How the tube map maybe should be amended

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THE new Labour government has been urged to end the scandalous failure to upgrade Camden Town station after it was shut down this week following a serious structural collapse.

Passengers were locked out of the busy Northern line stop on Friday evening and then again for most of Monday.

The crumbling station is already considered not fit for purpose by many users due to its overcrowded ticket hall, escalators and platforms. Sir Keir Starmer’s government has now been urged to break a political deadlock which has held up a long overdue renovation.

The pricetag for a scheme unveiled in 2013 is at least £250million, but this week’s chaos once again highlighted the dangers of keeping the project in the long grass. Labour mayor Sadiq Khan and the outgoing Conservative government had a never-ending row over funding for Transport for London, but campaigners say a change of power must signal new priorities.

The stark issues at one of London’s busiest tourist locations was hardly discussed by any of the mayoral candidates at the City Hall elections earlier this year.

Leaky ceilings at crumbling Camden Town tube station

Union chiefs warned the delays to upgrading the station was the result of “bad political choices” to cut hundreds of millions of annual funding to Transport for London (TfL).

Tube sources told the New Journal this week that the station that “can’t cope with the footfall and is falling apart”, with one senior worker adding: “Something has got to be done. Keir Starmer knows all about this as our local MP. So is he going to finance it now he’s prime minister?”

Passengers have for years been frustrated by the disarray and face heavy queues to get-in during rush hour.

This week, people had to walk to Mornington Crescent in the rain where they faced queues to get on the Northern Line there.

On Monday morning a blocked gulley in the roof of the station caused water to pool in a ceiling above the station’s central control room, which then collapsed narrowly missing one underground worker.

The station was then shut down for safety reasons heaping misery on not only passengers but pubs and businesses who told the New Journal about a noticeable drop in trade.

Henry Conlon, landlord at the famous Dublin Castle music pub in Parkway, said that the “streets were noticeably quieter” due to Monday closure, adding: “We all noticed it – the restaurants too. Business was well down. It’s not as if you can go through Kentish Town, that’s closed too. It’s the perfect storm,.”

One London Underground insider said: “Leaking pipes caused the brickwork in the roof to go soft and collapse. It was around a staff area, part of the control room. The station is a shambles.”

They suggested the closure was the consequence of several years of neglect amid the stalemate over who would fund an upgrade.

Transport for London launched a consultation in 2017 about modernising the service by creating an entrance in nearby Buck Street on the former site of the former Hawley Infant School.

Plans for a new entrance in Buck Street were kicked into the long grass amid a funding row

There were also proposals to fix the way you get to the trains which often confuse new visitors deciphering how the Northern Line criss-crosses at Camden Town, and even to split the interchange into two distinctive routes.”

The scheme, which was said to have “overwhelming support” following the consultation process, laid out plans to triple the size of the current station. Back then, the aim was to start construction in 2020.

Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust, a former councillor at Camden Town Hall, told the New Journal: “The inescapable fact is Transport for London has been facing significant financial restrictions for years after the previous Tory government chose to scrap the city’s operating grant for public transport.

“The grant not only helped keep fares low but provided a bigger budget for maintaining the network – and would be worth around a billion pounds a year today.”

She added: “Without doubt the Underground network needs urgent and essential repairs, not least at Camden Town, but the delay is the long-term result of bad political choices.”

Sadiq Khan in Camden Town – but can he fix the tube station?

TfL, which answers to Mr Khan, firmly put the Camden Town upgrade on the backburner when the Conservative government cut its grant in 2018 with the Tories claiming Labour was mismanaging the network. At the same time, plans to improve the crushed conditions at Holborn underground station were also mothballed.

More recently, TfL purchased the former Buck Street Market in Camden Town from land owners Labtech and then leased it to the BoxPark. It was suggested to be part of a grand plan to raise money to bring the Camden Town tube station redevelopment into fruition.

This site could spike in value if a new Camden Town tube entrance was placed right outside it, and it has been suggested TfL could sell it off at a later date helping recoup costs of overall scheme.

A TfL spokesperson added: “We remain committed to the upgrade of Camden Town and we are working with external partners to seek a funding solution to enable the project to be realised.”

Dale Smith, head of the Northern line said: “I’m sorry for the recent disruption customers may have experienced using Camden Town. A blocked drain on the roof of the station led to flooding and damage to a small section of ceiling in a non-customer-facing part of the station.

“The station was closed while we ensured the area was safe and undertook repair work. The issue has been repaired and the station has reopened.”

In whose lifetime…?

KEN Livingstone delivered some poignantly prophetic lines when the New Journal asked him in 2003 what the plans to upgrade Camden Town underground station were.

Then the Mayor of London, he said calmly that he didn’t think it would be solved in his lifetime.

After 20 more years of static, the question is now whether it will be sorted out in anybody’s lifetime.

Ken Livingstone predicted he’d never see Camden Town tube station resolved after a retail tower scheme was rejected in 2001

Mr Livingstone had become downbeat about the prospects after a plan he had supported was rejected after a long planning inquiry.

He backed the idea of demolishing the building and creating a seven storey retail complex in its place to pay for a new station.

This was ultimately seen as a land grab as it would have also meant the destruction of the historic Electric Ballroom nightclub, market areas and a church building.

The scheme was ultimately spiked by the then deputy prime minister John Prescott – but it left London’s transport chiefs lost about what to do next.

Very little changed despite the crowded scenes inside the station and the crumbling interior, until 2017 when designs to create an alleviating new entrance in Buck Street emerged. Seven years on and readers could be forgiven for forgetting they were ever unveiled.

We always ask the Mayor

WHENEVER the New Journal gets the opportunity, we ask who will step forward and finally fix the obvious problems at Camden  Town underground station.

And so when Sadiq Khan came to Swiss Cottage to help launch Tulip Siddiq’s general election campaign in June, the question was familiar: would a new Labour government give residents and businesses hope that something would get done.

The Mayor of London – who followed Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, both of whom were unable to find the right solution to the glaring dangers at the station – said that at night there would be no guarantees even with Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street.

Sadiq Khan helping Tulip Siddiq launch her re-election campaign in June

“I do know that with a Labour government, there won’t be daily obstacles in our way,” Mr Khan said. “There will be long-term budgets. You know, the next prime minister could be a north Londoner. There will be north London residents in that government whether its Tulip [Siddiq], Georgia [Gould], Keir, Ed Miliband… they understand that: yes we’re a capital city but you don’t make a country more equal by making London poorer.

“The fact that Kentish Town station is still closed due to maintenance work is because this government took away our operating grant.”

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