Battle station

5 April 2012

Everyone agrees that South Kensington Tube station needs a face-lift. There has been no money spent on it since the 1970s, although 30 million passengers use it every year.

It is also the gateway to the Exhibition Road complex of great national museums that Mayor Ken Livingstone has pledged to spend £25 million transforming into "a world-class streetscape".

But a new plan to redevelop the station includes building an 11-storey office block in what is a low-rise residential area, which is sparking protest from locals. It raises serious questions about how Tube improvements are funded.

The £110 million development scheme from Stanhope and Hutchison Whampoa was submitted to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) for planning permission in July.

If it goes ahead, improvements to the station will include a new ticket hall, escalators and lifts. But the plan, designed by Terry Farrell, also proposes to demolish the entire Pelham Street/Thurloe Street block in which the station stands.

This is to create 125 apartments and mews houses, 22,000sq ft of shops and 200,000sq ft of office space in a controversial high-rise ellipsoid glass tower at the Harrington Road end of the site.

Some locals are saddened by the demolition of the station's 1868 arcade. Although not listed, it is "an early example of the modern trend for a station to have shops next to it", according to Richard Holder of the Victorian Society.

Many will mourn the loss of small independent businesses, such as the Medici Gallery and Polish restaurant Daquise, that have traded next to the Tube since the 1950s.

The new retail units will be larger to suit the needs of multiples such as Gap, and unaffordable for small traders. The main concern, however, is the office tower, which is seen as incompatible with a conservation area of mainly residential Victorian architecture.

Elizabeth Packard, manager of the Medici Gallery, voices the view of many locals: "I hate the thought of that horrid glass block. It ruins the scale of everything."

The Chelsea and Kensington Societies are so concerned, they have joined forces to protest to RBKC, pointing out that the tower will intrude on local views of the museums and goes against the council's Unitary Development Plan.

"Like everybody, we long to see the station modernised," says Terence Bendixson of the Chelsea Society. "We're not against a modern building, but we think it's a desperately unsuitable building for this distinguished residential district."

Charles Walford of Stanhope claims the tower will be a landmark: "This is about saying this is a major interchange." But he admits: "We need the offices and shops to make the station viable."

Metronet, the PPP consortium responsible for maintaining the District line, will undertake the work on the station for London Underground, but neither organisation will foot the £25 million bill: that goes to the developers.

In addition, developing the rest of the site above a working station involves expensive engineering. The residential units will help Stanhope and Hutchison Whampoa to recoup the cost (there will be no affordable housing). But the high density of the office tower is clearly crucial to profitability.

London Underground will not comment on the tower. "We're mainly concerned with the station scheme," says a spokeswoman. "It's something we've been trying to do for some time."

But she does confirm a 1997 proposal for the site, with low-rise buildings that incorporated the arcade, hit the buffers because "the developers couldn't make it financially viable".

With London Underground strapped for funds, commercial development has become the panacea for its dilapidated stations. Fulham Broadway station has been refurbished, with developer Pillar Properties paying the bill in exchange for building a £60 million shopping mall. But the Broadway is a commercial area. Is this solution appropriate for residential districts?

The Brompton Association is one South Kensington residents' group that is broadly in favour of the Stanhope and Hutchison Whampoa scheme, but Jeremy Taylor, its chairman, agrees: "The height of the office block is controlled more than it should be by financing all the engineering work for the Underground. Eleven storeys is quite high. It's pushed by economics."

The Chelsea Society's Bendixson urges: "We can't have South Kensington ruined by the wrong financial plan. London Underground and the council have got to make a contribution to the cost of renewing the station."

Because the South Kensington scheme is under consideration, RBKC cannot comment. But the Mayor's Exhibition Road project will pile on the pressure for the station upgrade to go ahead.

However, in a letter to the Kensington and Chelsea Societies last January, RBKC's leader, Merrick Cockell, maintained: "It is unrealistic and unsustainable that public transport improvements in one of the major transport interchanges in London are considered possible only if they are funded from a commercial development. It remains our belief that the overstrained facilities at South Kensington need substantial investment from London Underground."

MORE ABOUT

Ken Livingstone

Labour Party

Museums

Battle station

Read More