Greg Hands welcomes the Mayor of London’s feasibility study on alternative Crossrail 2 sites.
Earlier this year, Member of Parliament for Chelsea & Fulham, Greg Hands, held a meeting with the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to discuss Crossrail 2 coming to his constituency. In response to local opposition to the station proposed for the Chelsea Fire Station site, but as a longstanding supporter of a station coming to the constituency in general, Greg Hands asked the Mayor to consider alternative sites at Imperial Wharf and Fulham Broadway.
The Mayor agreed to carry out a feasibility study of Greg’s proposals, which he subsequently received on 28 October. Unfortunately, the report identified a number of practical barriers to the proposed Crossrail 2 stations at Imperial Wharf and Fulham Broadway, which included an increase in the tunnelling required – and therefore the costs – and an apparent diversion at an angle some distance from the main direction of travel.
Speaking about the Mayor’s feasibility report, Greg Hands said: “I’m really grateful to the Mayor of London and his team for their feasibility report, produced in response to my proposals for an alternative Crossrail 2 station either at Imperial Wharf or Fulham Broadway.
“In particular, I’m interested to see that more people could benefit from a station at Imperial Wharf during the morning peak, and that such a station might entail twice as many new homes and new local jobs as a station on the King’s Road.
“However, while I don’t agree with all of the report’s findings – for example, I myself feel that an interchange at Fulham Broadway would lighten the burden associated with football matches at an expanded Stamford Bridge – I do recognise that the report identified a number of substantial difficulties in these two options.
“Nevertheless, having read the report’s findings, I would now like to hear residents’ opinions on a Crossrail 2 station coming to Chelsea & Fulham. Would residents prefer a station at Crossrail 2’s new preferred site on the King’s Road, at Imperial Wharf or Fulham Broadway? Or not at all?”
To request a copy of the Mayor’s feasibility study, please contact Greg’s office at handsg@parliament.uk or 020 7219 8828.
There is a public meeting about Crossrail 2 at Chelsea Old Town Hall, King’s Road, SW3 5EE, from 6.30pm to 8.30pm on Tuesday, 3 November, at which Ms Michèle Dix, Transport for London’s Managing Director of Crossrail 2, Cllr Timothy Coleridge, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s Cabinet Member for Planning Policy, Transport and Arts, and Mr Chris Lenon, Chairman of the No Crossrail campaign, will speak.