In Victorian times, poets and artists frequented the vast swaths of land along the Thames to be inspired by, as Charles Dickens put it, the “dark, flat wilderness, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates”.

These days, however, the Thames Estuary, stretching 50 miles east from the site of the 2012 Olympics, is more synonymous with images of pylons, industrial land and toxic waste.

Now, under a plan by the leading architect Sir Terry Farrell, the area is to be transformed into the largest man-made national park in Europe. It is intended that 22 areas across three regions will be rejuvenated and linked to form a vast area of wilderness.

The nearest national park to the capital is the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads.

Sir Terry, a lead designer for the Thames Gateway regeneration project, told The Times that the region would include visitor centres, cycle and walking paths, bird sanctuaries and woodlands. He said that it would be regenerated into the largest wetlands and bird sanctuary in Europe.

“It is about returning nature to what it does naturally,” he said. “It is about taking away the pollutants, and making the area more accessible. Quite a lot of it is wilderness already – it’s a very substantial area of bird sanctuaries and wetlands. The restoration of these, and the extension of them, would make it a place of very accessible wilderness.”

The parklands project was announced at the Thames Gateway Forum, where Margaret Beckett, the Housing Minister, pledged £35 million for the first stages of its completion.

The Thames Gateway, annexing more than 40 miles of the Thames riverbank and stretching into Kent and Essex, was announced by the Government in 2003. The £9.6 billion project, to be completed over the next decade, will lead to more than 160,000 new homes.

Sir Terry argued that investment in ecology was “absolutely fundamental” to ensure that people were encouraged to visit the region. “Never has Britain addressed a regeneration area of this scale,” he said.

The new national park will feature a coastal path, stretching about 100 miles, alongside 22 parklands – each up to three times the size of Richmond Park. Several Victorian landing points could be reopened along the estuary, enabling visitors to sail upstream. Areas of industrial land, firing ranges and polluted areas would be drained, decontaminated and rejuvenated.

Sir Terry said that the Thames Estuary was the “engine room” of London, and that it had affected the entire landscape. “There are still wetlands but there’s an awful lot of it crisscrossed with powerlines, smoke, pollution and chimneys,” he said. Because of the industrial nature of the region it was the poorest part of London, Kent and Essex: “They are not just deprived economically and socially, but also environmentally.”

Ms Beckett said that the Government would not restrict the Thames Gateway project because of the economic crisis. She said that the region was “in a strong position to weather the current economic storm and grow in the long term”.

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