Kent annexes French territory

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

or does it?

A few years ago I read a newspaper story that claimed Kent county council (or whatever they are called) planned to buy land on the other side of the chunnel to build the housing John Prescott was demanding, thereby meeting govt. instructions whilst preserving "the garden of England". Kentish workers could then commute via the chunnel.

Did this ever happen? or was it just a fun story to sell papers?

[Marcellus]

Seems very unlikely that France would sell French soil for British housing developments. It is possible that the Government were considering attempting to buy a small area of French land on the other side of the tunnel for purposes of more easily stopping illegal immigrants before they reach England, but even this seems highly unlikely.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

nope, that was definitely how it was reported: housing development for Kentish residents in France.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The plan did exist. I don't know if it ever materialized. I can't find anything on it here, so I assume it never got beyond the planning stage.

I did find that original article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,935144,00.html) you are referring to.

There's nothing holding English commuters back from living in France. You can buy all the property you want. The UK, only sharing a small border with the Irish Republic, is perhaps not as used to this benefit of the EU as the continentals.

There are 'Euroregions' everywhere. Cross-border cooperation authorities, like 'Kent & Nord Pas-de-Calais Euroregion'. It makes sense for regions that overlap national borders to seek international development. Calais is closer to London than to Paris, and Kent is closer to Paris than it is to Manchester.

[ShadesWolf]

Similar article from BBC - Monday January 5, 2004



A number of South Easterners are moving to Northern France, yet are continuing with their jobs in England.

The French way of life is worth the commute, they say.

Peter Lambert, who has commuted cross-channel for the last seven years says, "The food, the drink, the choice - it's marvellous."

Peter and his partner Josie Clarke live in a beautiful farmhouse in the village of Preures in Northern France, 40 miles south of Calais.

They run a small business buying and selling electricity, based in East Sussex. Josie says, "The people are absolutely fantastic. Our neighbours are wonderful."

Ex-pat community
France is only 21 miles from the South East of England. There are plenty of ferries and a railway tunnel to make the journey.

Many South Easterners have taken advantage of these transport links and have moved across the channel. There is now a small British ex-pat community around the town of Hucqueliers, in northern France.

Practicalities
Red tape and practicalities may deter some would-be channel-hoppers from tasting a new lifestyle out in France.

Colin Schrader from French Property News says the red tape in minimal.

Cross-channel commuters pay PAYE in the UK, because that is where they work. They then pay the equivalent of council tax in France for local facilities.

For parent’s woried about French schooling, Alan Cox who commutes from France to Colchester in Essex says his children have settled well, "Even our little girl who's four speaks a reasonable amount of French."

Housing shortages
Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, Head of Kent County Council suggests that cross-channel commuters could ease the South East’s housing shortages.

He tells Inside Out, "We are under pressure from central government to provide more housing. They want us to build 120,000 new homes by 2031."

"If people commuted across the channel, we wouldn’t need to build as many houses."

[Duke Malcolm]

We could use such a system to annex the whole of Calais... send hopeful Britons to France, establish English-speaking schools with a British system, they might end up making a majority in the place, and vote to establish themselves as a Crown Dependency such as the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, or a whole new county... The first step on the reclamation of France! Vive la Reine!

[Al Khalifah]

We're already doing that in Brittany. Slowly but surely, the good work of Henry V is being reclaimed.

Perhaps the English monarch will be ruler of France afterall.