Thames Gateway

The Thames Gateway has a population of over 3 million[3] and comprises generally Thameside belts of 16 local government districts: The immediate settlements next to the types of land indicated, not taking the authorities as a whole, contains about half of the population of those authorities: 1.6 million people and contained in the 2000 survey some of the most deprived wards in the country, characterised by lack of access to public transport, services, employment and affordable quality housing, in particular having many overspill estates from earlier slum clearance and London's urban planning – examples being from Thamesmead to Southend-on-Sea.

[4] Its boundary was drawn to capture the riverside strip that formerly hosted many land-occupying industries, serving London and the South East, whose decline has left a patchy legacy of dereliction and contaminated land.

[5] Parts of the area are of settled character and/or already densely populated with little scope for housing developments: Southend-on-Sea, for example, is the eighth most densely populated district in the country outside London and mass expansion is not desired owing to the river at the south, the need for leisure space and animal habitat (mostly in the buffer zones separating communities) and an economic desire and legal demand to preserve the existing character of housing estates.

The Thames Gateway project aims to improve the economy of the region through the development of marshland, farmland and brownfield land, through major transport infrastructure provision and the renaissance of existing urban conurbations.

[17] The London Development Agency perceived some strategic merit in the proposals,[citation needed] but local councillors were not convinced that such a depot would truly encourage train movements as an alternative to road haulage.

[citation needed] This scepticism arose partly because the railways in the area are heavily used by scheduled passenger trains, to the extent that the projected Crossrail programme seemed unlikely to progress to Dartford unless new tracks were laid to boost local rail capacity.

[19] The objective of the "eco-region" was to protect and enhance the sustainability of the "Thames Gateway" in terms of environmental quality, carbon reduction, and support for "green" economic development.

This vision was elaborated in the 2008 Thames Gateway "eco-region prospectus",[20] and implementation efforts were led by the Homes and Communities Agency with support across government and [unspecified] local stakeholders.