Lea Bridge entrance shift approved

[leytongabriel]

Lea Bridge station was re-opened at the insistence of the local council (London Borough of Waltham Forest) with the entrance in Argall Way instead of the main Lea Bridge Road to work with a proposed bus turnround. However the bus route extension was never agreed with TflL and did not happen. On Mon 7th March the borough planning committee gave the go-ahead to a controversial development scheme which includes building a 26 storey tower block on the strip of land by the existing station entrance. The station entrance will revert to Lea Bridge Road with a covered entrance area. Mention of a 'plaza' which caused some mockery at a previous public meeting seems to have been dropped but the planning officer referred to a retail unit and perhaps rather surprisingly, a ticket office. But this does come from a planning department who thought this station was run by TfL....(it is served by Greater Anglia trains). What wasn't clear is what disruption to station access there will be during building works. Will there have to be a period of station closure?
All in all a saga which is not a great advert for the planning process or judicious spending of millions pounds in the public realm.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Thank you for this information. Do you know:

1) if the tower block is for homes or offices?
2) if the re-opened original station entrance will have ticket barriers?

The present entrance is "open" and is an invitation to fare dodgers to try their luck.

 

[mr_jrt]

Do you mean they are proposing a tower block where the current entrance is, i.e. on the footprint of the former sidings, or just alongside? If it's the current entrance then that would be monumentally stupid. Obviously there's no current plans for more tracks, but given there is an empty span in the bridge, it's blocking off any future additional capacity options.

Edit: here's the papplication, and appears so. Gaaa.

Waltham Forest | Waltham Forest Built Environment Online | Application | 50488

 

[Taunton]

All in all a saga which is not a great advert for the planning process or judicious spending of millions pounds in the public realm.

When did local authorities (regardless of political flavour) ever care about that?


Passing this junction regularly, I did actually think when it was under construction (for which the pavement on Lea Bridge Road was temporarily narrowed) that this would be the entrance. Only later did I find what a lengthy obstacle course it is from the Down platform, up to the footbridge alongside the road, then about 5 minutes walking through the station and back again to get to a point a couple of metres away.

Though it does have a huge covered bicycles park. Never seen anyone use it, and it was heavily graffitied within days. But it ticked someone's agenda box. Presubably that will go as well.