Kent to Central London in 17 Minutes - High Speed Trains Bring Business

Traveling at speeds up to 140mph and slashing journey times by more than half, Britain’s only domestic high-speed rail service has little time to celebrate the achievements of the past year. But as England marked its coldest December for over a century, Southeastern's High Speed service hurtled by its first anniversary, despite the snowdrifts that disrupted conventional trains.

One year on from its launch, 7.2 million journeys have been made on the service and with London St. Pancras a mere 17 minutes away from Kent’s Ebbsfleet International station and just 37 minutes from Ashford, it’s not hard to see why. Positioned between the markets of London and Europe, Kent is the closest UK location to continental Europe, which can be reached in 35mins via Eurotunnel’s car and freight shuttles.

Mandy Bearne, Director of Research and Marketing at Kent and Medway’s investment promotion agency, Locate in Kent, commented: “High Speed 1 has increased Kent’s competitive edge for businesses looking to relocate to an area where they can find a highly skilled workforce, along with a very high standard of living, unrivalled communication infrastructure and with prices that are up to 60% lower than in London.”

Easy access to the continent via Eurotunnel and Eurostar over the last 14 years has attracted new companies and helped build on local successes. With Locate in Kent’s support, SBE, a French company repairing mobile phones and other electronic equipment, set up a new operation in Ashford in 1997 with 5 staff. Fast forward to 2011 and SBE now employs around 900 in the town, making it one of Ashford’s biggest employers.

Mandy commented: “We knew that high speed domestic services were going to be at least as attractive to investors as the continental service. So in 2004, 5 years before the new service was due to start, we made them a major part of our marketing strategy to attract investors. Connections into and within Kent were already good by road thanks to several motorway completions and improvements over the previous 20 years. Train services, however, except in West Kent, were slow, uncomfortable and old-fashioned. High speed rail was the last link in the chain and enabled us to promote Kent as an edge of London location, perfectly positioned between London and the continent”.

From Ashford, at least 200,000 passengers are now travelling by high-speed train every week – a figure which represents 66% of all journeys from the town to London. From Canterbury the share of all journeys is 67%, Folkestone 66%, Dover Priory 64%, Ramsgate 55% and Strood 41%, illustrating that this is not just a service for Ashford and Ebbsfleet. Indeed, the services carry over half a million passengers every month and this figure is still rising, with some peak-hour services already running at around 90% of total capacity.

The benefit to the local economy has been significant, with London-based firms now choosing Kent as an affordable and attractive location for expansion or relocation. Locate in Kent figures show that company and investor interest in Ashford has grown since the arrival of high-speed domestic rail services. The agency’s 2010 Perception Study showed growing knowledge of high-speed services from Ashford and Ebbsfleet, and 88% of respondents felt this made these areas more attractive business locations. Paul Stephen, whose design and marketing consultancy, Sagittarius Marketing, recently moved to Ashford, says his location choice was based on Ashford’s ‘incredible road and rail connectivity’, adding that the high-speed link meant his company could now service London-based clients ‘with ease’.

Another local success story comes from design and construction specialist, Directline Structures, who decided to relocate to Ashford, where the company has built its own headquarters and b enefited from the excellent communication links. The decision was strongly influenced by the town’s ‘fantastic new high-speed rail services’, says managing director Duncan Murray.

HS1 has also attracted a steady flow of London property buyers keen to take advantage of Ashford’s attractive house prices, which are 10% cheaper than the South East average and 28% lower than in London. “The opening of HS1 had immediate benefits for the property market in and around Ashford,” says Alex Davies, Director of Hobbs Parker Country Houses. And research shows that although these new residents may start by commuting, they eventually look for and find a job locally, bringing everything full circle and providing an even larger workforce for the companies that move there.

For further information about business in Kent, visit our Locate in Kent pages.