Anyone waiting on a platform at Ashford station can behold the Eurostar trains that whoosh along overhead, about two in every daylight hour. It is sad to see that none of them take the Spurs line down to the Ashford international platforms 3 or 4, where millions of pounds of public money has been spent installing new signalling and altering the platform height for the EU trains.
In fact, more than 57,000 people have signed a petition to Eurostar to restart its service from Kent stations, but Eurostar has thus far been unresponsive. We are not asking for every Eurostar train to stop in Kent. Once a day in each direction, plus the special trains for Disneyland Paris and ski holidays, would be a good start. But it seems Eurostar is not open to persuasion from this side of the Channel. Its owners (majority stakeholders are the state rail companies of France and Belgium) are expanding services on the continent rather than resuming services in Kent.
Meanwhile Eurostar services to and from St Pancras are back to capacity. The waiting room is crammed with waiting passengers, and as one crowd files up the escalator to a train, the room fills again with passengers for the next train. In preparation for new EU border checks, new smart machines have been installed. As the queues for these require more space, a request for tenders has been issued to redesign part of the station. Yet Eurostar and HS1 do not seem to have counted how many of those passengers in the crowded waiting room have had to travel up from Kent.
Ashford International: a question of fairness and resilience
The contract between HS1 and Eurostar is renewed every four years. HS1 which holds the long-term contract for the HS1 rail line and stations agrees to offer a stipulated number of slots to the train operator (Eurostar), with various conditions attached. One of these states that the train operator (Eurostar) can by-pass Ashford Spurs. There would be much to gained by deleting this condition from the new contract before the new minister ratifies it with her signature (or allows the Office of Rail and Road regulation to do so on her behalf).
It does not cost the government anything to remove the condition, but it removes the right of Eurostar to litigate on this. There are other train operators that have expressed interest in running cross-channel trains. This would be an opportunity for the government to insist that any contract with them should stipulate some services from the Kent stations. But it would be unfair, and inimical to the ‘level playing field’ preferred by competitive investment, if Eurostar could avoid this requirement shielded by the four-year contract about to be signed.
There is a further important argument about resilience for retaining cross-channel facilities at Ashford station. On 30 Dec, 2023, thousands of Eurostar passengers were stranded because of a flooded track near Stratford. The cancellation of many cross-channel trains would not have been necessary if Eurostar trains could have terminated or started at Ashford where there are three options for further connections to and from London.
A direct and secure connection to the Continent
So this is of interest not just to Kent passengers but to all users of the train to protect them from further similar disruption. But while the facilities are unused, possibly falling out of maintenance, and drivers no longer required to have the route knowledge of the Spurs, this is an opportunity for resilience which is being missed.
Help us to persuade Louise Haigh, the new secretary of state for transport, to change the contract she is about to sign so that Ashford International has a chance of coming to life again! Please sign this petition urgently (before 16 August), then share and forward it to as many people as possible https://chng.it/Vbm9JRDVNd
