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In February, the Communities Plan was launched in a blaze of glory. John Prescott trumpeted the end to decades of government failure to meet housing needs. At the heart of the plans for the South was the regeneration of the Thames Gateway, a 43-mile stretch of post-industrial no-man's-land from east London to estuarine Kent and Essex. By 2031, said the document, it would be a thriving residential, commercial and social hub to rival London, providing up to 200,000 homes and 300,000 jobs. Talk was of "driving" and "accelerating" development, "visible progress by 2005" and an "immediate review" by a Cabinet committee chaired by the prime minister on where and when development would take place. You'd expect, then, that nearly six months on, the regeneration of Thames Gateway would be full steam ahead.

The reality is disappointing. For 10 years, governments have been proposing a new linear city along the Thames, but even now it is no closer. Although there has been a flurry of activity among the myriad local, subregional and regional bodies encompassed by the Thames Gateway zone since Prescott's announcement, the central government linchpin is missing. A crucial Cabinet committee report setting out sites, timescales and funding beyond 2006 missed its May deadline and there is still no publication date. The biggest issue is still transport but, until the report is issued, the government is in the familiar position of following a loud call for development with radio silence on money for infrastructure.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has yet to respond to bids for the £446m seed-corn cash announced in the plan, or decide on the operation of the new urban development corporations in London and Essex. It promises information "very shortly", but does not guarantee to publish before the three-month parliamentary recess that starts in July. Without firm decisions on exactly where, when and how regeneration should proceed, long-term planning in the regions is impossible. As the situation drags on, councils, social landlords, developers and many other organisations involved are impatient for answers.

Earlier this week, the three regional assemblies responsible for planning guidance wrote to John Prescott demanding an urgent meeting, and the South-east England Regional Assembly and Development Agency issued a report criticising the growth areas for bypassing the spots worst hit by the affordable housing crisis. "We need some early evidence that the government is going to back Thames Gateway with real money and real commitment," warns Mike Gwilliam, director of planning and transport at the South-east assembly. "There's some very big plans up to 2016, but we're not clear on the numbers beyond the next two or three years and the process by which it will all be agreed."

So what exactly has been happening in the area since February and why has there been so little government action?

With a population of 2 million and spanning a distance equivalent to that between Sheffield and Liverpool, or Glasgow and Edinburgh, the Gateway is doomed to bureaucracy. It includes seven London boroughs, five councils in Kent and five in Essex, putting it within the remit of three regional assemblies, three regional development agencies and three regional housing boards, and it is far from clear where the UDCs will fit into the mix. It is also subdivided by dozens of local and subregional partnerships. Even those entrenched in the process agree it is confusing. "It does feel bureaucratic," admits David Woods, director of housing and health at the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. "The man on the Clapham omnibus wouldn't be able to understand it."

In the absence of guidance from the top, the agencies responsible for implementing the grand scheme (see "Who's who in the Gateway") have been preparing themselves for the new city on their doorstep.

Woods, for example, is one of the 10 housing directors in the London part of the Gateway who have met regularly over the last few months. The group has compared long-range business plans and just invited tenders for a study into housing demand over the next 15-20 years. "We've gone completely away from the idea of individual boroughs' housing strategies," says Woods.

In addition, in each of the three regions included in the Gateway – London, Kent and South Essex – a partnership of local government, health, education and development bodies has worked hard on proposals for a slice of Prescott's £446m. "We've bid for strategic stuff, not a local nursery," says Alastair Pollock, project support officer at the Thames Gateway Kent Partnership. Kent's bid, submitted in May, covers key site and transport infrastructure, education, skills and environmental projects.

The Greater London Authority is also thinking strategically, preparing a detailed report into the London Gateway in the autumn. In the meantime, it's taking a pragmatic view of what can be done in the absence of central government commitment. "We're looking at issues such as planning, land ownership and the minor infrastructure issues that are preventing sites coming forward," says Neale Coleman, the mayor's policy director on housing at the GLA.

"An awful lot can be done, but the government has bigger decisions to make about the really large transport projects such as Crossrail."

There is development on a grand scale in areas well-served by transport, or in those where links are on the way. For example, in Stratford, where the high-speed Channel Tunnel Rail link to King's Cross will touch down in 2007, the £3bn regeneration of the town centre is the largest single planning application in London, including 4500 homes. Hopefully, now that Tony McNulty, the minister in charge of Thames Gateway's regeneration, has shuffled over to Alistair Darling's Department of Transport, there will be good news on infrastructure further afield.

A successful Olympic bid could also help by setting a firm 2012 deadline for the proposed river crossings and road and rail improvements, if not the elusive Crossrail. The London Development Agency has shortlisted six consortia to masterplan the regeneration of the Lower Lea Valley, the location of the games, whether the bid is successful or not. "The Olympics happens for a very short period, but you would have to radically enhance the transport structure in order to support it," says Michael Owens, head of partnership development. The downside is that the bid may divert attention and funding from other areas of the Gateway – the LDA has already cut its core land acquisition budget by a quarter to fund the bid.

Although there is plenty of progress on the ground, the buck is still firmly lodged at central government level. Tony Blair might well have put the Thames Gateway at the top of his agenda when he announced he would chair the special Cabinet committee, but this was at the cost of delay when the war in Iraq demanded his attention.

The urban development corporations promised for London and Essex are still unknown quantities, despite their key role. Rod Lyons, head of regeneration at Thurrock council, hopes the ODPM will submit a parliamentary order for the Essex UDC before recess, and that the body itself will materialise in late autumn. There is no confirmation about where its boundaries will lie, who will sit on its 13-strong board or what powers it will have. "The situation is immensely fluid. Things are moving at quite a pace and there's a huge amount of work to do between now and autumn," says Lyons.

London's UDC is even further away. Because of the number of boroughs that must be represented, the law will have to be changed to extend the number of board members from 13 to 17. It is expected to appear next April – a year and two months after it was announced – although a shadow board may be appointed sooner. Kent is also waiting for a decision on its delivery model, and has suggested three bodies covering Medway, Swale and Kent Thamesside. Neither has the London Gateway Board, a strategic body to coordinate regeneration efforts within the capital, arrived.

Another delaying factor is that the ODPM has yet to respond to bids for the £446m submitted by the subregional partnerships, but with £40m due to be spent in this financial year and recess starting in mid-July, time is getting tight. "It will take a lot to ensure that we spend the resources within the time available," says Ian Lindsay, executive director of Kent Thamesside Association, a local regeneration partnership, that includes Bluewater shopping centre and Countryside Properties. "There are a lot of opportunities, but everyone is still waiting to see the delivery mechanisms," agrees Mike Lambert, assistant director of urban regeneration at Countryside.

It's not just capital funding the government must commit to. Social landlords will need ongoing revenue for housing projects to be factored in the treasury's Supporting People budget. East Thames Housing Group has set up a subsidiary, Network East Foyers, providing 800 units across east London that will train young people for the new job opportunities in the Gateway.

Assistant chief executive Frank Vickery says ongoing support costs cannot be met by efficiency savings alone, and would like to see a 13- to 15-year commitment to funding in the public spending review next summer. "Developments on brownfield sites are nice headline things, but they're cheap because you pay once and you don't pay again. Revenue takes a lot more thinking about," he says.

Some suspect the ODPM, after grabbing headlines by declaring a "step change" in the supply of affordable housing, is reluctant to commit to numbers because the sums don't add up. Derek Joseph, managing director of housing consultant Hacas Chapman Hendy, made a rough calculation of spending needs in the Thames Gateway against the public and private funds currently available and uncovered a £4bn-5bn shortfall. "I can't see how it will stack up without a lot of grant. Whichever way you add it up, you need a lot more money for infrastructure," he says. The scale of the discrepancy depends on the proportions of social rented homes and sales to key workers the ODPM is intending, something local authorities are keen to know. But Joseph points out: "As soon as they give more information, they've got to start saying where the money's coming from."

The ODPM appears to be aware that patience is running thin. A spokesman said: "We know people on the ground are keen to press on and we hope to be able to give them a very clear steer on how and where development will take place very shortly."

They certainly can't afford to waste any more time. As the mid-July cut off point looms, the ODPM must be very conscious that its high-flown rhetoric could become yet another chapter in the Thames Gateway saga.