Release date: 30/10/2009

By: Eyvind Ryans
Telephone 020 8871 6031 or email eryans@wandsworth.gov.uk

Council backs new station entrance

 The council is to set aside cash to help pay for a new station entrance at Clapham Junction.

The £300,000 contribution will go towards a new entrance at Brighton Yard which is needed to relieve congestion in the station subway.

Following a five-year council campaign Network Rail has now agreed to provide the additional entrance on St John’s Hill. This would offer access to the platforms via the existing footbridge and new lifts.

The current plans risk being limited to a basic ticket hall with few facilities. This would not be able to cope with large numbers of passengers.

The council’s cash will help expand the facilities to include vehicle access, a taxi stand, cycle parking, a suitably equipped ticket office, automatic ticket barriers, toilets and retail units.

The final extent of the work will depend on further contributions from Network Rail, the Department for Transport and South West Trains.

Wandsworth Council’s transportation spokesman Guy Senior said:

“We’ve been pressing Network Rail for years to open up Brighton Yard. It won’t solve all the congestion problems but it will provide an easy alternative to the current overcrowded entrance and take people out of the subway.

“Without extra funding there is a danger that a real opportunity to improve passenger conditions at the station will be lost.”

A council-backed study in 2005 showed that around a quarter of station users might use a fully operational new entrance and footbridge as an alternative to the subway.

At peak times passengers face overcrowding in the subway and heavy queuing at the ticket barriers. The pavement and road network outside the main entrance also becomes congested.

The new entrance is expected to cost around £1.5 million. Works could start in spring 2010, once work associated with installing passenger lifts has been completed.

The proposals will be considered by the planning and transportation committee on November 4. To view the report visit www.wandsworth.gov.uk/osc/planning, look at the agenda for November 4, paper 09-293.

Councillors will be recommended to set aside £300,000 from the borough’s budgets for capital improvements.




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Your comments

The most recent comments made about this article.

Yes please, let's have BOTH station entrances in use again. I've been using this station since school days (late 1950s), when both entrances were in use, and the station is probably busier now.
All we ever had was an ordinary ticket office (plus the small car park in Brighton Yard), and that's all you need to start with - most people have Oyster or travel cards, Freedom passes, etc. Something along the lines of the present Grant Road entrance would be OK.

By the way, talk of opening the top entrance INSTEAD of the lower subway, which would be for platform interchange only (as proposed in the scrapped development plans), is nonsense - we need BOTH fully operational.
Judith Howard - Clapham Junction

Agree strongly need for improvements at England's busietst junction! Conditions in tunnel quite alarming at times, and elderly friends ( in good health) have expressed fear at using the station as interchange. Lifts would make a great difference
Margaret Towner - Putney