The National Audit Office has warned that plans to build 160,000 new homes in the Thames Gateway are in danger of collapse. The Times. Financial Times

The spending watchdog blames Ruth Kelly’s communities department for failing to produce a coherent, fully costed plan for western Europe's biggest regeneration project, which stretches from Canary Wharf to the mouth of the Thames Estuary.

The Thames Gateway lacks a strategic plan, a proper budget and a marketing strategy, the National Audit Office said yesterday. It claims the government will miss its target of 160,000 new homes by 2016 unless it doubles the building rate. Only about 24,000 were built between 2001 and 2005.