Just under 200 of the world’s top professional cyclists will be racing through the Kent countryside from Dartford to Canterbury on Sunday, July 8 and they will be watched by many thousands of local residents and visitors celebrating along the route.

The Tour caravan and the cyclists will take about two hours to pass but some of the team of staff at Kent County Council and in agencies across the county have been working for up to two years to put in place all the arrangements required to host the world’s largest annual sporting event.

For the past nine months, the council’s Tour de France project manager, Amanda Lumley, has been helping to bring together all the organisations involved in delivering this major sporting spectacular in Kent and London to ensure that all their plans and arrangements are co-ordinated. And her research has included walking much of the 126-mile Tour route through Kent.

"It has been a highly complex but incredibly exciting challenge," said Mrs Lumley. "The core team of staff on this project have been fantastic and have worked beyond the call of duty to deliver this event to the highest standards.

"I have lost count of the hundreds of hours we have spent in meetings and the thousands of e-mails that have been sent and received.

"What I will take away from this experience is the tremendous enthusiasm that has greeted me right across the board and the determination everyone has shown to make sure that Kent not only hosts the Tour but that the county hosts the Tour spectacularly well."

Kent County Council has been working with Transport for London; Amaury Sport Organisation – the Tour owners; SEEDA – the regional development agency; the eight borough and district councils along the route and their parish councils; cycling clubs; community groups and organisations staging events; Kent police and the emergency services; the NHS; the Highways Agency; Kent schools; Kent Adult Social Services; Kent Tourism, Kent Tourism Alliance, cross-Channel ferry services; bus companies; Southeastern train services and more.

"It has been a case of making lots of special preparations for the big day and, at the same time, ensuring that as far as possible it is business as usual across the county," she added.

Kent police will be mobilising more officers and staff than for any event in the county in the force’s 150-year history.

At least 1,700 people will be providing Kent police motorcycle escorts around the Tour caravan and competitors, patrolling the route and ensuring full capacity for normal police services across the county, as well as establishing a network of support teams for specific areas which will be temporarily landlocked. Maintaining normal service as well as supporting the Tour has been the aim of Kent Fire and Rescue service which will have all its crews and fire stations fully operational. Ambulance teams have been working with local doctors, the NHS services and St John Ambulance to ensure first aid and medical services along the route and across the rest of the county.

"But it is not just the logistics that have been important," said Mrs Lumley. "The aim of Kent County Council in bidding for the Tour, and the funding support we have received from the regional development agency and the European Union, is to generate wider benefits for the whole of county.

"We have been working in Kent schools to promote activities about the benefits of cycling for both a sustainable life style and fitness and we have launched our Go Cycle Kent campaign with all the information and details of special events for people of all ages and abilities to get out and about on our bikes.

"And we are positioning Kent in the tourism market not only as an excellent cycling destination in its own right but also as part of a wider cross-Channel initiative for two-centre holidays taking in Kent and the Nord Pas de Calais."