Decision letter from ORR regarding access to Temple Mills International (TMI) depot
| Section | Depot access applications and decisions |
Head Office: 25 Cabot Square, London E14 4QZ T: 020 7282 2000 orr.gov.uk
Stephanie Tobyn
Director, Strategy, Policy & Reform
30 October 2025
Antonio Urda
Project Director
Evolyn
Mobility Limited
Calle Serrano 112
28006 Madrid
Spain
Phil Whittingham
VTE Holdings Limited
Whitfield Studios
50A Charlotte St
London W1T 2NS
Adrian Quine
Chief Executive Officer
Gemini TOC Limited
3rd Floor
Great Titchfield House
London W1W 8BD
Gareth Williams
General Secretary
Eurostar International Limited
6th Floor, Kings Place
90 York Way
London N1 9AG
Marco Caposciutti
CEO and General Director
Trenitalia France
SAS
185 Rue de Bercy
75012 Paris
France
Dear applicants and Eurostar,
Applications for access to Temple Mills International Depot (TMI)
1. We have carefully considered four applications requesting access to TMI. We have
also carefully considered submissions provided by the facility owner, Eurostar
International Limited (EIL), concerning its planned use of TMI. The applications were
made by Evolyn Mobility Limited (Evolyn), Virgin Trains Europe Holdings Limited
(VTE), Gemini TOC Limited (Gemini) and Trenitalia France SAS (Trenitalia) and were
submitted to us under section 17 of the Railways Act 1993 (the Act) between August
2024 and March 2025.
2. We have decided to approve the application from VTE on the basis that capacity at TMI
is sufficient to accommodate the maintenance services VTE has applied to access and
it has the strongest prospects of making best use of the capacity at TMI. We have
rejected the applications from Evolyn, Gemini and Trenitalia on the basis that there is
insufficient capacity at TMI to accommodate them in addition to VTE (and EIL’s own
current use).
3. ORR’s decision to approve the application from VTE will support VTE’s plan to provide
passengers with significant additional opportunities for direct rail travel from London to
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Paris, Brussels and – later – Amsterdam. VTE plans to carry six million passengers a
year, invest £700 million in its project, and create 400 new jobs in the UK.
4. This decision builds on our conclusion of 5 June 2025, following a robust independent
study, that capacity is available at TMI. We also concluded that the capacity identified
was unlikely to be sufficient to accommodate all of the aspirations for its use articulated
by applicants and by EIL, a conclusion that has been borne out by the extensive
evidence we have considered since.
5. We are required to decide access applications in accordance with our duties under
section 4 of the Act, and we have placed particular weight on our duties to promote
competition and the use of the railway network. We considered that meeting these
duties would be best achieved by approving the proposal for use of TMI that best
combined a high level of intended benefits with a high degree of confidence in delivery.
6. We have approved VTE’s application because we consider it offers higher potential
benefits than Trenitalia’s application or EIL’s proposals and because we have a higher
confidence of its ability to start operations promptly than we do in Gemini or Evolyn’s
applications.
7. As a result of our decision, VTE can now be confident of access to the light
maintenance facilities it needs to deliver its planned operation. We now expect VTE
and the facility owner, EIL, to work constructively on the detailed terms of access so
that ORR can direct the formal contract promptly.
8. This decision represents an important step in VTE’s plans to provide international
services. Before VTE’s international services can start, it will now need to go through
significant further stages, including working with infrastructure managers to secure
track access based on specific service plans, procuring rolling stock and obtaining
necessary safety approvals.
9. We recognise that by allocating scarce capacity to VTE, this decision will be
disappointing for EIL and the other applicants. That is why we welcome the Department
for Transport’s consideration of potential interventions to facilitate additional light
maintenance capacity for international trains.
10. This letter sets out the reasons for our decision. The Annex provides further detail of
the background to the applications, the process we have followed and the findings of
our analysis.
Summary of our assessment against our policy:
Availability of capacity:
11. We have not received any submissions or representations that have caused us to
change our view (based on the IPEX report commissioned by ORR) that capacity
exists at TMI that can be made available for more extensive use. While applicants’
plans for maintaining their trains are currently at different levels of detail and there are
concerns about some of them, our independent analysis confirms the amount of
capacity they are individually seeking fits within the quantum identified by IPEX in each
case. Our analysis also emphasises that none of the applicants’ planned use of TMI
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