CROSSRAIL 2 VENTILATION SHAFT (AGAIN) Post Reply

[ukrailblog]

Just a small reminder. Petitions and Surveys are all very well, but the only thing that really counts is the TfL consultation. If you have an opinion, you've not achieved anything unless you've responded to the *official* consultation.

[putneystahm]

Just learnt that Crossrail 2 public consultations are taking place right now at Tooting Market and Selkirk Road until 8pm. I do feel Tooting residents need to get more clued up about the facts and arguments for and against having it. I wish I had known earlier about this although neither Balham or Tooting proposed sites will be on my doorstep.

I agree with Cloud. Unfortunately I voted for Tooting on Dan Watkin's poll which I have doubts about now. I do feel I was ill informed and I am guilty of making a hasty decision.

I live between Balham and Tooting Broadway ( ie Bec) and enjoy going to both areas but it is presumptuous to assume Tooting residents would be happy about the disruption construction would cause. Tooting Broadway is regenerating nicely and people enjoy living here and no doubt people are enjoying the rise in house prices here too.

I wonder if an alternative site is possible where transport links are needed. Streatham, perhaps? However, I am not familiar with Streatham enough to know if this would be ridiculous proposal.

[sammyR]

I have bored myself stupid with reading up on Crossrail 2 and it's impact on Balham and Wandsworth Common. In a 'nutshell' ..

CR2 presented 'an incredibly persuasive transport , economic and regenerative argument' to site a station at Tooting, AND noted the substantial benefits to the 3000 staff and 1.3 million patients at St George's hospital. The shaft on WC was proposed but after significant local opposition, CR2 agreed to move the shaft elsewhere , most likely by Wandsworth Prison.

Since uncovering geological conditions that would make the Tooting route 'difficult but not impossible' - (Michelle Dix - CR2 MD), CR2 have suggested Balham as an alternative. Of course, it's cheaper and simpler, HOWEVER, it fails to deliver on CR2 promises.

Tooting is the busiest of it's 5 neighbouring stations on the Northern Line.If you provide an alternative mode of transport here, you alleviate Northern Line crowding at Balham.
Of both sites being considered, surely Tooting is due the opportunity to regenerate and develop? Balham already has Northern Line & overland to Victoria, surely it's greedy to ask for yet another station?
There has been significant public money spent on the regeneration of Balham - Hildreth Market in particular. It is the smallest town centre in the borough , therefore the 10,000 sqm required for building the new station and access site, would have a considerable impact , for very little return. (Plus the fact that a shaft will be required on Wandsworth Common again - 3000 sqm of construction site for 5 + years) .

I could bore you all with facts, but you're intelligent people and the information is there for you to make your own minds up. Please attend the Balham consultations and submit your thoughts on the consultation questionnaire.

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/crossr ... nsultation

[HightreesHouse]

What Sammy R doesn't state is the price that Tooting (not Balham) will pay in the medium term for CR2. This has to be added for the sake of completeness and balance. It does not mean I disagree with his points.

1) Tooting is more densely populated and crowded than Balham;

2) although building CR@ in Tooting is not impossible in engineering terms, geological flaws mean:

a) a very large site above ground in the centre of the Broadway;

b) large scale commercial and some residential house take in Tooting ( no residential house take in Balham). By residential house take I mean compulsory purchase;

c) all the spoil or earth from the site being trucked out through Tooting. That is probably thousands of lorries; for Balham the vast majority of the spoil is trained out through the tunnel underground however this is impossible in the Tooting build.

d) all the disruption applicable to Balham being entirely replicated in Tooting but worse due to longer timescale and factors a) to c) above.

e) cost £500million more than Balham


Tooting is more densely populated than Balham and therefore these implications are for a greater number of businesses and people than Balham.

Whilst there are regeneration benefits attached to the tooting proposal one can't help feeling that if Tooting survives CR2 there will be a lot of regenerating to do!

No I don't live in Tooting.

[slipperywhippet]

I think if I was asking the government for up to £32bn of public funding, I'd have done a bit more analysis of what I was spending it on. Crossrail 2 started off saying it was for regeneration, new housing, transport for St Georges, affordable housing for the new influx to London. They're now saying less than 2% of their total cost matters so much they'll put the station right here...with a pin... in google earth. I haven't seen any hardcore business plan/forecast stats on their website that shows they know their stuff and have moved the goal posts for a particular reason - something that would make me give them 20p, let alone £32bn. And its surprising that Tooting is so tough when they have to tunnel under The Thames and we seem to have put a tunnel under an entire channel...

Balham is already a pretty nice place to live..sky high house prices, little prospect for affordable housing, tube and mainline, no access route for construction traffic except through a busy high street and questionable stats on whether a station at Balham will actually help the northern line issue and St Georges will still need spending on at some point as well.

Regarding Wandsworth Common - its an easy solution and free, lack of planning, apathy from a public body, many schools affected which we know from the last round of petitions, was not approved by the transport minister - they can do better if they put their very clever engineering minds to it.

Crossrail 2 is a good idea.....whether it ends up in Balham or Tooting is up for grabs, but a little bit of questioning means it gets put in the right place, first time. £32bn should take some planning, it shouldn't be rushed because a load of construction firms put an open letter in saying lets get on with it and Boris Johnson wants a legacy...

Rant over. Looking forward to all your answers!

[danwatkins100]

Afternoon All,

It was great to see such a high attendance at the Crossrail 2 Public Meeting on Monday.

As I mentioned then, the initial results of my http://www.BalhamOrTooting.org.uk survey show 80% of local residents support retaining the station at Tooting Broadway. You can see the full results, split by local area, via the link below:

http://www.danwatkins.org.uk/news/cross ... rt-tooting

For more regular updates on the Crossrail consultation, please follow me on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Dan4Tooting/

Best regards,

Dan

[KatherineHepburn]

'95% of residents near the new access shaft on the Bolingbroke Grove side of Wandsworth Common, required for the Balham station route, supported a station at Tooting.'
You're kidding me? Really? I never would have guessed!

I'm assuming that these residents have taken into account that there will be compulsory purchase orders in Tooting to make the station work there. Yes. Compulsory. People will be forced to sell their homes and move.
There is more to this argument than weird stats and the polling of 2000 people who live 'somewhere' between Balham & Tooting.

[Cloud]

KatherineHepburn - I completely agree. The stats, petitions, all the information out there seems to be completely misleading. What I am really concerned about now is that the plan will revert to Tooting but it will then be too late for Tooting residents to have a say. I personally responded to the consultation but didn't mention anything about the Tooting plans because there was no space there to mention it (it was targeted at getting feedback about Balham).

This will affect so many people in the local community and it is very difficult to support proposals without seeing any detail about how traffic will be managed, the impact on local schools, how the compulsory purchase of properties will be managed, etc.

This appears to be very badly thought through indeed.

Is anyone aware of how Tooting residents can have their say about their concerns regarding a station at Tooting? Now that all this extra information has come to light a number of us have serious concerns.

[danwatkins100]

Cloud -

To reassure you, even if the local Crossrail 2 station reverts to Tooting, there will be a huge amount of detailed work subsequently done by the authorities on the impact of the constructions on the town centre, businesses, residents, transport, etc. And that will in turn be subject to a future public consultation where we can have our say and work to reduce disruption.

Best regards,

Dan

[atbattersea]

I'm sorry to be a bore, but the shafts have to go somewhere.... So where? It is thick housing from the Common all the way to Clapham Junction. I won't like it being anywhere on the lovely Common either....but where else can they put it? In the middle of Honeywell Road?

Actually, yes, that's a much better idea. They should compulsorily purchase several houses and use those for the ventilation shafts - reinstating/retaining the fascia of the buildings so that the shafts are disguised.

This has been done with section of the underground system, and is a much better solution than using yet more green space. Clearly some people are not going to be happy for it to be right next door to them - but they can be compensated for the blight. Once the green space on the common is gone it is gone forever. There's nothing green about Honeywell Road.

[pie81]

How about the car parking area behind St Michael's church? And if that's not big enough, how about compulsory purchase of the church itself (sacreligious suggestion! but IMO better than demolition of people's homes or destruction of precious public green space)

That's for the Balham route... I bet there are better locations on the Tooting route too.

[pie81]

How about the car parking area behind St Michael's church? And if that's not big enough, how about compulsory purchase of the church itself (sacreligious suggestion! but IMO better than demolition of people's homes or destruction of precious public green space).

Or even better... choose Tooting, or even Earlsfield.

[ukrailblog]

As thread readers may know, I am pushing for Crossrail 2 to be routed via Earlsfield, not Balham. Such a route avoids any risk of making the Northern Line worse, however it does not, of course, relieve the Northern Line. I have now published the extended version of the Swirl plan, known as "Swirl-Max", that DOES relieve the Northern Line:
http://ukrail.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/cr ... eving.html

Swirl-Max proposes that the main Crossrail 2 route runs direct to Wimbledon via Earlsfield, with a separate branch to Balham, Streatham and Tooting (mainline). Such a branch provides Northern Line relief not at Balham OR Tooting, but at BOTH. It would also dramatically enhance the service at Streatham. A station is proposed for St.Georges hospital on the A24. The branch is carefully designed to avoid a Wandsworth Common shaft. See the link for more details and an infographic.

While everyone on this thread has their own view on Balham vs Tooting vs Earlsfield, I hope that an option that can serve all three is worth considering (and worth mentioning in your reply to TfL!)

[slipperywhippet]

Just to refresh the debate on Crossrail 2. Lots of info is missing or is spin on the CR2 website, but that doesn't stop you from expressing an opinion. After the last consultation, the vent was moved and the Transport Minister said the site was too sensitive - the same is still true, it is one common, used by the same children! Don't be apathetic because you are unsure, access the consultation and say you oppose (wandsworth common, balham or tooting or vice versa) because the information suggests etc etc etc.

It takes 5 minutes to access it - there is no tooting section but put your thoughts in the balham section anyway. We all have the time to do this...everyone should use their voice, it is not a done deal, CR2 need to hear your thoughts. Please take the time..

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/crossr ... nsultation

[actuallyadad]

Let's not get too worked out about a 25m X 25m area of one of the many commons in the area being built upon. It's just not that big a deal for a necessary piece of public infrastructure.

I'm not interested in the moaning of the people whose multi-million pound homes may have their views of the common disrupted for a few years whilst the construction traffic is around - it's short term pain for long term benefit.

If Balham is the better location for geological and price reasons, then let's have it there. I think re-generation arguments are nonsense - Tooting is already gentrifying - just look at the property value increases recently.

In any case, Tooting already has two tube stations, so Tooting is adequately connected. If it does need re-generation, more transport is clearly NOT what is required.


You could say Tooting is better connected than Balham in fact - it's much easier to get on the northern line at 8.15 am in Tooting Broadway than Balham...