New late night highspeed service to Deal

At last nights 4th Kent Rail Summit it was announced that from September there will be a new late night highspeed service to Deal. The extra extended late night highspeed Southeastern service to Deal, Sandwich and Ramsgate will leave London St Pancras International at 23.12.


The extended, late night highspeed service from London St Pancras to Deal, will be welcomed by those working late or enjoying a night out in London.


Bryan Sweetland, Kent County Council Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways and Waste, who chaired the 4th Kent Rail Summit, at County Hall, Maidstone, said:


"The launch of late night high speed services to East Kent is great news for the area, providing a further boost to business. It will significantly benefit tourism, building on the tremendous success of the Turner Centre and resulting increase in visitor numbers."

Demand secures permanent highspeed services to Deal & Sandwich

Kent County Council has confirmed it will continue subsidising Southeastern highspeed services to Deal & Sandwich for the next two years until the current franchise expires in 2014, then a new franchise should secure an all day service. The number of commuters using the service has soared and overall trips to and from Deal have increased 30% since September when the service was introduced.

KCC cabinet member for transport Cllr Bryan Sweetland said the number of season ticket holders using the high speed link in the East Kent towns had grown dramatically and this was expected to increase even more. He said “We’ve seen passenger numbers rise from a dozen to over 100 and that’s going to grow to a couple of hundred, the initial driver for us to subsidise the service was to support the regeneration in light of the Pfizer withdrawal. Confidence is growing and we took the decision to continue. I’ve been working with campaign group Trains4Deal and there are few things we need to tweak with the service.”

The subsidy will be reduced from last year due to the increase in season ticket holders using the daily fast link, which has three trains in the morning and two returning from St Pancras in the evening.

On Thursday 19th April BBC Radio Kent were live at "Platform 1" Deal station’s brand new café speaking about the importance of the service for Deal and how more highspeed trains are now required during the day. A clip from the show can be listened to below.

Deal train station signage

I have had communication from Southeastern regarding Deal train station signage which they maintain. They agree it is in a very poor state and have informed me that I should notice an improvement soon.

Let's hope so as it does look a real eyesore!

UPDATE 

So far nothing has been done, so here is the latest communication received from Southeastern on 1st June 2012:

I am sorry to hear you are very unhappy with the state of the station sign at Deal.

We do try to ensure that our stations are maintained regularly. However, it is clear from your comments that more needs to be done to address the issue you have raised, and I am sorry that we have failed to address the problem you discovered.

I have brought your comments to the attention of the Station Manager, Paul Harris. Mr Harris will ensure that this issue is addressed as promptly as possible.

Once again, please accept my apologies for the poor state of the station sign at Deal station. I hope that you will notice an improvement soon.


Yours sincerely

Pauline Owen

Customer Relations Officer
Southeastern