Kent International Gateway
The Kent International Gateway was a proposed logistics hub and strategic rail-freight interchange (SRFI) next to the M20 motorway east of Maidstone. The project was controversial because it was a major development in a Special Landscape Area close to several historic villages. Following a public inquiry that ended in December 2009, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government rejected the proposal on 5 August 2010.
The proposed development would have been built in a corridor between the village of Bearsted, the M20 motorway and the High Speed 1 rail line. Comprising in excess of 112.3 hectares (1,123,000 m2) near junction 8 of the M20, it was intended that the site would cut motorway freight traffic by utilising the rail network and creating a distribution hub in a key location between the Kent coast (with its proximity to continental Europe) and London which is approximately 45 miles to the north-west. In addition to operating up to 13 freight trains a day (removing an estimated 60 million kilometres of HGV journeys from the roads each year), the site would have looked to employ 3,500 people.
The proposal was claimed by its proponents to be aligned with the Department for Transport's (and the previous Strategic Rail Authority's) strategic rail freight interchange policy which seeks to encourage the removal of road freight in favour of rail-based solutions. However, the Secretary of State ruled in his decision letter that, "The policy support that the proposal might otherwise enjoy from the SRA’s SRFI Policy is significantly reduced on account of the site’s distance from London and the M25." The proposed development was also thought by some to be broadly in line with the Labour government's Thames Gateway strategy which was intended to promote business and residential expansion from London into north Kent and Essex, however this was not a claim made by the scheme's proponents and in any case that strategy was principally focused a few miles to the north.
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