New Kidbrooke station building work underway
Building work on a new station for Kidbrooke is now well underway with foundations in place as 5,500 homes are built in the area.
A new station is being constructed to accommodate 4,900 homes atKidbrooke Village alone. It’ll face onto a new square including a Sainsburys and Youngs pub.
The square can just about be made out in the top left in the below image:
I was hoping to pop down and take some snaps of the towers now almost complete. Unfortunately time was against me. I hope to get there soon, though if anyone has any pics I’d like to see current progress.
TfL plans
TfL have also submitted plans for 619 homes on the other side of Kidbrooke station.
The vast increase in homes has so far not met plans to increase rail capacity. Continual delays to Southeastern’s next franchise has resulted in no confirmed new or additional trains.
Network Rail’s plan for the line see just four extra carriages by 2024 – just a 5% increase in five years.
In addition, are they making maximum use of the their land to raise income?
Presumably they own the station site, and whilst Berkeley are contributing to the build cost, if Network Rail themselves constructed a replacement station they could have made a greater amount of income by building above the station box. As it is, its a squat box amongst Berkeley Homes’ blocks.
A development arm could raise large sums in many areas to cross-subsidise the running of the railway – as happens in other nations. New homes above stations would also see a ready supply of passengers to continue growth. It’s only happened in fits and starts.
Then again, central Government would soon force a sell off in all likelihood – as they recently did with rail arches. Decades of long term stable income lost for a one-off lump sum that will soon disappear.
Another reason the UK has some of the most expensive fares per mile in the developed world.
This will be an improvement on the existing Kidbrooke Station. When the new station is completed it will provide better facilities for passengers using the station. I think the new station has been designed to be easily accessible for disabled passengers and will also have a new bus interchange.
I have just read that Khan has just approved a 619 apartment on the Kidbrooke site. This looks like being the first of about 30 sites across the whole of London, where TfL station car parks are being sold off to developers to build high density rented housing. The plans indicate that these properties will not be provided with any parking – all the existing car park users will be displaced, plus the vehicles from the new developments will need to park somewhere, so all these vehicles will be looking for street parking. The result is thousands of London residents will find their streets becoming huge car parks, just because Khan cannot manage his budgets. It’s not just about the parking, the plans do not allow for any additional infrastructure, so local NHS and educational facilities will be overwhelmed.
London’s residents need to wake up to what Khan is doing and work together to get this stopped
The loss of the car park spaces at Kidbrooke Station and the further 619 homes approved by Sadiq Khan Mayor of London on the over side of Kidbrooke station which will also have no parking spaces allocated despite the the number of new homes to be constructed.
This means extra pressure will be put on other local roads in the area around Kidbrooke Station which will see an increase in cars parking in them all day,
I appreciate new bus route 335 KIdbrooke Village to North Greenwich Station as recently been introduced. But there is still a need for further investments in to train and bus services in the Kidbrooke SE3 area,
If they want residents to reduce car dependency and use public transport to reach other amenities like shops banks GP Surgeries and Hospitals etc.