Over 40% of the UK's trade is carried on with continental economies and so hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on continuing to provide reliable and inexpensive freight transport to and from the Continent. Although the opening of Eurotunnel made freight movements from the Continent to the southeast of England easier, businesses based in regions beyond London remain at a competitive disadvantage which offsets their potentially lower costs. With Central Railway this imbalance would be eliminated.
For hauliers the problems of achieving just-in-time delivery schedules on increasingly unreliable roads would be solved by Central Railway. Overall round trip costs would be reduced, enabling the pressure on margins to be relieved, and drivers and tractor units freed up for more rewarding employment on other routes. Plus, it will be easier for drivers to respect the legal limits on the number of hours they may drive.
Key new transport capacity:Central Railway is the only proposal to create the capacity to cope with another 30 - 40% growth per decade in road freight traffic between the UK and Continental Europe. Without it, neither the motorways nor the railways are likely to be able to cope.
Opportunities for construction and railway companies:For the Continental and UK construction and railway industries Central Railway's need for partners to build and operate tracks creates opportunities for revenue and to meet the costs of operating and maintaining currently loss-making railways.
Attracting inward investment:The knock-on effects of making "road freight" transport between the UK and the Continent much more reliable and less expensive would be to make it possible for the Continental market to be served more economically and using fewer depots, thus making northern Britain, Ireland and northern France relatively more attractive places for inward investment.