THE OLYMPIC Games could hold up building projects in Kent, a skills chief has warned.

While the decision to stage the Games in London in 2012 is great for British sport and regeneration in East London, with important spin-offs for Kent, there are fears that it could put back the Kent Thames Gateway building programme.

Tony Allen, director of skills for the Learning & Skills Council Kent and Medway, has warned that demand for construction workers to complete Olympics-related projects in the run-up to 2012 will syphon labour out of the county.

He says this could well delay elements of the Kent Thames Gateway 20-year building timetable.

He said: "Where’s the sacrifice going to be? It’s not going to be the Olympics.”

More than 115,000 homes are due to be built in the Thames Gateway area over the next 15 years, 45,000 of them in north- west Kent. A further 30,000 are to built in Ashford.

New commercial development is set to create an estimated 80,000 jobs in north Kent, especially around the new Ebbsfleet station, and some 30,000 in Ashford.

All these projects will fuel soaring demand for new buildings. Yet Kent already faces a serious skills shortfall, with not enough young people attracted into the industry.

Mr Allen estimates that the industry will need 3,000 people to come out of training every year for the next 10 years to meet demand. Yet, at present, only 800 to 1,000 are being trained every year – barely a third of what is required.

Several initiatives aim to tackle the problem. But Mr Allen still worries that that Olympics construction will make the Kent situation worse, especially if it fails to get off to a well-planned start.

He cited the recent experience of Athens where estimated costs of staging the 2004 Games doubled because construction was left to the last moment and expensive labour had to be imported from abroad.

He said: "I hope we are better than that. We’ve got seven years and I just hope we will use those seven years to phase the building over that period of time and that we don’t leave it to the last three years.

"If we phase it over seven years, the rest of the South East will stand a chance of getting its building programme done.

"The danger is if it all gets lumped into the last three years, there will be a large risk that everyone gets sucked into that work and it could bring Kent’s projects to a halt."

He added: "The Olympics have to be delivered by June 2012 – you can’t put it back six months. If that falls behind schedule, there could be pressure."