Station and PPP

What is the condition of the South Kensington tube station compared to other LU stations?

London Underground has said on several occasions that the tube station “works”. Therefore LU will not make any of its internal funds available for South Kensington improvements because the need is greater at other stations.

But if it “works”, why this urgency for redevelopment?

In fact, SKUD commissioned an independent firm to review the current station capacity, and the stated capacity of the withdrawn 2003 scheme.

The conclusion of that firm was also that the station “works”, and there would be only a small capacity increase under the 2003 scheme.

See Station Capacity Assessment for a copy of the independent report.

Public Private Partnership (PPP)

Under the PPP contracts relevent to South Kensington station, Metronet is required to make repairs and refurbishment by 2008 to the ticket hall, platform, escalators, stairs, connection tunnels and also certain external areas.

London Underground has also stated it is currently reviewing the necessity of disabled access to the station, under the same PPP conditions.

Although no determination has yet been made, it is possible that disabled access will also be provided in the same time period as the repairs and refurbishments already contracted to Metronet.