TfL engineering project managers Jennie Ward and Eddie O’Connor, who oversaw the work at Kentish Town

TONS of concrete were in danger of collapsing on passengers at Kentish Town Tube station – and it meant that a seemingly straightforward job replacing escalators spun into a massive, £12m project that lasted nearly two years.

Next week, the stop will finally reopen – bringing a pre-Christmas boost to shops and travellers.

The New Journal was tipped off by insiders that TfL would meet their promise to open before Christmas and this week builders were pouring over the station to get the finishing touches completed before opening on Monday morning.

Transport for London have faced stinging criticism from frustrated travellers, shops and the Town Hall for delays – TfL first set a summer deadline – but engineers say a mix of complicated Edwardian design and a rare opportunity of a fully closed station made the job much bigger than was originally intended.

The failing floors were discovered as engineers set to work replacing a set of escalators that were the most unreliable on the Tube.

Project manager Jennie Ward told the New Journal: “It is down to the age and use of the machines. They run 23 hours a day, 364 days a year. The conditions of this set were terrible. They were the worst performing escalators on the entire network.”

The escalators had previously been replaced in the 1990s but had faced numerous breakdowns and failures in recent years. It meant it was time to future-proof the station.

Ms Ward said: “We looked at whether we could keep the station open and do one escalator at a time. But the space is small and it would not have been safe for passengers. “There was just not the room to put hoardings up. It’s such a tight space, it was not physically possible.

“When we knew we had no choice but to shut the station for a year, it was a case of looking at what else we could do while there were no passengers. The entrance to Kentish Town was very bottlenecked, so this was a chance to expand it and add extra gates. We wanted to demolish the former ticket office to make more room upstairs.”

With just four gates for the Tube and Thameslink station, extra space would be welcome and the defunct ticket room was available.

But as builders took down the ticket office wall, they found concrete laid in 1907 had failed.

She said: “As soon as we removed the ticket hall you could see beyond the false ceiling, and it was clear there were issues with the concrete plate. The concrete’s lifetime had expired and it was very much degraded.”

It meant as well as removing and replacing escalators, engineers had to cut away failing concrete floors and then relay load bearing slabs.

Ms Ward said: “The work will make the station more energy efficient and greener, easier to use. We don’t close stations without good reason and are sorry the work took this long, but it needed to be done and passengers will notice the benefits.”

Party for return of Northern line trains

A BARBER shop in Kentish Town is hosting an all-day party for residents and local businesses to celebrate the tube station reopening, writes Frankie Lister-Fell.

After closing for over a year for refurbishment, Kentish Town Tube is set to open on December 23.

To celebrate after a difficult year in business, Michael Vasili, owner of George’s Barbering Room, will be giving out mince pies and drinks on Monday from 9am to 7pm if the underground reopens.

Mr Vasili told the New Journal: “It has affected us a little bit. We don’t have the passing trade of people walking up and down Kentish Town Road from the station. The footfall on the high street has been affected but hopefully we’ll get back to normal soon.

“I think Sainsbury’s, Pret and the restaurants have all been affected a lot. The coffee shop next to the Assembly, Saint Espresso, closed down. I think they weren’t getting enough customers in.”

The station was due to open in June, but has been pushed back due to the discovery of cracks and degraded concrete.

Mr Vasili added: “People feel like they’ve been lied to and haven’t been given enough information online. If it opens it opens, we’re not going to reply on it. There’s been too many delays.”