Consultation on making East Croydon an eight-platform station begins on Monday
The latest stage of Network Rail’s consultation over the expansion of East Croydon Station, improvements at Norwood Junction, the rebuilding of Windmill Bridge and the unblocking of the railway bottleneck at the Selhurst junction, will be launched online on Monday.
Disappointingly for central Croydon, the railway proposals expected to be outlined for public comment include nothing regarding the derelict Royal Mail sorting office building, adjacent to East Croydon Station, and which was bought by Network Rail supposedly to assist with its snappily titled Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme – or CARS.
Details of the multi-million-pound plans to improve the Brighton Main Line and transform East Croydon Station have been in the public domain before, as the railway authorities seek to deliver a more reliable, frequent and faster rail service for passengers in and around Croydon.
Network Rail rates the lines around Croydon as the busiest and most congested part of Britain’s rail network, with 30 per cent more passengers and trains passing through it each day than Euston and King’s Cross stations combined.
Network Rail have solutions to the problems with delays in the Selhurst Triangle
The Selhurst Triangle is a Gordian knot of a problem which Network Rail wants to solve with a series of fly-overs and fly-unders. “Train punctuality on the Brighton mainline is the lowest of any major route as the bottleneck magnifies the impact of even the most minor incident or delay,” Network Rail said nearly two years ago when they revealed the first version of their plans.
The proposals for review this time include the expansion of East Croydon Station, with the station rebuilt with a larger concourse and two extra platforms (on the Boozepark side of the station). Norwood Junction is also slated for a significant upgrade.
The detailed proposals can be viewed online by clicking www.networkrail.co.uk/croydon from Monday, or you can email Networkd Rail at consultation@cars2.networkrail.co.uk.
During the consultation period, which runs until September 20, the public is also able to speak with Network Rail’s project team, including designers and engineers, using a live online chat facility. A dedicated consultation hotline will also be available for people wanting to ring and share their views and can be reached on 020 7118 0684.
Reassuringly for Croydon residents, the council has barely any involvement in these proposals at all. So however much Tony Newman or Jo Negrini might try to claim some form of credit for the project, there’s very little even they can do to balls it up.
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Has anybody noticed what a compete balls-up the new connection Bridge is at East Croydon Station is?
Because the designer stupidly located the access steps in the wrong direction, when you move between platforms in the rain, you get soaked on the 20-25m stretch between the existing platform canopy and where they canopy to the bridge steps starts! The equivalent of walking 50m in the rain.
It’s like Croydon Council buying an umbrella but not confirming they want fabric between the ribs!
How can you get it this wrong?? It must be the only major station in the UK where you get soaked moving between platforms!
And what does Paul Scott and Croydon Council do to the designer of this fundamentally flawed piece of infrastructure? They give him a seat on the Croydon Planning Place Review Panel as an expert transport infrastructure adviser and pay him for his time!!
You can’t make this sort of stuff up.
Pay attention at the back of the class Tillinger…
Read this: https://insidecroydon.com/2012/07/05/unconnected-croydon-and-the-20m-footbridge-to-nowhere/
Then check out our archive of coverage of the “award-winning” Bridge to Nowhere here: https://insidecroydon.com/?s=Bridge+to+Nowhere
You’re to write 100 lines: “I must always check Inside Croydon’s archives”, and then you can leave class.
Ah yes – but this demonstrates the current risk of history repeating itself.
Just think, if there was no Inside Croydon, many of these Local politicians would go around acting ineptly but not feel safe in the knowledge their ever action was being recorded for posterity!
Didn’t they already do a consultation two years ago? What happened to that? Is this scheme funded?
Croydon cannot have everything in the current economic situation. The old Post Office is probably the best element to downgrade and we should not jeopardize the whole of the proposals by arguing over priorities
Don’t think anyone is suggesting that, John. The absence of something from proposals needs to be reported as much as the presence of things in the proposals.
The building is derelict, it has been broken into many times – with tragic consequences at least once – and is a prime site for development. There is nothing wrong in reminding a public body such as Network Rail that land-banking probably isn’t an optimal use of their resources.
How about turning the old Post Office building into a car park to improve on the 7 or 8 waiting places already provided? For convenience many would use it even if it was at a good price!