Eurostar’s passenger numbers have long been back to where they were pre-Covid; despite them hiking their prices.
And this month the company was told, by the Office of Road and Rail (ORR), the amount it is being charged to use the high-speed rails should be reduced. Another boost to its bottom line.
Eurostar has been toying with the county for years now
So, isn’t it about time, given the positive headwinds it is experiencing, Eurostar finally starts operating services from the two international stations in Kent once again?
And not, as the company says, wait until 2026 – at the earliest?
Even the Prime Minister, this week, said he wanted to see Eurostar resume.
I’m sure there are related costs to reviving the services. So why don’t they leave their prices where they are and use that saving they have just been given by the ORR to get the two Kent stations back in action?
Ashford and Ebbsfleet were built specifically to cater for international travellers – tens of millions spent on glass-fronted transport hubs. Yet, for five years, they have remained servicing only domestic passengers.
Eurostar at Ashford International tends now only to be at pace rushing through. Picture: Rowan Clark
It is, surely, time for that period in the wilderness to come to an end. Eurostar owe us that much at least.
For the sake of an additional 10 minutes on the journey, it seems only fair.
Surely too, when the dreaded EU entry/exit system (finally) comes into force, it is better to spread passengers across St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford in order to reduce queues while we all face the Brexit-enforced hassle of having our fingerprints and pictures taken. They’ll be wanting a pint of our blood next.
Which is pretty much what Kent has shed for Eurostar over the years.
I’ve written before about how we embraced the company at first. How towns created commercial and marketing strategies around access to fast trains capable of linking the county to Paris, Brussels and all the other easily accessible routes it offered.
Ashford and Ebbsfleet international stations were designed for Eurostar…but they’ve been snubbed
More money spent – much of it at the taxpayer’s expense – in order to reap the long-term financial rewards Eurostar promised its service, which we facilitated, would bring.
I also highlighted the ludicrous nature of anyone in Kent having first to travel to London in order to catch a Eurostar service which would retrace much of their steps before reaching the Channel Tunnel.
It actually makes almost as much sense now to travel to Gatwick or Stansted and fly to Europe than the hassle of going by rail. Surely that goes against everything the greener train service was supposed to provide?
I fully appreciate Eurostar was hit extremely hard, financially, by the pandemic’s travel bans. So hard, in fact, at one stage there was a question mark as to whether it would survive.
But we’re not asking for new stations – simply the reactivation of established, purpose-built ones.
A rare sight in this day and age – a Eurostar service at Ebbsfleet…this was one of the very last to use the station
The smart money, of course, is that Eurostar will simply kick the can down the road, again, at some point this year – with a hint of services resuming at some date by the end of the decade. They must know what their future plans are.
If it does, it’s time to draw a line underneath this farcical situation and admit Eurostar has let us down. Badly.
If we continue to plead for its return any longer, it will all become rather undignified. And, frankly, if it has no plans to resume services, it should have the guts to bite the bullet and tell us.