On a 40-minute boat trip from Tower Bridge to Greenwich today, we were given a commentary by the riverman whose family had been on the Thames for generations. The riverside from Wapping to the Isle of Dog was lined with million-pound apartments. This was where he grew up and played as a kid. Now on any day day, from one end of the week to the other, he sees nobody on the waterfront spaces and promenades. No children, no adults. Nobody at all. And if you come by at night, most of the apartments in the old wharfs and new builds, are dark. The owners are here for only a few weeks a year. Miles of riverside are deserted, yet the building continues relentlessly, and even when the economic climate means apartments ("or 'flats' as we sued to call them") aren't selling, the sellers won't drop their prices. The prime riverside sites are a human desert, a cultural and social wasteland, and it is a very great shame.
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