THE final stage of the Folkestone to London Channel Tunnel Rail Link is to open to rail passengers in a year's time - some 14 years after the high-speed line opened in France.

The announcement was made at a press conference in London on Tuesday.

Representatives of London and Continental Railways, Eurostar and St Pancras International, revealed St Pancras would open on November 14, 2007, and Ebbsfleet, between Dartford and Gravesend, would open its doors within a few days of that date.

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link has been re-named High Speed One, and rail bosses have pledged a 45 per cent increase in the number of services passing through Kent.

St Pancras will have the highest number of tube connections – six lines – of any station in London.

Ebbsfleet will have a minimum of seven Paris and five Brussels trains a day.

Ashford will have "a good level of service" to Paris, including a new stop for connections across Europe at Charles de Gaulle international airport, said Richard Brown, of Eurostar Group.