Kent Set for Smart Border Revolution to Boost Jobs and Housing
Kent is gearing up for a game-changing programme to build future-proof smart borders. The plan promises to spark regeneration across east Kent, unlocking thousands of jobs, new housing, and attracting fresh business and investment. It’s all part of the Government’s big Levelling Up agenda.
Bid to End Border Chaos with Cutting-Edge Tech
Kent County Council (KCC) Cabinet will discuss a bold new blueprint tomorrow (Thursday 9 December). Simon Jones, KCC’s Corporate Director for Growth, Environment and Transport, calls for ditching the patchwork, short-term fixes that currently disrupt freight and passenger flow on Kent’s busy cross-Channel routes.
Jones proposes smart, autonomous, digitised border systems linked to a network of freight hubs nationwide. This would boost capacity and resilience on the Short Straits corridor that handles a whopping 59% of the UK’s EU trade – worth around £250 billion a year.
Border Bottlenecks Cost Kent and the Nation
More than 6,300 freight vehicles thunder through Kent daily, heading for Dover and Eurotunnel – the UK’s busiest gateways to Europe. KCC and Kent Resilience Forum (KRF) are on the frontline battling delays caused by post-Brexit rules, COVID restrictions, and strained UK-EU relations.
“Disruption has severe and unsustainable impacts on our communities and businesses, especially in deprived east Kent,” warns KRF Strategic Planning Lead Simon Jones.
Jones highlights the strain on the current traffic scheme TAP20 which controls haulage flows into Dover but runs 2-3 times a week due to fragile border infrastructure.
Calls for Government Cash and National Vision
Simon Jones stresses the need for ports to be fully integrated into the wider supply chain – a task beyond KCC and KRF alone. With post-Brexit trading tensions ongoing, he urges full deployment of a national border strategy in Kent. Doing so, says Jones, will unlock huge value nationally across critical industries.
The paper also demands urgent central government funding to cover rising border costs and the long-term impact of freight traffic on Kent’s roads, now that many special EU Transition measures have ended.
Failing to act, Jones warns, isn’t just a local problem – it’s a missed opportunity on a truly national scale.
