Thanet Parkway Station project awarded £14million government funding – with cost projected to reach £27.7 million

Thanet Parkway Station

Plans for the Thanet Parkway Station at Cliffsend have been awarded £14million of Local Growth Fund cash via the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP).

At its April Accountability Board meeting held on Friday (April 12), SELEP agreed the funding towards the station subject to confirmation that the project’s cost will not exceed the new agreed budget of £27.7million and that the rest of the funding required has been secured.

Upgrades needed to a level crossing at Cliffsend are still being investigated. Once the next stage of the project design work has been completed  the total cost will be confirmed.

The original estimated cost of the project was £11.2 million.

A planning application for the station  was submitted in June last year. It will be built off the Hengist Way, on the existing Ashford to Ramsgate rail line near the Sevenscore roundabout. It will be a two platform station with the entrance on the north side. There will be a 300 space car park, platforms accessible by stairs, lift and pedestrian bridge.

Waiting shelters, CCTV and passenger information points will be provided on each platform along with ticket machines and a help point to provide remote assistance by intercom.

The station is designed to be unstaffed and managed remotely through the use of CCTV and intercom.

The report to the board stated the new station will reduce journey times between Thanet and central London to an hour, improving the attractiveness of the area to businesses and increasing the employment catchment area for local residents. The report added that it will also provide better links with High Speed 1 services, improving access to employment in Canterbury, Ashford and the rest of Kent.

However a statement from the Department for Transport, in response to a Freedom of Information request by former councillor Ian Driver,last year said the proposal would shave just one minute off of journey times from Ramsgate and Margate.

KCC estimates the project will lead to the creation of 400 to 800 jobs over a 30-year period from the station’s projected opening in 2021, as well as the development of additional homes over the same period.

Christian Brodie, Chair of SELEP, said: “East Kent suffers from higher levels of deprivation when compared with South East England as a whole, with Thanet being ranked as the most deprived local authority in the county.

“Poor accessibility is a key factor that has discouraged major employers from locating in the area, which has served to undermine the pace of regeneration.

“The improved transport links a new Thanet Parkway station will bring will make the area more attractive to employers and will help attract a more highly skilled workforce, in turn supporting the regeneration of the area.”

The total cost of the project is due to be met by contributions from Kent County Council of up to £10.95million, Thanet council, which agreed a contribution of £2million and the East Kent Spatial Development Company (£700,000).

The board also agreed to write to the Department for Transport asking for it to urgently order additional Javelin trains to meet the high demand for HS1 services.

A Kent County Council spokesman said: “KCC welcomes SELEP’s further endorsement of this vital infrastructure project. Supporting the economic growth of East Kent is a priority for the county council and this funding will help deliver that growth. A planning application for the new station will go before the planning committee at KCC in due course.”

22 Comments

  1. Waste of money, no time saved, no staff, no proper security, it should be in a zoo given it’s a white elephant!!

  2. KCC can spend plenty of money on a project that is not needed yet cannot spend a few £1000 to keep our local buses going, we as residents should be up in arms about this but we seem to sit back and accept it, mind you when a few of us do protest and attend consultations it still makes no difference. Any ideas?

  3. This is near to the amount the government wanted to spend on Seaborne Ferries. And I thought there was no magic money tree? My journey to London from Ramsgate is an easy one I don’t need one minute shaved off it and anyway it will be longer as first I need to get to Parkway as opposed to getting the Loop to Ramsgate station

  4. This is awful. There is no need for a new station. The existing stations should be improved and money spent on things local residents really need. This whole thing is a farce. Ramsgate and Minster stations are already here. Who on earth dreamt up this absurd and damaging idea? And why?

  5. Not that anyone will take notice but let us some up this proposal:
    1. It has taken over 8 years to get to this stage. In China miles of high speed railway route miles have been built.
    2.It costs twice its original cost and as yet not all the costs have been ascertained, even after 8 years.
    3.It will be unmanned.
    4. It will save at best 2/3 minutes in the journey time to London.
    5. It was originally designed for 400 cars and not 300.
    6.Access by other modes of transport are limited at best or almost non existent.
    7. Access by road uses Hengist way, which is an accident black spot and source of some congestion. Users will have to negotiate 7 score roundabout or the Lord of the Manor junction.
    8. No one is prepared to state whether the car park will be free or on a standard rail tariff.
    9. No one has explained exactly what it is supposed to achieve and instead reports to the funding bodies mislead and overstate any benefits.
    10. Refusing the £28m + is regarded as more of a danger to the Thanet economy than accepting it, but this fails to take into account donor fatigue where SELEP etc, think that they have solved Thanet’s problems, when of course this is not so.
    TDC,KCC,the DFT and SELEP obviously all like jumping off a cliff.I wonderr who will take the blame if it goes wrong?

  6. The journey tine between Thanet and London will not be cut to less than an hour by introducing a new station. For people using Ramsgate, Broadstairs or Margate, the journey will be longer.
    Journey times will only be improved by upgrading the track and signalling between Thanet and Ashford.
    This is a complete waste of £27,000,000 – and it’s bound to go up.

  7. Looks like a good idea. Most People commenting will be dead in the next 20-30 years so they won’t need to worry good to see links this size being made money needs to be spent to be made. Simple economics oh and ofcourse it will be quicker as it is closer..

  8. Like all the TDC plans, they (TDC) actually believe what they do is all good for the local people but in reality they have not thought through the big picture, like infrastructure, I don’t believe they have a clue. I just wonder who actually benefits from these money pit ideas. To try and get to this new station, unless one lives in the immediate area, will be a nightmare. To save at least a minute or two to get to London, at cost of 27million appears just a little excessive. And of course as the station is closer to London than Ramsgate I suppose it could save at least a minute in getting to London. If TDC have money to spare then what about try using that money to improve local services. No chance on that as that wouldn’t give various councilors credence for their own existence. I know TDC/KCC take no notice of TDC residents thoughts or their wishes especially if they believe glory credits are to be made ie “oh look what we have achieved” And when the white elephant is achieved then those same people, if they are still with TDC/KCC, will simply divorce themselves from that project. No doubt TDC/KCC will keep wasting our money. Melvyn

  9. this seems to be government support for the creation of the unique transport hub with rail, sea, road and air transport which will all be available together to make Thanet one of the best link sites in Europe.
    We may even finally become a tax free zone!!!
    It will create jobs and opportunities to regenerate the region.
    Lower rates for everyone and increased property values for those already living here.
    What a wonderful forecast if the local politicians don’t go anmd screw it up as they usually do.

  10. 27.7 million for a station that very few people want & isn’t needed. And KCC are prepared to provide nearly 11 million of this while slashing local bus services to save 360k. Totally wrong priorities!

  11. I live in Cliffsend. My worry is that the village will become a car park for those who don’t want to pay for parking if it is not free.

  12. How about putting that money to improving the high speed look between Thanet and Ashford. Then we could see times cut to just over an hour

  13. What a complete and utter waste of money. It won’t save any time whatsoever, in real terms. The difference in time is achieved by the few seconds it will take from Ramsgate to the new station and for the fact that it will stop at Stratford and not St. Pancreas. Upgrade the line by all means but for Pete’s sake, someone grab a sense of reality!!!

  14. I’ve yet to meet anybody in Thanet who agrees with the station. We have 7 stations in Thanet doesn’t matter where you stand you’re never more than a mile away so why do we need another we just need to bring the main stations up to standard not throw even more money away rubbish idea. If Manston was ever to come back and link to that for goods instead of all by road might be an idea worth thinking about and we have to get Manston back for that other than that we do not need another station. Spend the money on jetty and put the lifeboat back in Margate where it can launch in 10 minutes.

  15. So much for local democracy, no one on the TDC Tory Council listens, so don’t vote for these idiots at the elections on may 2nd!

  16. The only positive thing to say really is that there will be more parking next to the new station. It is really difficult to get parked in the Ramsgate station car park and most of Station Approach Road and surrounding roads are full too.

    • Additional parking could be provided close to Minster Station! It may mean losing a bit of farmland, but that’s nothing to the cost, and land needed to build a new station no one wants, or needs!

  17. I think this is likely to lead to the eventual closure of the existing Ramsgate station, is less accessible, and money would be better spent by upgrading the line from Thanet to Ashford to improve journey times and providing more coaches on every train. Trains are getting ever busier and people are having to stand from Ashford and sometimes Canterbury OFF-PEAK because trains are too short. Who would benefit from this station except the profit-hungry developers?

  18. Ramsgate station is not less accessible for most Ramsgate residents!

    The Loop bus doesn’t go anywhere near this proposed new station. I don’t suppose anyone will be surprised by this fact.

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