Bringing back international train services to Ashford could be worth half a billion

KentOnline / KMTV

The Good Growth Foundation says returning services would be worth 2.7 billion over the next five years.  Local Democracy Reporter Ollie Leader reports.

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00:00the familiar sound of the UK's only continental rail service speeding

00:09non-stop through Ashford one that's as noisy as it is costly we found quite

00:17modestly quite conservatively in our analysis that if you reopen the services

00:20here it could bring as much as 2.7 billion pounds in economic benefit over

00:24five years to the region that's opportunity that's jobs that's money

00:28being spent in local businesses we're calling on the government to make it

00:31happen it's hard to imagine that this room where I stood right now the terminal

00:35at Ashford International was once the gateway to Europe it's currently vacant

00:40plastic adorns the seats Disney paraphernalia is here for families that

00:46no longer pass through cafes give coffee to no one this space along with all the

00:53other infrastructure for international travel here at Ashford cost around

00:5880 million pounds there's hope now that it could come back the Department of

01:05Transport is in full support of opening these stations in Kent yes there are

01:12capacity issues but we need to make sure any additional capacity that is

01:20available should be given to those operators who are willing to stop in

01:25Ashford and Epps fleet and not having a competition and having a monopoly for one

01:33provider the Good Growth Foundation is openly progressive his founder being a

01:39former Labour candidate but its findings align with what other organizations and

01:44politicians of all persuasions have been saying for years Ashford has been losing out

01:50since it closed but not just Ashford the wider areas have been losing out Kent has been losing

01:56out we are the gateway to Europe one of those gates has been firmly closed for the last five

02:03years we need to get it reopened and whatever way we do that we need to do it we need to do it fast in a

02:10statement Eurostar told us that their Kent stations will remain closed with a review in

02:172026 but with other operators interested in bringing services back within the next

02:23decade there may still be hope that the hundreds of millions of pounds of missed

02:28opportunities that this terminal represents to many here could return

02:33sooner rather than later Ollie leader in Ashford

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