004