Press release
Southeastern trains announces £10 Portas Pilot ticket for Margate
Southeastern has today announced a special £10 return ticket offer for travel from London to Margate during the winter months. The special deal is in support of the Portas Pilot initiative for Margate led by retail and marketing expert, Mary Portas. It is hoped the special fare will help boost visitor numbers to the town.
Southeastern’s managing director, Charles Horton said: 'Margate is one of Mary Portas’ Pilot Towns and Southeastern is pleased to support the initiative. Since we launched the high speed service in 2009, we’ve seen passenger numbers from London to Margate increase by around 60 percent. We’ve also seen a boost in numbers following the opening of Turner Contemporary and the town is very popular in the summer, but we see less passengers travelling in the winter months.
'I met with Mary Portas last week to share our enthusiasm for supporting the regeneration of Margate and we’re pleased to announce a special £10 return ticket deal. We’re calling it the ‘Portas Pilot’ ticket and we hope it will encourage more visitors to travel to Margate on the weekends during winter.'
Southeastern is also supporting the Portas Pilot re-launch of Margate, by offering the programme 500 free high speed tickets from London to Margate this coming weekend, 20 October 2012.
Mr Horton said: 'Mary Portas and her team have been doing a lot of work with local businesses in Margate and they’ll be holding a re-launch of the town this weekend. We’ve offered Mary 500 free tickets to support the event and we wish the local Margate Town Team the best of success.'
Mary Portas added: 'This promotion sums up the spirit of the Portas Pilots. Everyone playing their part to bring the buzz back to our town centres. Get on board and find out what all the fuss is about.'
- The £10 Portas Pilot ticket is less than a third of a regular off-peak day return from London to Margate (£31.10)
- The Portas Pilot ticket will be available from the first weekend in November and will run through to the end of February 2013.
- The ticket will be sold online only from the Southeastern website and is valid for travel on high speed, metro and mainline services from London to Margate, return.
- 500 Portas Pilot tickets will be available each weekend, sold on a first come, first served basis.
- Southeastern’s Kids for a Quid offer is also available to be used with this ticket, where children can travel with an adult for £1.00.
- Other great value offers are still available - such as the GroupSave ticket where four adults can travel together for the price of two (£15.55 pp).
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Although £5M was sliced off the £40M Expansion East Kent government fund to provide this so not such a terrific piece of activity.
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