ABSTRACT
The lddc when they were set up … the prevailing sort of argument was that Docklands was 5,000 derelict acres and people believed that it was just some sort of industrial waste land and nobody lived ’ere…. [But] there were communities in the Docklands not just on the Isle of Dogs, in Wapping, in Southwark… [The lddc were] being directed by the Department of the Environment… to redevelop the area … and in that scheme of things the community didn’t exist only in as much … that if the community could be bought round on their side then good, you know, it’d be good for them … I don’t think the Corporation deliberately as a matter of policy said: “Well you know let’s grind these bastards into the dust.” I don’t think they did … Reg Ward and the lddc weren’t necessarily anti-community they just wasn’t for people. It wasn’t about people it’s about property. (Ted Johns, community activist, quoted in Foster, 1992:170, 172)
