EUROSTAR is facing fresh calls to rethink its plans to cut services from Ashford International after reporting record numbers of passengers and ticket sales.

It attracted thousands more travellers last year. Ticket sales topped half-a-billion pounds for the first time, rising by nearly 12 per cent to £518.3million.

Around 7.9million people used the service, up 5.4 per cent on 2005, with the largest increase in business travel.

However, the rise in numbers travelling to and from Ashford International remained the same, said a Eurostar spokesman.

According to the company, an estimated 1,000 business customers a week have now switched permanently from flying to the high-speed link.

But the company’s good results prompted calls for Eurostar to draw back from its plans to axe the number of daily services running to Paris and to end its direct service to Brussels.

Damian Green, MP for Ashford, said: "If Eurostar is being successful, it seems shortsighted and rather perverse to turn its back on a significant number of their potential customers who live in Kent and beyond.

"If passenger numbers are growing, then I assume they are growing from Ashford and it strengthens the argument that now is not the right time to be thinking of downgrading services."

A company spokesman confirmed Eurostar would not be rethinking its plans.

He added: "The increase at Ashford is in line with our increase overall. But the answer [about reviewing Ashford] is no. When Ebbsfleet does open, we believe that there will be a switch of passengers.

"Our research was based on looking at what would happen at that point – we still believe that two-thirds of passengers will move away from Ashford to Ebbsfleet."

Eurostar said the cancellation of flights because of bad weather before Christmas had given the company a further fillip.

It was also boosted by the publicity for the release of The Da Vinci Code and its commercial partnership with the film.