Tunbridge Wells has a good rail service to London, well in theory it does. Trains every fifteen minutes to London and half-hourly to Hastings. And that is it. Travel by rail to anywhere else is a complete nightmare. A journey to Gatwick or to Maidstone involves a change at Tonbridge and the service to these two locations is hourly.
Ashford and points beyond - Canterbury, Dover etc is now a lot slower as all the trains between Tonbridge and Ashford stop at every station, whereas at one time some trains were non-stop and other stopped only at Paddock Wood and Staplehurst.
Brighton involves two or three changes and takes two hours.
There is a wide range of destinations by through bus services - Ashford, Chatham, Bromley, Crawley, Brighton and Eastbourne: but again these are slow.
In fact, apart from stations on the line between Hastings and London there is no incentive to travel by public transport. No wonder roads are clogged with cars and town centres suffer from traffic congestion.
The nation has spent millions on providing motorways to the ports and a high speed rail routes, but all are London centric. Virtually nothing has been done to improve services within Kent.
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