Chancellor George Osborne has given the go-ahead for a new rail link which should see a "garden city" built on the banks of the Thames.

Barking Riverside is a 20-year project to build 10,800 along with five schools on the site of the former Barking power station. London is the throbbing engine that powers the UK economy and the Government's Budget recognises the arguments made doggedly to them by myself and my team, which are that that with the capital's population increasing at a simply staggering pace this engine requires more fuel.

The commitments being made today will allow us to motor ahead with putting a platform in place that will allow us to deliver the new homes and jobs that are critical to the continued growth of this great world city.

-- Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

The first 350 homes are already occupied and another 350 are being built but the nearest railway station is almost three miles away.

An earlier proposal to connect Barking Riverside to the Docklands Light Railway network was scrapped on cost grounds.

Source:
ITV News
Dale's London