Kent County Council (KCC) is the largest local authority in England covering an area
of 3,500 square kilometres. It has an annual expenditure of over £1bn on goods and services
and a population of 1.6m. The Council provides a wide range of personal and strategic
services on behalf of its residents, operating in partnership with the NHS Kent and Medway
Clinical Commissioning Group, 12 district councils, and 289 parish/town councils. KCC
consists of four directorates:
– Adult Social Care and Health;
– Children, Young People and Education;
– Growth, Environment and Transport; and
– Strategic and Corporate Services.
This service is being commissioned on behalf of the Growth, Environment and Transport
directorate.
The scheme requires the construction of a new tunnel on the Bead Road in Kent. Fastrack
Bean Road Tunnel is broadly a new 75m long tunnel (technically an underpass due to short
length) through the chalk spine under the B255 Bean Road between Whitecliffe (former
Eastern Quarry) and Bluewater Shopping Centre, serving to directly connect the shopping
centre to the new Whitecliffe development and Ebbsfleet International Railway Station. It will form part of the Fastrack bus rapid transit system within Kent Thameside. The tunnel will
house a 3.5m wide Bi-directional Fastrack busway linking Whitecliffe and Bluewater, as well
as providing a combined footway / cycleway and footway linking the Whitecliffe and
Bluewater as part of the Ebbsfleet Garden City green corridor network.
Project value is £25.5m with construction cost budget of circa. £20.43m