THE Channel Tunnel Rail Link was hailed as a British success story at a VIP ceremony to mark the completion of civil engineering work.

Transport minister John Spellar joined dozens of guests in Mersham, near Ashford, to celebrate another milestone in the construction of the country's first main railway line for more than a century.

The first section, 48 miles between the tunnel and Fawkham Junction in North West Kent, has cost £1.9 billion and taken around four years to build. Work has already started on the £3.3bn shorter second section from Ebbsfleet, between Gravesend and Dartford, to St Pancras.

The new line runs alongside the M20 through east and mid Kent, including a short tunnel at Hollingbourne, before heading north across the Boxley Valley, through the North Downs Tunnel and across the Medway Viaduct alongside the M2.

THE MAYOR of Medway, Cllr Ted Baker, injected a critical note into an otherwise joyful ceremony. Cllr Baker said: "I quite like the idea [of the link] but I don't think it's going to give us anything long term.

"My concern is that Medway has got this bloody great scar going through it and until the grass grows up, we don't know what effect it's going to have."

He said he could not see "a single benefit" for Medway. It would have been different, he said, if the go-ahead had been given to a proposed Mid Kent Parkway station close to Blue Bell Hill.

This plan was turned down amid mounting opposition from environmental campaigners and some councillors.