Ex post analysis of the regional impacts of major infrastructure: the Channel Tunnel 10 years on.

Locate in Kent, the inward investment agency, maintains a database of companies
recorded as successes, defined as “those companies that have received assistance from
Locate in Kent during the year and decided to invest in the county”. Table 2
summarises these investments and the jobs created by country of origin for the period
April 1997 to March 2002 in terms of the number of successes and jobs created.

Table 2: LIK Projects and Jobs Created (1997 - 2003)

Source: Locate in Kent

The majority of projects were expansions within Kent (36.93%) or expansions into
Kent (28.98%), whilst genuine relocations only accounted for 15.91%. Of these
companies, there is no outstanding number relocating, expanding or starting up in the
Channel corridor or the area we would expect as a direct result of the Channel Tunnel.
The most popular district for the location of companies appears to be Tonbridge and
Malling in West Kent. Examination of the geographical distribution of the number of
successful projects and jobs created by these companies has not revealed that the
Channel Corridor districts have benefited any more than the rest of Kent in terms of
investment. It is therefore difficult to identify any ‘Channel Tunnel effect’ in the data
examined.

Tourist impacts depend both on visitors to Kent from outside and those stopping in
Kent whilst en route to or from the Channel Ports or Tunnel. The Cross Channel
Tourism Study recorded for 1999-2000 approximately 230,000 day-trips from the
Continent to Kent and about 405,000 incoming trips (mostly from the near Continent)
staying in Kent for one or more nights. Those whose main destination was Kent spent
about £9.8 million on accommodation while those staying overnight while in transit
spent about £6.4 million on accommodation. These relatively low figures reflected the
fact that nearly half those staying in Kent were staying with friends or relatives. There
is no reliable evidence of how many UK residents choose Kent for their holidays in
order to make a day visit across the Channel. The figures for stays in Kent by United
Kingdom residents en route to the Continent suggest that about 324,000 stayed for
one or more nights en route, but the spending (about £6.6 million on accommodation)
was again modest.

There is a long history of tourism in Kent that has left a considerable stock of hotel
accommodation especially in seaside towns (including Dover and Folkestone) but
there is a marked lack of modern high quality hotel accommodation. Although three
new hotels have been built, several major sites have remained undeveloped. Cross-

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