At Monday’s (24.8.2020) Labour Listens event, a resident asked of progress to complete level access to the three stations in Osterley and Spring Grove Ward. This item includes updates sought from Hounslow Council’s Traffic and Transport Team
Syon Lane Station lift commissioning
The 2012 planning consent for extensive development of Sky Campus at Grant Way yielded £1m for improvements at Syon Lane Station, implicitly to improve the flow of peak use commuters and achieve step free access.
Nearly complete in March 2020, the final pieces of construction were disrupted by COVID. Works are expected to recommence in September for up to six weeks. An accurate handover and operation of the new lift and footbridge will be subject to Network Rail inspection; a firmer date should be available by October 2020.
Osterley Station lifts completion and commissioning
Soon after Boris Johnson became Mayor of London in 2008 he reduced the tube stations step free access programme begun by his Labour predecessor; plans for lifts at Osterley Station for the benefit of the disabled and less mobile were in the throes of approval but then abandoned.
Johnson, however, began to reveal a proclivity to spaff Transport for London money on vanity projects such as the unrealised Garden Bridge, overheated and overpriced toy buses and that cable car from nowhere to nowhere.
Following his election, new Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2017 resurrected the lifts programme. Approved and already under construction before the lockdown, the lifts, to each platform at this famous Grade II Listed building, were due to be delivered and commissioned by the end of 2020. TfL have confirmed that all its step free programmes paused in April have not yet restarted and are expected to be opened six months after construction recommences.
Isleworth Station
Often with its own resources or by securing S106 planning gain, Hounslow Council has a track record back to the late 1980s (Hounslow West Station being the first) for improving level access to stations across the borough.
Where local funds are not identified, the council’s transport team promote the priorities of residents and councillors and bid for funds when opportunities arise.
A range of lift locations designs for Isleworth Station were developed by previous franchisee, South West Trains and have laid fallow since 2015. Optimism, however, has been buoyed since the 2019 Department for Transport announcement that Isleworth is on the list of stations for an Access to All programme upgrade.
Although some disruption togetting this project going has occurred, Network Rail have continued to develop plans for the station and Hounslow’s transport officers maintain dialogue with them and South Western Railway to agree options for step free conversion down to London Road and nearby.
New information on our stations will be shared when available.
TL 27.8.2020
Tony Louki's Report Back 