May I first thank you Godfrey BradmanMr. Bradman for the complimentary comments you made about my digging the initial site just a moment ago. May I point out I was driving a British digger and that it did the job very well, I had a very good British teacher and also if you translate for one moment from Politics to building, may I suggest they have quite a lot in common. First you have to clear the site. Then you have to build the foundations well and truly for the future. I believe I have had some experience of doing that. It is always, Mr. Bradman, exciting to be in on the beginning of a great new development and this is one of the largest we have had in the City for a very long time. To see the empty site here as it is now and to see it through to the development in the future is an experience that does not come to many people and I am very glad that you have asked me along at the beginning.
You have so many things to achieve on this great development. First we have to remember that the architecture will be among architecture in the City built by Christopher Wren, Robert Adam, Inigo Jones. That is quite a challenge to those who have been architects to this site because I hope that in future it will be as much a monument to our times and to [end p1] the virility and vitality of our times and to the beauty of our times, as those buildings were many many years ago. It does require the highest standards, not only for proportions, but for something else too, because we are not only building architecture, we are preparing for the commerce of the future. We are in a great era of conservation. But we are also in a great era of technological change and these buildings must not only be buildings of proportion and elegance, they must be buildings that will take the very latest technology as befits the very latest in commerce and as befits the City which is accustomed to be right in the forefront of new development.
We are on the site of Railway sidings. We have here Robert Reidthe Chairman and Deputy Chairman of British Railways. It is very interesting always just to note that the people who built those Railways built for the needs of the generations for the future. They built boldly, they built swiftly, they built well. And just as we are building alongside those, and in part on previous sites, so we have to rise to the challenge of this generation as they rose to the challenge of their generations before them. Because as most of us know although to seek security many people seek security and not changing, real security only comes from changing with the times and keeping right abreast and indeed ahead of ones competitors.
And the third thing that will happen from this site are improvements to Liverpool Station, itself a monument to be preserved. I'm very pleased about that. I used to live in Colchester and spent quite a lot of my [end p2] life travelling up on that line very regularly from Colchester to London. So I have a particular affection for it. It was one of my first jobs when I was an industrial chemist working in a Company not far from Colchester. But also interested in Politics so also had a yen to come to London, as most of us do.
It also provides new City squares. How very much London owes to the previous architects of the past in that they built around squares, providing not only beauty but also the lungs of the City for the families and for those who work here. It was an excellent tradition started by our forefathers which will be continued on this site. It will provide immediately work for some two thousand people. Naturally I welcome it, with all my heart. It provides infra-structure. We used to provide buildings and roads, today we provide infra-structure, at any rate you do if you are in Politics. And very very splendid infra-structure it will be, and it will also provide recreation for an ice skating rink in the winter. All of those things on this one site.
It has been vacant for far too long, and today we see a development that will maintain and enhance the reputation of the City as one of the World's greatest centres of trade and industry, and that is the reputation I like to keep going. For me Britain must always provide the best, and remembering that so much started from our sense of adventure, [end p3] from our sense of commerce, from our sense of technology and invention, it is up to us to renew those traditions in our generation. We very much welcome the developer, Rosehaugh Stanhope Developments, the entrepreneur, the multi-national company to London. We very much welcome the architects and the builders and of course we welcome the bankers without whom the project would not have got underway. There is a saying which I use quite frequently, “That which thy fathers bequeath thee earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it” . It says almost everything. We are rich in heritage, in buildings, we are rich in tradition, we are rich in achievement. The task of our generation is to add our contribution and to provide for future generations with the same foresight, energy, vitality and vigour as our forefathers provided to us.
You have today provided this great tent, this great site and here in a way we are drawing back the curtain of the future and looking through the gap to the development that will now happen. I believe that you are having a development that is worthy of our past and which will do justice to the vitality and talent of our young people. I wish you well in all your endeavours, and success to your efforts.