Bring Eurostar Services Back to Ashford!
Hastings & Rye MP Helena Dollimore has joined a group of fellow-Labour South East region MPs campaigning to restore railway services to Europe from Ashford International station. Earlier this month she met the Rail Minister Baron Hendy for this purpose, and says that he told her he was working hard to make it happen.
Until 2020, Eurostar services between Paris and London called several times each day at the Kent station, which had huge public investment in previous decades to allow it to process international travellers and thereby generate increased passenger use through Kent and Sussex. Then a combination of Brexit and the Covid pandemic caused the Eurostar company to suspend stopping services both to Ashford and to Ebbsfleet on economic grounds, and it has shown no inclination to resume them.
There are, however, other train operators, including Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin and Evolyn, an international consortium of Spanish origin, who are showing an interest in competing along the route. The Department for Transport has stated that it would support measures to overcome issues preventing new operators accessing the line and securing space to store trains. And last week, London St Pancras Highspeed, which operates the track between London and Folkestone, announced that it has signed an agreement with Getlink, the owners of Eurotunnel, to target expanding rail connectivity with a range of new destinations in Germany, Switzerland and France.
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