News

.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser

5 April 2007

 

On Tuesday I came close to being chucked out of Waterloo Station but (party politics aside) I was in good company, being flanked by two Tory MPs, the Leader of Ashford District Council and Kent’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration.

We had gathered together to signal cross-party support for our campaign to stop Eurstar’s proposals to drastically cut back their services to the Continent from East Kent’s international station at Ashford and to hand in our 8,000 strong petition the company. But Eurostar’s Chief Executive wouldn’t meet us and the company refused to allow the camera crews onto Waterloo Station – “it’s private property” we were told.

This growing row has been caused by Eurostar’s plans to slash international services from Ashford when the new station at Ebbsfleet is opened later this year but there is growing opposition from East Kent, Sussex and the whole of the south coast area to these cuts.

Eurostar has never shown much enthusiasm for Ashford International and although it cost £100 million and a large lump of government funding to build the station, the company has done little to promote services from this important East Kent growth area during its eleven years operation.

Now they are saying that two thirds of us who have been travelling from Ashford, will happily divert to Ebbsfleet but can you imagine anyone travelling from Dover all the way to the outskirts of London in order to catch a train back to the Channel Tunnel ? I think not, and let’s not forget that there’s no easy way to access Ebbsfleet by public transport and the local road network is already badly overloaded. Anyway, aren’t we trying to discourage unnecessary car mileage.

According to Eurostar’s website link, the fastest train journey to Ebbsfleet from Dover Priory is nearly two hours and it entails changing trains at Gillingham and walking from Gravesend to Ebbsfleet.

You could try taking the train from Dover to Waterloo East and then crossing over to Waterloo but after November 14th that international station will be closed and all London departures will be from St Pancras which has no rail connections from East Kent.

So why are my constituents and so many other people on the south coast being put to so much inconvenience. Well, Eurostar say that stopping at Ashford would add too much time to the overall journey - but according to Railfuture International, Ashford stops would add no more than 7 minutes to the two and a quarter hours journey to Paris.

But it’s more than a question of individual journeys it’s the importance of Ashford International as a vehicle of economic regeneration for all of East Kent and the damaging signal that Eurostar's proposals are sending out.

As well as raising these issues with Ministers, I will be questioning the consultation process that led to making St Pancras and Ebbsfleet the new international stations because, had Kent known that these decisions would have led to the virtual abandonment of Ashford International, our input would have been a lot different.