spending leaked out of Kent into Nord Pas de Calais and adjacent regions. In contrast
the incoming flows were much smaller in volume: 430,000 visitors of whom only 7%
of these saw shopping as a main purpose of visiting, though 63% reported some
shopping activity. They were responsible for a total spend in Kent of about £49
million. In addition Kent received about £8 million of shopping expenditure from
those passing through the county en route to a channel crossing.
In the light of these figures it is not surprising that in Kent there has been little
investment in shopping facilities directly aimed at the cross Channel travellers. This
contrasts strongly with the developments around Coquelles which have clearly been
designed and managed to maximise their attraction for cross Channel shoppers. It
seems that far from stimulating employment in retailing the expansion of cross
channel activity has probably had a net negative effect on employment. Although
employee numbers in retail trade have increased steadily over the period, total
employment is largely consistent with the urban scale of each town and there are
higher concentrations in Dartford (following the opening of Bluewater Shopping
Centre), Canterbury, Thanet, Tunbridge Wells, Medway and Gravesham, all off the
main Channel Corridor. Generally figures reflect the national trend of a steady
increase in retailing (consistent with population growth) rather than exhibiting
anything which might be called a Channel Tunnel effect.
The stimulation to manufacturing, a sector in long term national decline, was expected
to be mixed according to the sub-sector. Kent had an under-representation of fast
growing sectors and an over-representation of older declining industries. It was
generally expected that the existence of the Channel Tunnel would stimulate growth
in the more modern industries, including scientific instruments, medical equipment;
office machinery and pharmaceuticals. Much of the benefit for manufacturing was
expected to derive from the associated improvements to infrastructure, in particular to
road and rail, leading to improved access to markets and improved availability of
business services. The new infrastructure would provide additional opportunities for
market expansion by opening up accessibility to European and deep sea markets,
affecting business travel and movement of freight. However, only a small percentage
of firms consider the savings in freight costs and time significant enough to consider
changing location.
Generally most manufacturing firms based in Kent are small; nearly 60% of firms had
five employees or less and only 21 firms (0.4%) had 500 or more. Although
manufacturing remains an important sector in the Kent economy, we have no
evidence that the Tunnel triggered an influx or growth in these firms. Employment
figures are not substantially different to the national trend in the manufacturing
industry. Although the figures for Great Britain show a general decline in
manufacturing employment from 1991 to 2001, with a rise between 1995 and 1998,
the figures for some of the Channel Corridor districts show that employment appears
to be more resilient and overall manufacturing employment was higher in 2001 than it
was in 1991 (Figure 11).
17