DESIGNS for a £2m hilltop landmark at the mini-town being built near Swanscombe have been unveiled.

Five designs by internationally-acclaimed artists have been shortlisted for the Ebbsfleet Landmark - known as the Angel of the South - at the Ebbsfleet Valley development.

Situated in the south-east corner of Ebbsfleet Valley, the landmark will tower over both the development and Ebbsfleet International Station.

It has been commissioned by Lands Securities, along with Eurostar and London & Continental Railways.

A spokesman for the organisations behind the commission said: "It is the role of the artwork to help put Ebbsfleet Valley on the map, and to start a process of placemaking out of which the new community will evolve.

"At 50 metres high the Ebbsfleet Landmark could be one of the most significant works of art ever commissioned in England."

Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger is one of the shortlisted artists and has proposed a 33 times life-size white horse.

He said: "The horse is the work of centuries of continuous collaboration between man and nature.

"And if the scale makes it uncanny, perhaps this is because it is also something quite plain and simple - a horse in a field."

Two former Turner Prize winners, Richard Deacon and Rachel Whiteread, are among the artists whose designs were also unveiled.

Whiteread is proposing to create a craggy recycled mountain with a life-size interior of a house on the top.

Deacon's sculpture would be a nest of steel latticework.

French artist Daniel Buren has designed a tower of stacked cubes with a single laser beam of light passing through it.

Sculptor Christopher Le Brun has proposed a huge wing and disc - a reference to the Roman god of travellers and commerce Mercury.

An exhibition of the artists' proposals will go on show in a gallery at Bluewater shopping centre for three months from May 27.

A committe chaired by Lord Lieutenant of Kent Allan Willett will choose the winning design, which will be announced this autumn and is expected to be completed by 2010.

Ebbsfleet Valley is a 25 year project being built by developer Lands Securities. It will contain around 10,000 homes along with offices, shops and leisure facilities.