APPENDIX 47
Memorandum submitted by the Eurostar Group
Ltd
I understand that Brian Cooke, Chairman, London
Travel Watch, has written to you expressing views about the opening
of Stratford International Station, in reply to your letter of
27 October 2005.
In his letter to you he quotes from notes of
a meeting between myself and Mark Woodbridge and Tunde Olatunji
of the Rail Passengers Council. This meeting was about a whole
range of subjects, and only briefly touched on the opening of
Stratford International Station.
Whilst the notes of the meeting were of course
accurate, the meeting did not include anything like an exhaustive
review of the issues involved.
Three further issues which affect the potential
opening timescale for Stratford International Station, which Brian
Cooke may or may not have mentioned are as follows:
RDO Services. These are not now due to commence
before December 2009 at the earliest. The RDO services have always
been expected to provide the bulk of the service at Stratford,
in terms of both passenger volumes and frequency of stopping trains.
A significant proportion of the user base for the station will
not therefore exist until after 2009.
The Stratford City development is expected to
form a significant part of the eventual user base for Stratford
International. As already noted construction work for this development
will be underway in 2007, particularly around Stratford International
station itself, but there will be no occupants for several years,
reducing demand for the station in the early years.
Without the RDO services Eurostar will have
to bear the full costs of operating the station on its own, making
it more difficult to produce a commercial case for early opening
of the station.
As you can see the issue of the availability
or not of a fixed link between the International and Domestic
stations at Stratford is therefore only one of a number of issues
impacting on the decision of when to open the new station.
14 November 2005
| 
