What will Forest City construction mean for the people living nearby?

Thirty years of building is a serious undertaking, and we won't pretend otherwise. But the sequencing matters.

Infrastructure comes first—rail links, roads, and utilities are built before the homes, which means construction materials increasingly move by rail rather than by lorry through villages. Construction traffic will be routed on dedicated haul roads away from existing villages and the A1307.

This said, the construction years are also the opportunity years. Building the city needs tens of thousands of people—surveyors, ecologists, electricians, planners, teachers. For the towns and villages nearby, the disruption will come along with jobs, investment, and the arrival of the station and hospital.