THINK backpackers and images of sun-kissed and travel-worn 20-somethings hanging around Ayers Rock or Phuket usually spring to mind.

But such groups may be bursting out of Australia, New Zealand and Thailand and heading to Gravesend.

Or at least that’s the hope if one of the plans for Cygnet House goes ahead.

Plans for a hotel have already been approved for the Windmill Street site but its future will not be known until there is a decision on a simultaneous application for flats.

Director of db architects Darren Bland, who is overseeing the project for owners HFHA Ltd, said it can not be confirmed which of the uses would be preferred until it had tested the market for housing.

He said: “We have got interest from a housing association for a mix of affordable and key worker housing.

“The market is sensitive to residential developments at the moment.”

If it proves more beneficial to run a hotel, the company in the frame is a place called Journeys Hostels.

It provides rooms at cheap rates, either in the form as hostels aimed at backpackers and groups of young travellers, or in cheap hotels with double beds.

Mr Bland is insistent that this would not open the doors for use as temporary accommodation for the homeless.

He added: “Journeys don’t do hostels as in a women’s refuge, or something like that. You have to be registered as a social landlord.”

It is hoped approval to go in front of the council with plans for flats on the site will be received in the next few months.