Thames Gateway plans unveiled

The Gateway project covers 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres)

More than £9bn is to be spent on projects along the Thames estuary on Europe's largest regeneration project, the government has announced.

Housing minister Yvette Cooper said there will be 160,000 homes built in the Thames Gateway area, taking in parts of east London, Essex and Kent.

She also said an estimated 225,000 jobs would be created.

The Conservatives said the scheme was "another example of top down heavy handed management".

Ms Cooper said part of the funding would also go towards education, transport and new affordable homes.

The "eco-region" will use environmental measures in the new homes, as well as improvements to existing housing.

We have already achieved a great deal but we must raise our ambitions and go further and faster Yvette Cooper Housing minister Are the plans too ambitious?

New homes are intended to be "carbon-zero" by 2016, with 80% built on previously-developed land.

The area stretches 40 miles from London's Lower Lea Valley east along the Thames.

"We have already achieved a great deal but we must raise our ambitions and go further and faster," Ms Cooper said.

"We've now set out plans and money to do so, with a new eco-region offering a great quality of life for its inhabitants, with new educational opportunities and transport links as well as affordable homes."

"And with better training to equip the local workforce to benefit from the 225,000 new jobs in their area."

'Historic endeavour'

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said that Thames Gateway offered unique development opportunities.

"Nowhere else offers the brownfield land and the public transport capacity needed," he said.

"And nowhere else has the same opportunities to create a high quality of life around the river, new parks and renewed town centres."

See a computer generated image of one of the Thames Gateway projects in the Ebbsfleet Valley Enlarge Image

Gordon Brown unveiled plans on Thursday for a National Skills Academy for Construction on the London 2012 Olympic site to train people to help build the multi-million-pound facilities - one of a number of Thames Gateway schemes.

He said the Olympic academy would provide at least 1,000 job placements for people enrolled on local further education college construction courses, 1,000 other training placements for local people and more than 500 apprenticeship places.

Thames Gateway, he said, was "an historic endeavour to bring together the efforts of the communities up and down the Thames to make this region one of the most vibrant and successful in Europe - a great place to do business, a great place to work, a great place to live".

Criticism

Earlier this month, a committee of MPs criticised the management of the project by Communities and Local Government, Ms Cooper's department.

It warned that Britain's biggest regeneration project could become a "public spending calamity" if management is not "vastly" improved.

Shadow local government minister Alistair Burt said: "Labour's cheek is breathtaking.

"With no hint of an apology for the recent devastating criticism of years of mismanagement and failed delivery here is another example of top down heavy handed management.

"Thames Gateway Communities have heard a lot about aspiration and vision but they deserve to see a lot more delivered than this government has promised. This smokescreen will sadly be seen for what it is."