Gravesham and Dartford councils have vowed to fight for affordable housing at Ebbsfleet Garden City, with one leader saying he wants as many as a third of them available for the low-paid.

The authorities are working together on the development, which will see 15,000 new homes built, with £200 million set aside for the city’s infrastructure by the government.

The major sites for the garden city will be the Eastern Quarry, Northfleet West Sub-Station (Ebbsfleet Green), Ebbsfleet, Swanscombe Peninsula and other sites along Northfleet Embankment.

Homes will be spread across villages planned for the 664-acre Eastern Quarry site near to Bluewater.

However, it is not known how many villages or communities there will be, with specifics expected to emerge when the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation takes over the site on April 20.

The majority of the garden city will lie in Dartford’s borough boundaries, while 20% will fall under Gravesham.

Gravesham council leader Cllr John Burden (Lab) said he would do all he could to ensure there was substantial affordable housing at Ebbsfleet, with a 30% figure a target.

He said: “I believe in affordable and social housing and the chairman of the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, Michael Cassidy, said that he believed in a need for affordable housing.

“The issue is how and where we provide the housing? It’s all very well saying ‘it’s affordable’ but affordable to who? We need to make sure it is affordable for the residents of Gravesham and Dartford. That’s what we’re going to fight for.

“My personal view is everyone should have a choice regarding what type of housing they want,whether it’s through a housing association, council or privately. There are obvious ways of entering the housing market but there must be choice and it must be affordable.”

Land Securities, the developer of the Ebbsfleet Garden City project, has also said it will make a commitment to affordable housing.

A spokesman said: “Our current planning agreement is to provide 25% onsite and 5% offsite affordable housing at the Eastern Quarry and 25% affordable housing at Ebbsfleet.”

Like many other boroughs throughout the country, Gravesham and Dartford are dealing with a housing crisis.

Dartford has a housing stock of 4,300 with more than 800 people on its waiting list for homes while Gravesham has stock of 5,800 with more than 2,464 waiting.

During a debate in April last year, Conservative planning minister Nick Boles said: “The government does not impose a particular level of affordable housing.

“The percentage of affordable units will be a matter for local decision-making, taking account of the authorities’ local plans and site viability.”

However, Peter Dosad head of housing services at Dartford, said that any housing development in his borough is required to have a 30% affordable housing quota.

He said: “Part of this development will have an affordable housing allocation or an outside plan to do something else. But it’s a council requirement that when building in this borough you are committed to do part in affordable housing.

“There’s always a commitment from the council, but different planning applications will have different agreements. However, the rule is always 30%.”

Simon Thomson prospective parliamentary candidate (Lab) for Dartford is less than convinced by the optimism of Gravesham and Dartford councils.

Mr Thomson is concerned about the future of housing in the area, he said: “First of all, regarding the 30%, they [Dartford council] have that aspiration, but it’s never been achieved because the council is too weak to stand up to developers.

“In terms of Ebbsfleet at the moment there is 150 homes constructed with plans to build more, but there’s going to be nothing like what the government promised. There is no commitment to social housing at all.

“To build new housing doesn’t have to cost the earth, Ikea offer kit-housing for about £100,000. We’ve got to think outside the box a bit when it comes to solving the housing crisis.

“If we don’t address the housing crisis in Dartford and the country there will be a whole generation of people who won’t be able to buy their own homes.”