Rail link lifts property value hopes

House values near the Channel tunnel rail link stations are predicted to rise by a total of £1.6bn after fast domestic services start to operate later this year.

A study of the economic impact of the rail line, called High Speed 1, produced by transport consultancy Colin Buchanan and economic consultants Volterra, details the property hotspots along the route. It predicts prices will rise across the Kent towns of Gravesend, Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham, Sittingbourne, Faversham and Dover. The total benefits to the economy of High Speed 1, which cost a total of £7.3bn including the new commuter services, will be more than £17.6bn over 60 years. You can read more in this article in the Financial Times

We pointed this out last October here. Yet again, the value created by public investment ends up in landowners’ pockets, but nobody cares, and then people wonder why there is no money for infrastructure investement.