Thames Gateway is a marketing term for those parts of East London, Essex and Kent bordering the Thames estuary, an area protected by numerous European laws against development perceived by central government and others as having great potential for economic growth and social advancement, and where development has the potential to relieve growth pressures now found highly unpopular and difficult to accommodate in an arc of settlements from Harlow to Reading and Haywards Heath (ie. around the other three sides of London).

Geographically, the Thames Gateway is considered to run from Westferry in the west through Docklands to Southend-on-Sea and Sittingbourne in the east. Before 2003 most conspicuous development was situated west of Beckton although housing schemes at Chafford Hundred, Chatham and Greenhithe have been substantial, a large shopping centre at Bluewater and the international station under construction at Ebbsfleet in Kent indicate errosion on a scale appauling to anyone familiar with the area.

The Thames gateway as a project initiated by government infringes extensively upon internationally sensitive wetlands along the north Kent coast.

The scheme has been demonstrated to be poorly thought out, and substantially rejected by many local councils and residents, voluntary organisations and charities with a vested interest in the area, and by the outright rejection from airport authorities and others to the recent proposal for an international airport on Cliffe marshes.

The north of Kent has historically been a marshland area, since before even the Roman invasion of 55 BC and that part which still survives, stretching from Whitstable to Dartford, has been subject to numerous international orders concerning scientific and natural regulations that recognise the area as the most important natural wetland in northern Europe.

Monitored by local land owners and wildlife custodians, the RSPB, over 200,000 migrant birds use the mudflats of the Thames marshes as a regular haven in there migratory journeys between the arctic and Africa.

Perhaps made famous by Charles Dickens, these wet lands are under great pressure by developers, and in addition to the great variety of wild life found on and along the Thames, these marshes offer invaluable natural flood protection for the billions of pounds (Sterling) invested in the current London area, ever under threat of flooding.

The Medway Councils Riverside park is a god example of the real and useful development preferred in this area, with open public access to the Gillingham marshes, the Saxon shore way leads out in both directions along the Medway estuary, which leads into the Thames estuary.

The RSPB have over recent years acquired considerable stretches of Cliffe marshes on the Hoo peninsular, and also is developing an ambitious project for the education of visitors to the value of sustaining this area unchanged and free from development.

Comparisons may be drawn with developments east of Paris along the Marne valley.