The Channel Tunnel and Regional-Development in Europe - an Overview

This paper provides an overview of the possible regional development effects across Europe of the Channel Tunnel. It identifies the regional significance of the tunnel in the context of the emergent European Capitals region of the European Community, but as part of a total network as well as simply improving one fink. The paper proceeds to review the conflicting effects of changes in infrastructure provision on output and production, but also to emphasize the potential importance of more subjective evaluations of the tunnel's impact. This leads to a discussion of the regional policy implications, identified at a local, national and EC level. The paper concludes that the regional development implications are still not clear and will continue to depend on how individual decision-makers and policy-makers respond to the opportunities presented. In particular, there is no clear evidence for infrastructure such as the Channel Tunnel leading to increased concentration of economic activity in core regions at the expense of the periphery, but it may, however, be part of a process of concentration within core regions as a result of the increasing accessibility of the metropolitan areas.