RAIL travellers could be offered a fast regional express service linking Ashford with Brighton and Southampton under a radical transport blueprint published this week.

An independent report looking at ways of improving transport links along the south coast says the high-speed service is essential if travellers are to have a genuine alternative to using their car.

The link would see a service run direct from Ashford to Hastings, then stopping at St Leonards, Bexhill, Eastbourne and Lewes before reaching Brighton, reducing journey times by a third.

The report also calls for far more frequent services across the whole of east Kent to encourage more people to travel by rail and to ease the chronic congestion on the south east’s roads.

The South Coast Multi-Modal Study, which has taken more than a year to complete, was conducted by Government officials amid growing concern about the acute transport problems afflicting the south coast between Southampton and Margate.

It makes a range of recommendations for all kinds of transport services – the total cost of which would be more than £1 billion.

The report’s key rail recommendation calls for a half-hourly express between Ashford, Brighton and Southampton. It also adds that there must be far better and more frequent services between Margate, Ramsgate, Ashford, Canterbury, Dover, Folkestone and Ashford.

Specifically, it recommends:

Increasing the existing service from one to two trains each hour between Canterbury West and Ramsgate and between Dover and Ramsgate

Three trains per hour in each direction between Faversham and Dover

Four trains an hour between Dover and Ashford from October 2003

A new station serving Manston Airport in Thanet

Although the report’s findings are not binding, they will eventually have to be considered by Government transport ministers, who will decide if they should form part of the region’s future strategy.