Green regeneration plans unveiled

Thousands of new homes and businesses are planned for the area

An environmental group has set out an action plan it says the government should follow in its regeneration scheme for the Thames Gateway.

A new report by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) makes more than 100 recommendations on how the area can be successfully redeveloped.

The Gateway - covering London, Essex and north Kent - is in the government's Sustainable Communities Plan.

The CPRE said residents' future quality of life needed to be ensured.

Its report, called Thames Gateway: From Rhetoric to Reality, calls on the plans to be turned into "tangible action".

The campaign group said it welcomed the Thames Gateway strategy published by the government in March, but it wants to see a "wider range of issues" addressed.

The CPRE's Nigel Kersey said: "If the Thames Gateway is to succeed in helping to meet the need for new housing it is crucial that the government's rhetoric is matched by the right action.

The challenge is to create places where people want to live

CPRE report summary

"It will be seen as a major test of the government's ability to promote large-scale redevelopment in a way that doesn't repeat the appalling mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s."

He said there must be proper use of derelict urban land, good quality new housing with decent local amenities, and improvement and restoration of the landscape.

The CPRE report calls for "a high proportion of new housing developed in south-eastern England in the coming decades to be built on urban brownfield land available in the Thames Gateway".

It recommends an employment creation strategy, as well as different types of housing suitable for mixed communities of key workers, families with children and higher income earners.

Other issues raised include transport, water resources, flood risk and landscape management.

The CPRE said "the challenge is to create places where people want to live".

Its report has been sent to planning authorities in the Thames Gateway, government officials and regional development agencies.