Relocating your business to Kent

We’ve run a business in Kent for 40 years and we love it. You will too. Here are four reasons why …

Fast trains to London

The high-speed rail link has made getting to London from many Kent towns so easy that they’re now closer to central London, in terms of journey time, than some parts of the capital. Ashford is half an hour from Stratford and 38 minutes from St Pancras; Canterbury and Folkestone are both reachable in an hour; Ebbsfleet, in north Kent, is 11 minutes from Stratford and 18 minutes from St Pancras. And everywhere else along the line – Whitstable, Dover, Deal, Margate, Faversham – has benefited too. This also makes for impressively quick travel to the rest of the UK  – you can get from Ashford to York within three hours.

International travel

We promise this won’t all be about trains. But Kent is really good at them. Eurostar services take one hour and 39 minutes from Ashford to Brussels, and as little as one hour and 52 minutes from Ashford to Paris; they also stop at Ebbsfleet, 15 minutes further up the line. Add in the Port of Dover, Europe’s busiest ferry port, and the Eurotunnel, which carries 21.3 million tonnes of freight and 10.6 million passengers every year, and nowhere in the UK outside London is better placed for international trade and travel.

Park life

Kent has two science parks: Discovery Park, in Sandwich, has more than 160 businesses, including drugs giant Pfizer, while Kent Science Park, just outside Sittingbourne, is home to 66 more. The latter was named south east England’s best life science research facility in 2016 by the United Kingdom Science Park Association.

Kent also has an enterprise zone – a Government-designated area that offers members benefits including tax relief and business rate relief – the latter worth up to £55,000 every year for five years. The zone covers sites across Ebbsfleet, Medway and Maidstone, and is aimed at businesses working in medical and life sciences, engineering, manufacturing and creative and digital technology.

Money, money, money

There’s a lot of funding on offer to help companies in Kent – interest-free loans for small businesses through the Kent and Medway Business Fund, investment through the Kent Life Science Fund and the Kent Investor Network, and grants from the South East Business Boost and Low Carbon Across the South East programmes. There’s also the Kent Leader grants programme for small rural businesses, including farmers, growers and foresters. Locate in Kent, which supports businesses wanting to move to the county, can provide information.

When you do the sensible thing and move to Kent, you’ll need experienced commercial movers to handle the process for you, as office relocation can be extremely disruptive. At Kent removals company Colin Batt Removals, we’ve been helping individuals and companies settle in the county for more than 40 years. Our experienced staff are trained to make things run as smoothly as possible and keep the impact on productivity to a minimum. Our office relocation services include a full packing and unpacking service if you want it, as well as document storage during the changeover.

We’re based in Ashford, but cover all of Kent, particularly Maidstone, Canterbury, Folkestone and Tonbridge. Call 01233 740395 for a free quote.