HIGH earners, the people expected to bring businesses and jobs to north-west Kent, may be put off moving into the area, according to a new report.

In a downbeat report entitled Gateway People, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) warns of a possible divide between rich and poor in the Thames Gateway.

It interviewed a handful of prospective and existing residents about their views of housing in the area.

Prospective residents with low to middle incomes liked the idea of moving to a new home in the growth area. Affordable housing has been given a high priority.

But the area already has a shortage of so-called executive housing and the IPPR found that higher-income groups were less willing to consider moving to the Thames Gateway.

It said they were only likely to be attracted to locations with good transport links or a strong cultural heritage.

Planners have emphasised the need for mixed communities in the Thames Gateway but this idea also found little favour with high-income groups. They were said to be resistant to the idea of mixed tenure developments.

Despite a campaign by Kent County Council and the Architecture Centre in Chatham Historic Dockyard for higher design quality – Kent has hired Piers Gough as a design champion – both higher and lower-income groups interviewed by the IPPR are concerned about housing quality and neighbourhood design.

According to the report, they fear that the new homes could be poor quality and in neighbourhoods without any sense of place.

Residents considering buying property in the Thames Gateway find newly built homes monotonous and characterless.

The Gateway project, Europe’s largest urban-regeneration scheme covering a swathe of land from East London to Kent Thameside, Medway and Swale, will feature 120,000 homes on mainly brownfield land over the next 20 years.

Jim Bennett, senior research fellow for IPPR and report author, said: "Although some people want to live in housing which is affordable, they certainly don’t want to live in something called affordable housing.

"People are put off by the idea of standardised developments without access to local community services or communal green space.

"Attracting a social mix of people into the Thames Gateway development remains a big challenge because of the progressive negative perceptions."

The IPPR highlights the need for planners and developers to understand the housing aspirations of people who are likely to live in the Gateway, to invest in transport infrastructure, community and cultural facilities and to maximise the use of planning powers to ensure high standards of housing and neighbourhood design.