In his time as a transport minister and as chairman of a list of companies as long as your arm, Steven Norris has become accustomed to handling big budgets.

In the private sector, they do not come much bigger than building a Paramount-themed resort in north Kent, with the bill estimated to reach £3.2bn before it opens its doors in Easter 2020, if all goes to plan.

“We have spent £40m on land acquisition and other operational costs so far,” said Mr Norris, twice a runner-up to Ken Livingstone in the elections for London mayor.

Yet so far, the land officially acquired only totals 18 acres near the Ebbsfleet rail link, out of a total of 1,346 needed. There is a lot of spending still to go and with a project like this, it will be a long time before investors get any of their money back.

“This is pretty much an all-up-front spend before you start getting any revenue,” said Mr Norris, who is also chairman of financial services giant BNP Paribas among many others.

“It is distinct from a big housing project which you build in phases – you don’t build the second phase until you have sold half the first phase.

“With this you have got to spend all the money before you can open the doors, which needs a different cashflow profile and different kind of investment.

"It has got to be delivered in a tighter period to take account of that. Money costs and you can’t just drag this out indefinitely.”

I meet Mr Norris at Ebbsfleet International Station, which it is hoped will become one of the main entry points for the 15 million annual tourists travelling to London Paramount – to use its official name – on the Swanscombe Peninsula, between Gravesend and Dartford.

He estimates another “couple hundred million” will be spent on land in the lead-up to expected approval of the project by the Secretary of State in winter next year, well before building and infrastructure costs kick in.

It is understood more than £2.6 billion of construction contracts will be bid for on the project.

Mr Norris confirmed the Paramount proposals are funded through planning but that it does not have the full amount needed from its Kuwaiti backers under current projections.

The attraction is backed by KEH, a property and leisure investment company owned by Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi, the chairman of Ebbsfleet United, who Mr Norris describes as “honest, unassuming, charming and a really bright guy”.

The former MP – who always had business interests during his two spells in Parliament from 1983 to 1997 – said he does not want the scheme to be fully funded at this stage anyway.

It is too early to decide how much debt it can get away with building up rather than giving away more equity in the project.

He said: “Those strategic decisions are several years away. The important thing is we can see out the rest of this year, next year and a bit of the year after.”

A planning application to build London Paramount will be submitted this autumn by London Resort Company Holdings, the developer which Mr Norris chairs.

Following that, the company will have to pay for 388 acres of land it has an agreement to buy from Lafarge Tarmac.

Mr Norris said a deal is also in place with Land Securities to buy the land they own around the Swanscombe Peninsula, which will make up the bulk of the rest of the scheme, although nothing has been officially confirmed.

Then it will just be a case of reaching deals with a variety of smaller land owners, which will force more than 50 businesses to move.

It has been given this power as part of its ‘nationally significant infrastructure project’ status.

It is a case of deja vu for ex-MP Mr Norris, who did a lot of the compensation claims for people in the area when HS1 was being planned out during his time in government.

He said: “If your land is required for a bigger scheme which is of national benefit – and there is no way your land cannot be part of it – you’re then facing that least welcome of all government orders, which is compulsory purchase order.

“People are not silly. If you deal with them sensibly and make them an offer which is probably more than they will get with a compulsory purchase order, which avoids all the costs that will be incurred, they will do a deal and move on...” - Steven Norris, London Paramount

“No one likes doing that. You simply have to be very fair with people. You must relocate them and compensate them for any inconvenience.

“People are not silly. If you deal with them sensibly and make them an offer which is probably more than they will get with a compulsory purchase order, which avoids all the costs that will be incurred, they will do a deal and move on.”

This was the case with Teal Energy, which wanted to build a £100m power plant on land needed for the resort.

It eventually pulled out of the site – and was compensated – when Paramount revealed it was close to a deal with Land Securities for the remainder of the land.

“We’ve got it sorted,” said Mr Norris. “We’re perfectly happy with the outcome.”

Despite an “astonishingly well received” public consultation on the Paramount plans, Mr Norris accepts transport is a major issue for many residents.

Last week, Kent Business revealed one of his big aims is to get Crossrail, the rail line through London due to open in 2018, extended from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet.

He said: “The only reason Crossrail didn’t go to Ebbsfleet in the first place is because there wasn’t a business case for it. I believe there is now a very strong business case.

"I will certainly be arguing very strongly with the mayor, the Department for Transport and the whoever is the franchise operator for Crossrail.”

He said his team has run the numbers on whether a new Lower Thames Crossing is built at Dartford or east of Gravesend.

His PR man steps in to say “none of the above” when asked which option he would prefer, keen to avoid upsetting either Dartford or Gravesham councils.

Mr Norris said: “We need more capacity and we need it fast. We need them to make a decision quickly.

"As the Paramount project gathers momentum inside government as well as with investors, then we can have the clout to say to the DfT ‘move this up your capital programme’. We need it to be open when we are open. It is no good building it five years later.”