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

benefits of the Tunnel were to be maximised: this was true of the Kent County
Council for much of the period, though it added the additional concern of seeking to
ensure that areas remote from the Channel corridor and the new rail links were not
unnecessarily disadvantaged. This need for additional effort, co-ordination and
investment was also recognised by organisations like Locate in Kent and the Kent
Tourism Initiative, and similar approaches have been evident in Ashford and (though
only in recent years) by Shepway.

Table 1 shows the allocation of floor space (m²) of land for ‘employment uses’ in the
period 1991 - 2001, and the net completed floor space in the same period. It will be
evident from this table that the allocations were modest, but also that there was no
great pressure for planning permissions in the Channel Corridor (the percentage of the
allocated space completed ranged from only 1% in Shepway, through 20% in
Maidstone and 25% in Ashford to 63% in Dover. The last column of table 1 also
shows that allocations 2001-2011 are similarly modest.

Table 1 Planning Allocations (m2 1991 - 2011 in the Channel Corridor

3.2 Expected changes

A number of studies were undertaken in the period from the announcement of the
project through to the completion of the construction of which the most significant
was the Kent Impact Study (CTJCC, 1987, and see Vickerman, 1994a, 1994b for a
more detailed discussion of these studies). We summarise these here in terms of the
expected impacts on the three main sectors of operation: construction, transport
operations and other enterprises.

3.2.1 Construction

Construction is one of the main direct impacts of any large project and should be able
to be predicted fairly accurately. The peak in construction employment on the UK
side (there was a significant construction effort also on the French side which we do
not consider in detail here) was predicted to be during 1990 at just fewer than 4,000.
The Kent Impact Study (KIS) also recognised the role of improvements in the
supporting infrastructure which would generate further construction sector
employment throughout the county over a longer time span. However, whilst much of
the construction workforce would be concentrated in Dover and Shepway,

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