You know how when you come out of Canary Wharf tube station, main entrance, there's always been a big empty dock in front of you? Well, not any more.
A team of hardhatters and eco-engineers has been busy over the last few months and what's there now is a floating promenade surrounded by copious greenery and timber benching. It opened yesterday and is really very impressive. So long as you don't read anything about it.
What we have here is a wooden walkway just over 100 metres in length, and just a tad doglegged to give it some character. It allows you to step off the original dockside promenade and dawdle across the dock itself, maybe a metre above the water, via a series of larger pontoons. They've thought hard about access too so you can enter on the level, down a ramp or in a small lift as well as via steps. To either side are trees and flowers, some poking out of the water but the majority in little floating habitats, even adrift on the occasional island. Unsurprisingly it's already proving very popular.
There are a few benches below the DLR tracks, a larger bank of timber seating sprawled out to one side and a separate rack of seats resembling a grandstand facing the end of the dock. These are the ideal place to stop for a gossip, to sit and rest or (as I discovered when I turned up at lunchtime) to scoop a tub of food into your mouth while scrolling on your phone. During the first few weeks a dash of live music is being provided, yesterday a chanteuse called Charlotte wearing a red beret who strummed well-known standards for cheery foot-tapping. As interventions go it's going to be a huge hit.
For added wow they've added about 20 green sculptures in the shape of people, dotted here and there beside the walkways and out on the individual islands, each made from flowering shrubbery called ligustrum. The designers have also included several clusters of trumpet-like spotlights erupting from the water to aid passage after dusk, which should mean they don't have to lock the place away overnight. The barriers along the edge of the walkway are very low though, no more than ankle height, and I do wonder how long it'll be before someone has a very damp accident or a sign goes up saying children must be supervised.
You won't actually see any of this as you leave the tube station, however, because the largest bank of seating is elevated above the original dock wall and gets in the way. Rest assured that the fire exit from the Jubilee line is still down there, shielded below the highest platform, although the nearest security guard might shoot you a look if you show too much interest. A fair few security guards have been scattered about the place to keep decorum, plus on my visit a hi-vised chap with a very sniffy dog whose presence might have unnerved a few local traders.
What's impressive is how it already looks like it's always been here, like it was always meant to be.
It's hardly Eden, there are no apples for a start, neither is it an 'oasis' brimming over with sustainable greenery. I also bridled at mention of "rejuvenating with yoga" and letting nature "enhance your wellbeing", suggesting this might be some kind of verbose greenwashing. At least the actual Eden Project are involved, although it turns out they can write utter rubbish too.
» "Eden Dock – a first-of-its-kind urban oasis" (I'm unconvinced this is innovative on a global scale)
» "creating more opportunities for people to connect with nature" (to be fair, that's not exactly difficult)
» "Eden Dock will enhance the way people experience the Wharf" (they also say that about pizza restaurants)
» "providing access to beautiful waterside spaces and nature like never before" (they're very much overselling it)
» "the area now boasts floating forests" (floating forests my arse, more a few sparse saplings)
» "The figures show nature and people living together in harmony, reflecting how Eden Dock weaves nature into its urban surroundings through ecological innovation" (just like the guff they write in art galleries)
The press release also includes a lot of talk about "biodiversity gain", this being one of the new buzzphrases in urban realm planning. All you have to do is add some different trees, plant different flowers or attract different insects and hey presto you can justifiably claim to have increased the biodiversity, despite not actually doing much. In this case the dock was originally only water and now it has some plants - box ticked.
Canary Wharf also carried out some spurious research, surveying 2000 office workers last month to reach the following conclusions:
» 73% of office workers prefer to work in a location near water and green spaces.
» Over two in three office workers (69%) find creative and innovative ideas come easier if they’ve been around green spaces or water.
» Three in four (73%) people actively seek out green spaces or water to relax.
» 99% of people say engaging with nature helps them in some way, with 65% feeling more relaxed after spending time outside.
This is not the slamdunk they hoped for. Office workers at Canary Wharf were already "near water" before the greenery arrived, so providing statistics on "being around green spaces or water" tells us absolutely nothing new. Also the fact that "99% of people say engaging with nature helps them in some way" isn't a discovery, it's common sense, and all I'm saying is perhaps they wasted their money on the survey.
I also stopped to look at the three information boards along the dock, most of which were great, indeed it took a minute for the person in front of me to finish reading and get out of the way. However the 'Banana' Wall board has a go at raising the spectre of slavery and somewhat blows it.
Across the water from where you're standing is the 'banana' wall. However this fun-sounding name has a far darker history. Now known as Middle Dock, the 'banana' wall was once part of the West India Export Dock. This was built between 1803-1806, paid for in part with the profits of enslaved people.
It isn't the 'banana' wall that was funded by the slave trade, it was the entire docks. The board should really be pointing out that the whole of Docklands has a 'far darker history', not specifically a pioneering curved wall built by clever engineers, but has instead shoehorned in a tickbox slavery reference where it doesn't fit. I could show you where a reference would have been much more appropriate, on another board, but let's just move on and say this could have been done a lot better.
In summary the new walkway is excellent and you will likely love it when you see it. Just don't try reading about it because Eden Dock is best enjoyed in a state of innocence.
This is Waverley, the world's last seagoing paddle steamer.
She's currently on a two week foray up and down the Thames Estuary and adjacent coasts. And if you'd been in Gravesend on Sunday evening you could have enjoyed a two-hour voyage up the estuary to Tower Bridge for just one pound.
(sorry, she won't be doing that again)
The paddle steamer Waverley was built in Glasgow and launched on 2nd October 1946, which'd be 78 years ago today. A twin-funnelled pleasure steamer, she spent over 20 years ferrying passengers up and down Loch Long as part of the British Railways Caledonian Steam Packet Co Clyde coast fleet. After being withdrawn from service she was offered to a charity called the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society who bought her in August 1974 for the symbolic price of £1, which'd be 50 years ago. Multiple refits have been needed since, most recently a full boiler replacement, and today she acts as a pleasure steamer not just in Scotland but around the British coast. She's quite the way to travel. [11 photos]
Sunday's special offer came courtesy of a disruption to the intended timetable, and the realisation that rather than running empty from Gravesend to Tower Bridge it'd be better to have some passengers on board. The call went out at lunchtime - anyone for a one-way trip for a quid? - thus a couple of hundred people made their way to Gravesend Pier for a 6:40pm departure. Many lived locally so faced a decision as to how to get back afterwards, and some of us headed out to Kent by train with the prospect of a rather easier journey home. Waverley was moored at the end of the pontoon where the Tilbury Ferry used to depart, her twin funnels (and Paul the purser) waiting to welcome us aboard.
The ship is 73m long so has plenty of room for wandering around, sitting up top or burrowing below. The uppermost public section is aft and open to the elements, with a covered saloon at deck level near the bow for less clement weather. Assuming you're on board for the view and need a seat, these are where you ought to head. Above and below decks are the four hospitality options - a dining saloon, a lounge, a tea bar and a proper bar - depending on whether you're after plated meals, light snackage, a refreshing cuppa or a range of spirits. A souvenir shop helps to keep the charity afloat. But the most amazing thing down below is the engine room, open to public view on two sides, where a 2100 horsepower triple expansion reciprocating steam engine does its thing to make the paddles turn. Come watch the pistons pumping, noisily, while white-coated crew members oversee the whole shebang.
You don't get the scenery of the Scottish lochs on a Thames estuary cruise but you do get low industrial shorelines and intermittent tidal marshes. You also don't get much scenery on an evening cruise, especially when departure time coincides with sunset, so best make the most of the first couple of miles. On Sunday that meant a decent view of the Tilbury landing stage, a gently dimming look at Tilbury docks and an appropriately-shaded look at Grays. By Broadness the red lights at the top of the UK's tallest pylons were illuminated, one either side of the river, and by the time we turned towards the QE2 bridge only a small patch of sky still glowed orange.
The river's so wide at this point that the bridge is the only thing to be seen up close. A curving ribbon spans the estuary at height with tiny vehicles flowing across, southbound only, before disappearing into the dying of the light. And after that the sky was essentially dark, which it could be argued is a twinkling disappointment or could be argued is the best way to look at Purfleet. I had the advantage that I knew what all this looks like because I've walked it in daylight, so I knew that was Erith Pier, that was Coldharbour Point and that was the landfill hillock at Rainham. Thankfully the Waverley also lays on a in-house commentary, delivered live from on deck, and hats off to the gentleman doing that because he was comprehensively excellent.
One thing you really get a sense of from the river is how bendy the Thames estuary is. A landmark off the starboard bow can be off the port bow within minutes, and the first sight of Canary Wharf as a cluster of tiny red dots isn't where you'd expect it to be either. Crossness Sewage Works, unsurprisingly, isn't well lit whereas the new Belvedere incinerator (going up beside the existing swooshy one) is fully dazzling. Those new flats at Barking Riverside are clearly seen, taller but as yet further back than the social stuff at Thamesmead. But it's only once you're past Beckton Sewage Works that the elevated cuboids of illuminated rectangles begin, and then basically never stop all the way to Southwark. The journey's been pretty speedy up to this point, those whirring paddles being capable of 14 knots, but as Woolwich approaches the rules of the river call for slowing down.
The Thames Flood Barrier looks majestic after dark, or at least very orange. Once through you might see a plane landing alongside at City Airport, and then it all starts looking like Fritz Lang's Metropolis with the cabins of the Dangleway pulsing purple in front of the glowing towers of Canary Wharf. I took all sorts of photos along this stretch but they mostly came out as blurry smudges, and I fear a lot of videos being taken from the bow will have been wholly disappointing too. The Isle of Dogs is Waverley's companion for the longest time, briefly joined by the lights of the Greenwich Observatory on its hill, and then you may sense the captain slowing down so as not to arrive at Tower Bridge in advance of its appointed lifting time. We still did.
A round of applause for its engineers because Tower Bridge still looks amazing, especially now it's extra-illuminated after dark. This inspires anticipation, then excitement, as you wait for the bascules to lift and then inexorably they do. I'd seen it from the banks before, and from the bridge, but never raising to allow through the vessel I was on (and its massive mast). Then you're nearlyunderneath, then with a whistle the walkway's right above you, then the folk waiting on the roadway deck are giving you a cheer and the whole one-off event is behind you. Mooring up alongside Tower Pier took several minutes longer, its usual vessels being a lot smaller, and if you watch this video filmed from the ship's bridge on Sunday you can watch Rotherhithe to the Pool of London in 22 seconds flat. [Twitter][Facebook][Instagram]
Waverley is on the Thames until Sunday 13th October, taking in Gravesend, Southend and sometimes Clacton, Whitstable and Folkestone along the way. Several sailings are fully booked, and also cost rather more than the £1 I paid, but a trip on the world's last seagoing paddle steamer will linger long in the memory.
Sun 1: My new laptop is on quite the sightseeing tour. Yesterday it was in Shanghai, today it's in Köln and tomorrow it'll be in Stanford le Hope.
Mon 2: At Gipsy Hill station I spotted a cat on the Oyster reader, and quite frankly this is Instagram gold. Tue 3: The Old FordWaste Water Recycling Facility in the Olympic Park, much lauded in 2012 as the UK's largest community wastewater recycling scheme, is being converted into a Park Operations Centre comprising office space, security rooms and equipment storage for QEOP employees. So much for green credentials and long-term sustainability. Wed 4: The Walled Garden at Eastcote Manor is very pleasant and the cafe is a magnet for local pensioners, but I don't think anyone else was there specifically to see the UK's first pair of mini-roundabouts.
Thu 5: The former Showcase Cinema beside the Roding in Beckton (closed 2022) has been reborn as four very large architecturally anonymous warehousing units, and that's another cluster of joy entirely erased. Fri 6: I checked what everyone else in my train carriage was looking at, and it was "phone phone phone window phone phone phone phone phone Richard Osman book phone phone phone phone phone". Sat 7: For Heritage Open Days I went on a tour of Woolwich Works, the converted arts venue in the former Royal Arsenal, and it was a lot bigger than I expected. Our guide Nicholas gave us a properly theatric walkround, inside and out, perhaps tipping the focus more towards events than heritage but definitely eye-opening. Free tours run every Sunday morning if you're interested.
Sun 8: Dad tells me he was very pleased that his knobbly carrot won first prize at the village produce and handicraft show. Mon 9: I'm enjoying Word Grid, a daily game where you have to fill in a 3×3 grid with words fitting certain letter-based criteria, the aim being to pick words picked by as few other people as possible. I like to get all pinks (and maybe some unicorns) every day. Tue 10: Today I received a phone call from Wilmslow, and I'm expecting this to be a unique experience in my life. Wed 11: Mince pies are back in the supermarket at the same price as last year (which was 51% more than the year before). Thu 12: The latest authors in my A-Z library book challenge have been Anthony Quinn (I would read again), Philip Roth (I unintentionally picked his serious musings on mortality) and Zadie Smith (the NW postcode fizzed to life). I'm not sure how Colm Tóibín is going to go.
Fri 13: Three places in Redditch I didn't blog about: 1) Bob & Hazel's Hot & Cold Food Bar (bacon & sausage rolls for £3.80), 2) the Palace Theatre (its dressing rooms were formerly part of Shrimptons Needle Factory), 3) the Headless Cross water towers (one brick, one concrete). Sat 14: Received one of those phone calls that starts "He's absolutely fine but...". I still regret phoning my parents in November 1999 and forgetting to start with "I'm absolutely fine but...". Sun 15: The Open House venue in Cavendish Square may have been a huge disappointment, but on the walk back to the station I passed Melvyn Hayes stepping out of a cab carrying a Morrisons bag, and that made my visit enormously worthwhile. Mon 16: I got away with taking lots and lots of photos of Canary Wharf station, somewhat suspiciously, but it only took one photograph of a skyscraper at Wood Wharf for a security guard to walk over and ask what I was doing and demand to see it. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken it right in front of her.
Tue 17: My upcoming hospital appointment appears in my online patient record with a seriously (seriously) unnerving title. Later I'll discover this is the name of the clinic I'm attending, not a diagnosis, and perhaps they could have made that clearer. Wed 18: Jim Waterson, formerly of the Guardian, formerly of Buzzfeed, has launched a new London-based news Substack called London Centric. It looks it'll be properly in-depth rather than frothy so will help fill a gap in the capital's news bubble post-Standard, but I'm not sure £80 a year puts it within the reach of many. Thu 19: Today I walked the back lanes between Shirley and Addiscombe, and you might be pleased these didn't form the basis of another 'Underwhelming London' post. Fri 20: I finally mucked up my Wordle streak because I failed to boot up my old laptop soon enough before midnight. I still haven't found a way to transfer cookies from my old machine to my new machine. Sat 21: I've been playing Threes on my phone for ten years and today I swiped through my 20,000th game. I still haven't unlocked a 3072 tile, but I did score 29091 points so it wasn't a shabby milestone.
Sun 22: The other Open House event I partook in was TfL's Jubilee Line Treasure Hunt celebrating the 25th anniversary of the line's extension in 1999. You started at Stratford, picked up a 16 page full colour clue sheet and then had to solve clues at seven successive stations. All the answers were in plain sight so a keen eight year-old could have solved it but it was still challenging. A lot of staff time was spent letting participants in and out of ticket gates without swiping, so perhaps it was just as well not many people were taking part. I ended up at Southwark after 90 minutes to claim my prize which turned out to be a silvery JLE25 tote bag. It didn't look like many had been claimed, the box was still almost full. What's more there was another unopened box underneath and that was labelled "21 of 25", so I suspect there are hundreds and hundreds of these bags elsewhere and I hope they find a decent way to distribute them. Mon 23: I had to wait at the self-checkout while the couple in front of me attempted to buy 24 tubs of Celebrations. They were firmly told that the maximum sale was 10, so eventually left with 20 tubs between them. Tue 24: All six episodes of The High Life, the classic camp 1995 Air Scotia comedy, are showing again on BBC Four. Dearie dearie me. Wed 25: One of the signs inside the Royal London Hospital said 'Training in Progress - Please Bare With Us', and I was glad that wasn't the department I was visiting.
Thu 26: Such is the decline of newsprint that the News Box kiosk on the Waterloo & City line platform at Bank no longer sells any printed material, not even fortnightly copies of Private Eye (but it does have a lot of mints, vapes and chocolate). Fri 27: I broke a Pyrex dish and needed a replacement, but from where? I would have gone to Wilko, and was actually heading to Argos, but instead dropped first into John Lewis and was chuffed to discover they had a sale on (20% off until 10th October). The saleslady wrapped my purchase in three sheets of paper and a further sheet of bubblewrap, all secured with five strips of sellotape, and you don't get that kind of service in Lakeland. Sat 28: I thought the DVLA withheld rude or offensive numberplates, but I saw PU55E OL on a Mercedes in Neasden and they certainly slipped up there. Sun 29: I didn't have 'Pass under Tower Bridge on the bridge of a ship' on my bucketlist, but I ticked it off tonight and it was magical.
Mon 30: The Bow Roundabout roadworks were finally due to start today. There is no evidence that anything happened.
They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, indeed my Sinclair ZX81 wasn't capable of much, but here are 30 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 19 and most of this is the end of the summer break from university. The second half of the month is far more interesting than the first. Sorry there are no photos.
Sat 1: New month, new season on the TV. New programmes include Saturday Starship (hosted by Tommy Boyd and Bonnie Langford) and Bob's Full House, which was followed by new series of Juliet Bravo and the Paul Daniels Magic Show. Sun 2: The first brussels sprout of the year appears on my plate at dinner, alongside the usual roast beef and roast potatoes. Mon 3: As a member of the student diaspora I am allowed to claim unemployment benefit fortnightly during the summer holidays, so today I sign on in a grim building off the Watford ring road (thankfully since demolished). They pay me £54.10. Pop into Marks & Spencer to return a dress for Mum, and thankfully they don't ask to see the receipt because that had blown out of my pocket while I was crossing the canal. Tue 4: The pound slips to a record low of $1.292 so mortgage rates might have to go up. Stevie Wonder's I Just Called To Say I Loved You reaches number 1. Wed 5: Stamp prices have just risen to 17p first class and 13p second class. I go to the Post Office to buy 26 ½p stamps to stick on a 'Greetings from Croxley' postcard to send to a friend in Southport. Thu 6: Peter Powell presents his last Radio 1 teatime show and I'm mortified to discover that Bruno Brookes is taking over next week. Fri 7: Being a student means being able to watch afternoon telly, which today includes a new show called That's My Dog which I decide is awful. Today's competitors are Honey and Blaze and the mystery celebrity dog owner is Katie Boyle. Sat 8: Being a student means waking up at half past nine and never leaving the house. Breakfast is Coco Pops. Lunch is steak and kidney pie.
Sun 9: My grandmother comes to lunch and stays for tea, and inbetween tells me all about her recent stay in a holiday camp. I wish I'd written down a bit more of what she said. Mon 10: Do an experiment with my radio and discover 22 different local radio stations on VHF (at university it's only 4). Tue 11: I would like to apologise to my parents for waiting until they went out and then ringing a premium phone line, safe in the knowledge that itemised billing had not yet been invented. Wed 12: Go up to London to do a few odd jobs in a small Soho office - sticking labels on envelopes, buying duplicator paper, withdrawing money from the bank, collating membership lists and filling envelopes with magazines. I don't think I ever told the unemployment people about this. Thu 13: A new blond ex-trampoline champion starts as a presenter on Blue Peter. That won't end well. Fri 14: Dad drives me back to Oxford where this academic year I'll be staying in shared digs above an estate agents on the Cowley Road. We spend quite a lot of time on Andy's BBC Micro playing Frogger, Chuckie Egg, Aviator and Pac-Man (called Snapper). Also go to Sainsburys to buy £55 of provisions, because thankfully September 1984 is about to get a lot more interesting.
Sat 15: Ten of us head to Black Prince Wharf to set off on a fortnight's canalboat holiday looping round the south Midlands. Our narrowboat is called Chieftain, a 62-footer, and we spend most of the first evening learning how to steer it and not run aground. Sun 16: It's very much a learning experience through the first locks on the Oxford Canal. I have not been allowed near the steering yet. Spend the evening at the Three Tuns in Kings Sutton where we manage to get into a fracas with the locals which ends with angry puddle-splashing. Mon 17: Up early because we have to be through Claydon Locks by 2pm due to water restrictions. Make it with 20 minutes to spare. Patrick falls in the water in Banbury. Our evening pub is the Butchers Arms in Priors Hardwick, which can only be reached from the towpath through cowpatty fields occupied by bulls. The lure of alcohol spurs us on. Tue 18: I'm on windlass duty up the Napton flight of locks (nine), after which we join the Grand Union and the canal is suddenly much wider. Share our trip down the Stockton flight (eight) with another boat, which Paul unfortunately manages to nudge onto the sill at the Bascote staircase. Wed 19: Maximum lockage, first the 21 locks on the Hatton flight then 20 more through Lapworth. I am trusted on the towpath but not at the tiller. End the day at The Camp in King's Norton, which I realise is fellow student Derek's local so I ring him up from a phone box and we all end up round his place having tea with his parents. Derek has his own Wikipedia page these days. Thu 20: Tardebigge has the longest flight of locks in the UK, 30 in total. We manage to get jammed in the first one but the rest is plain sailing and it even stops raining halfway down. Near Stoke Prior I fall down some steps while getting back onto the boat, get a thorn in my finger and hurt my back. It gets me off lock duty for a couple of days. Fri 21: We're cruising rivers now, first the Avon and then at Worcester we swing onto the Severn. Passing through the lock at Tewkesbury requires paying a £20 toll. Slight panic as twilight approaches and we haven't reached a mooring point (there being no towpath), but the thought of beer spurs us on through turbulent Pershore Lock where we tie up.
Sat 22: Hilary and I have to go shopping in Evesham because we've somehow run out of sausages again. Our Saturday evening mooring point is the basin in the centre of Stratford upon Avon, where Patrick manages to crash the prow of the boat into someone's pristine flowerbed and I still feel bad about this. Sun 23: Apathy is setting in and the towpaths are muddy so it's getting harder to cajole people into doing lock-opening duty. End the day at the Tom O' The Wood pub near Kingswood where I have a toasted cheese sandwich. Then I walk down to the local phonebox and ring home, where I'm thrilled to discover the family has just bought our first video recorder. "You MUST record Threads," I say, "it starts in 30 minutes." Mon 24: The 200th lock of our grand tour leads us out of the Stratford upon Avon canal and back onto the Grand Union. Our headlamp keeps blinking out in tunnels. We do Hatton locks again and get the Bascote staircase right this time. Nobody is impressed when I make cup-a-soups for lunch. Tue 25: We're ahead of schedule so divert to Braunston to see what's there. An enormous boatyard, it turns out, and a tunnel it's too muddy to reach the mouth of. Some of us have tired of spending every night in a pub, the rest return raucously from The Crown and do unspeakable things with ice cubes. Wed 26: The best weather and scenery of the trip as we round the ridiculous meanders of the Oxford Canal at Napton. Slow progress through the locks stuck behind a family with a know-it-all Dad. Win at skittles in the pub, but blimey it's a dark walk back along the towpath afterwards. Thu 27: Sausage stocks now only permit one each for lunch. A lot of the day is spend trailing behind other boats which aren't going as fast as we'd like. The Great Western Arms at Aynho offers video snooker! Fri 28: The end of the trip, after being buzzed by a low-flying plane at Upper Heyford. Nowhere in my diary does it say I steered the boat during the last two weeks, which was probably very wise. My fellow narrowboaters dive back into Oxford's pub and social scene with a vengeance, and I hope their livers have subsequently recovered.
Sat 29: I thankfully escape the post-narrowboat mop-up because I have to attend my cousin's wedding in Chigwell. We've bought them an electric carver. Hymn singing, it turns out, is not one of our family's strengths. The reception is at Limes Hill Hall in Grange Hill, where the buffet ends with lemon sorbet and both Agadoo and the Birdie Song are played at the disco. Sun 30: After a very welcome roast dinner - not sausages again - I settle down with our new video recorder to watch Threads. Wow, it's both fabulous and appallingly grim (and is back on BBC Four next Wednesday if you fancy feeling utterly depressed again). Bed early because I'm signing on again in the morning.
20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in September 2024
1) The average e-scooter hire trip lasts 16 minutes, is 1½ miles long and is undertaken at 6½ mph. 2) TfL plan to replace the Lodge Avenue flyover on the A13 with a like-for-like replacement, with construction starting in early 2025 (and perhaps continuing until 2027). 3) In the first 33 weeks of this year TfL received a total of 567,564 complaints, of which 92.4% were addressed within 10 working days. 4) Since the Elizabeth line was launched in May 2022, the day with the fewest trains on time was 20th October 2023 (60), the day with the most cancelled trains was 25th July 2023, the day with the most trains over 20 minutes late was 6th September 2023 (6%) and the day with the most trains missing stops was 27th February 2024 (30%). 5) TfL do not have plans to strengthen any of their bridges purely due to the increase in numbers of electric vehicles. It will thus not cost "trillions of pounds". 6) TfL actioned 993 pigeon-related work orders in 2023. 19% resulted in the clearance of nests on the tube network, 10% resulted in a last resort cull and 29 related to reports of trapped birds. The remaining orders included attendance to remove pigeon guano, repairs of bird netting and installation of bird spikes. 7) Since 2010 the longest road closures on Bow Road have been 6-8 March 2019 ("trace, then excavate to repair gas escape and reinstate where possible") and 11-14 November 2022 ("excavate to locate missing valve, make repairs, check main, backfill and reinstate"). 8) TfL would like to integrate Oyster with Apple wallets but this would require updating card readers on buses and in stations. The project for this is "in-flight" but will take a further 3-4 years to deliver. 9) A speed restriction has been imposed on the southbound Victoria line between Oxford Circus and Green Park stations since 16th January 2023. This is due to the presence of asbestos in caulking and an ongoing water leak. 10) The busiest hour for vehicles entering the Congestion Charge zone is 6pm-7pm (approx 6000 vehicles each weekday). The least busy hour, unsurprisingly, is 3am-4am (approx 600). 11) There are no plans to provide signage in Yiddish at Stamford Hill station, despite any ridiculous rumours you may have heard. 12) The 'Mind The Gap' announcement plays at ten stations on the Northern line, including in both directions at West Finchley and Golders Green. There are also seven platforms where one set of doors does not open, including both platforms at Charing Cross. 13) Between April 2023 and April 2024 there were 27 confirmed fires at tube stations. 80% of these resulted from litter, vandalism or sleeper/wood fire. 14) Underground, Overground and Elizabeth line ticket machines all accept the new King Charles banknotes (and have done since June), but ticket vending machines on the DLR do not. 15) Following a decision to introduce temporary speed restrictions on the DLR for safety reasons, a journey from Stratford International to Woolwich Arsenal now takes 158 seconds longer. In the opposite direction the increase is only 114 seconds. Meanwhile Tower Gateway to Beckton is 73 seconds longer, Bank to Lewisham 69 seconds longer and Stratford to Canary Wharf 57 seconds longer. 16) The Banksy artwork painted on the TfL traffic signal controller box in front of the Gross Domestic Product Shop in Croydon was removed by workmen on 14th October 2019 and is being kept in safe storage. 17) TfL plan to launch the new London Overground lines by the end of the year but do not have a precise date at the moment. The next tube map will be issued at a similar time. 18) In 2023 the zone 1 tube station with the greatest number of "slips, trips and falls incidents" was Baker Street (147). The only zone 1 station with zero incidents was Lancaster Gate. 19) A temporary speed restriction has been implemented for eastbound trains departing Westbourne Park station. This is due to a track geometry fault, and will be in place for some time because the repair is complicated. 20) Over the last 12 months the tube station at which the most sexual offences were reported was King's Cross St Pancras (17), and the tube line on which the most sexual offences were reported was the Central line (133). Bow Road and the Waterloo & City line recorded zero.
Last week the Deputy Mayor approved the All England Club's planning application to build 39 new tennis courts across Wimbledon Park. But was that decision right or was it wrong?
It was right because Wimbledon is one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world, two weeks in July when the eyes of the world are on SW19. And this is on a surprisingly compact site, barely 40 acres in extent, which somehow contains 18 tournament courts, umpteen practice courts, hospitality venues, circulation space and backstage facilities. How much better things would be if they could extend across the road with a new show court and dozens of practice courts, and throw in a new public park for good measure.
It was wrong because this a greedy landgrab, not just a minor development, the new site being almost double the size of the old. The site the All England Club have got their hands on is 25% larger than St James's Park, for heaven's sake. What's more it's all Metropolitan Open Land so development is permitted only in "very special circumstances", and hitting a few balls about for not many days a year is hardly a justifiable excuse.
It was right because the expansion will allow the preliminaries of the tournament to be played in Wimbledon for the first time, rather than in cramped conditions in Roehampton. That effectively means a three week tournament, not to mention thousands more people who'll be able to attend and experience the Wimbledon magic, not to mention increased gate receipts which can be ploughed back into tennis.
It was wrong because Wimbledon's status as a major Grand Slam tournament isn't exactly under threat unless they expand massively. Three weeks of tennis will also be excessive, especially for local residents who'll now have to endure 50% more road closures, bus diversions, security faff and general commotion, not to mention years of construction traffic, and all because a sports club got all-out hungry for money.
It was right because the site in question is only a golf course. Not only is it a private space there's currently no public access, not even a public right of way across the site, so the tennis club should be praised for opening up the place. What's more the All England Club have owned the lease on the golf course since 1993 so they're not exactly rushing into this. And what's more it was the members of that golf club who agreed to sell up, indeed they've already left.
It was wrong because of course the members sold up, the All England Club offered them all £85,000 each to bugger off. Golf courses aren't exactly uncommon so the members could easily play somewhere else, whereas the opportunity to grab a massive windfall doesn't come up very often. The All England Club have simply been throwing their money about, safe in the knowledge that playing the long game would eventually see them victorious and getting their own way.
It was right because the golf course has been closed since 2022 so it's currently a huge area of wasted space. It was also a condition of the sale of the leasehold in 1993 that the site only be used for recreational or leisure purposes, not housing or any other kind of commercial development, so nobody's going to come along with a better offer than the tennis/park option currently on the table.
It was wrong because the golf course forms part of the wider Wimbledon Park, about half by size, with a proper public park to the east and a large boating lake at the heart of things. The existing park is busy and much-loved but not terribly well connected locally and the opportunity could have been taken to create a major recreational facility for year-round use, not a “tennis industrial complex” that will lie silent for much of the year.
It was right because one arm of the golf course is going to be transformed into an additional park, mostly linear, greatly increasing scenic opportunity hereabouts. A boardwalk will also be created around the lake creating a leisure circuit that's never existed before, and OK it'll all need to be closed for three weeks in high summer to facilitate crowd flow, but that's because the new park also conveniently aligns as a scenic customer entrance.
It was wrong because this is a Capability Brown landscape for heaven's sake. In 1795 he tweaked the trees and rusticated the avenues and dammed a stream to create a lake, and now the tennis crew want to come along and pour tons of concrete across the area. What's more they also intend to cut down 300 existing trees that have been growing around the golf course for decades, and all because these beautiful specimens don't fit with their proposed sporting footprint.
It was right because they'll only be cutting down newer trees, not the category 'A' significant ones, all of which are being retained along with 90% of the category 'B's. As they say in the project blurb, "the removal of the golf course template of trees grants the opportunity to provide a more naturalistic parkland setting throughout", although obviously this won't appear instantly so may not look great initially.
It was wrong because the powers that be simply capitulated to the bottomless pockets of the racketeers. The site straddles two boroughs, and even though Wandsworth said no Merton rolled over and said yes so the decision got passed up to the Deputy Mayor and he passed judgement on Thursday saying "go ahead". The Deputy Prime Minister has already washed her hands, saying the decision should be made at local level, and basically sport and money have won out over community and nature.
It was right because I've walked round the edge of the contentious bit and quite frankly it's nothing special. The trees are nice but the grass looks relatively sterile, as you tend to get on golf courses, so not especially anything you'd fight to preserve. It wasn't always easy to see through the perimeter but even after 20 minutes I wasn't especially enthused, so it's hard to see how a shoal of tennis courts can be worse than a swathe of private land you can't get into anyway.
It was wrong because blimey this site is enormous. It took me 10 minutes to walk one edge of the proposed park and another 15 minutes to walk the intended dividing line between old courts and new. You could do all sorts with the land, specifically creating an extended Wimbledon Park properly integrated with the existing public space, creating a biodiverse recreational masterpiece with a lovely lake in the middle. Alas, that's now never going to happen.
In summary it's both practical and greedy, both a necessary expansion and an obscene landgrab. It is thus both right and wrong, and I heartily recommend walking around the edge of the contested land rather than jumping to conclusions from afar.
The square after Coventry Street on the Monopoly board is theWater Works. London has all kinds of water infrastructure, from sewage treatment works to reservoirs and ring mains, not to mention sewers, pumping stations and the Tideway Tunnel. But I thought I'd visit the largest water treatment works in the capital, measured by capacity in megalitres, which it turns out is beside the Thames and very nearly in Surrey.
Hampton Water Treatment Works
If you intend to draw drinking water from the Thames, best do that upstream of the tidal limit. This was the rationale behind the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 which required that intakes for drinking water could no longer be located along the sewage-infested river below Teddington Lock. The Grand Junction Waterworks Company, the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company and the West Middlesex Waterworks Company thus joined together to build a water treatment works on the north bank of the Thames between Hampton and Sunbury. A mile upstream from Hampton Court Palace, not far from Kempton Park racecourse, if you're trying to get your bearings.
Initially the works included sand filter beds, a reservoir and three steam-driven pump houses built in brick in institutionally grand Italianate style. The site was soon expanded and by 1900 there were four reservoirs and 40 filter beds, making Hampton one of the largest waterworks anywhere in the world. At one point the engine houses required over 100 tons of coal a day, supplied by barge and delivered to the site via a small industrial railway. Today Hampton Water Treatment Works covers 160 acres, can pump out 700 megalitres a day and supplies about a third of London's fresh water. And I've been for a walk around it.
Hampton's a charming and historic village, once home to celebrated actor David Garrick, with a heritage core around St Mary's church. Stay downstream of the old Post Office boatyard and you can continue to believe this version, with lengthy riverside gardens and a medieval ferry to whisk you over to Molesey. But upstream all this is abruptly whisked away, indeed the citizens of Hampton sacrificed access to the edge of the Thames over 150 years ago and may never get it back. The first obstructions are the Riverdale and Morelands engine houses, two long brick buildings completed in 1870 and distinguished enough that even the cast iron railings out front are Grade II listed. Neither looks to be part of current operations so my first assumption was 'must be flats' but in fact they were sold off in 2012 to create laboratories to support biotechnological start-ups.
Beyond the traffic lights the heritage buildings continue, as yet unoccupied. The first, with its startlingly rectangular chimney, is the RustonBuilding and is one of the original engine houses on site. A plan to turn it and its neighbours into homes and offices is currently battling through the planning process, the outcome pivoting on the fine balance between the proportion of social housing and the ongoing risk of the interior deteriorating further. It feels wrong that all of this is just round the back of the local library. But eventually the view opens out, past old buildings that look like they still perform some infrastructural function, to reveal a massive open space with watery indentations.
The largest is the Grand Junction Reservoir, which I was surprised to see wasn't full given the amount of rain we've had recently but apparently it's used to balance the flow into the works. It exists to feed water into the ozone plant (or as it says on the sign 'Hampton Ozonation') and looked to be a favourite spot for passing waterfowl. The next two pools were dry, one with JCBs carefully spreading layers of sand or gravel in some kind of sanitation ballet. Hampton has to re-layer its slow sand filters every three years, and I'm pretty sure the diggers were busy building up a special biological filtration matrix which, delightfully, is called a Schmutzdecke.
If you're thinking of visiting Hampton this is by far the best place to get a view across the treatment works, the barbed wire effectively beneath you, so you could stop here and catch the 216 back to Kingston. But I wanted to circumnavigate the site which meant taking a strange hemmed-in footpath between sturdy fences, with the gloopier end of the waterworks to one side and the Stain Hill Reservoirs on the other. It could have been quite oppressive but this green stripe in fact supported a variety of wildlife including butterflies, robins, probably foxes if you come at the right time, and squirrels collecting the bountiful harvest of gale-blown horse chestnuts.
Lower Sunbury Road, where I emerged, is wholly different to Upper Sunbury Road up top. For a start it's much quieter, which was good because only occasional vehicles were splashing up mucky puddlefuls following a recent cloudburst. The waterworks was also much better hidden from view thanks to a strategically planted hedge, hence numerous signs saying 'Warning Sharp Thorns'. Other warning notices here include 'Deep Cold Water', 'Danger Deep Water', 'Keep Out', 'Keep Away' and a more verbose poster so old it features an 071 phone number. Through the branches I just about saw the thirteen parallel filter beds, each long and thin and railing-edged, through which the water for my morning cuppa might have passed.
The Thames isn't far away on the other side of the road but the waterworks hogs that too, every acre hereabouts being valuable. The only gap is for a private sailing club and then, unexpectedly, a grubby carpark filled with motley vehicles and evidence of manual labour. This is the access point for PlattsEyot, one of the larger islandson the Thames and still a working landscape because its boatyards have never been replaced by residential hideaways. It was first used for boatbuilding in 1868, then during WW1 as a secret construction site for torpedo-skimming motor launches, and was connected to the Middlesex bank during WW2 by the Royal Engineers. Their bridgestill stands and can only be driven across in something small, hence the makeshift Thames-side car park.
A fire three years ago caused nasty damage to some of Platts Eyot's remaining boatyards and destroyed a Dunkirk Little Ship which was being repaired at the time. Just don't expect to head across the bridge to take a look because the island's private, and is actually bestseen from the Surrey bank so best move on. All that follows is yet more well-screened waterworks perimeter plus the fortified main entrance and a scattering of functional definitely-not-listed buildings. Ahead are the traffic lights I mentioned five paragraphs ago where I took a last glimpse at the multiplicity of filter beds, their output ultimately linked across London via the Thames Water Ring Main. Hampton Water Works may go generally unseen but give thanks it's been doing its intended job for over a century and a half.
One thing that happens when transport deadlines slip is that some things happen anyway, things that were supposed to be associated with the launch. The weekend Crossrail was supposed to open but didn't, for example, Adidas inexplicably released a set of purple trainers with a 3D Elizabeth Line logo on the right heel. This was December 2018, a long-targeted date for those in the know but never directly communicated to the public. As we now know the line didn't open for another 3½ years, but Adidas's marketing deal was already sealed so they launched anyway into a meaningless void.
This week has long been pencilled in as Overground renaming week by those behind the scenes, but again never directly communicated to the public. Press releases have generally mentioned "the autumn" or "by the end of the year", because never reveal too much if you're not certain you can deliver. Had things gone to plan the media would currently be full of the Mayor launching the whole caboodle but alas not, delivery has indeed stalled, most likely as a direct consequence of that pesky cyberattack. Pick your battles.
One thing's that's slipped is the new tube map. Last month an FoI confirmed it was expected to be released on September 23rd, i.e. this week, in conjunction with the Overground turning six shades of not-orange. But that hasn't happened, indeed an FoI published on Wednesday confirmed "We plan to launch the new London Overground lines by the end of the year. The Tube map and signs will be issued at a similar time. We do not have precise date at the moment." However this hasn't stopped the new tube map's cover from appearing on posters across the Underground.
It's by Rita Keegan, it's called The Fabric of Time and it's described as the 40th pocket Tube map cover. It consists of several squares of moquette on a black background and I suspect you're going to like it, certainly much more than certain recent squiggles, when you finally get your hands on a copy. Alas that won't be yet, indeed might still be a few months, but the poster campaign launched anyway because there are frames to fill and nobody stopped it.
My hunch is that the new tube map has already been printed, because you can't knock out millions of copies overnight, and are sitting in boxes somewhere waiting for a revised launch date. If that's the case then they'll have been printed with 'September 2024' on the cover, a date which is going to look increasingly amiss as weeks and maybe months go by, so look out for that when they finally appear.
I mentioned recently that this week's line closures poster includes disruption on five out of six of the new lines, so would have looked particularly impressive under the new nomenclature. A reader them emailed me to say that one such poster did indeed slip through the net and was pasted up at an unnamed station before being rapidly whipped down again. If anything exemplifies how incredibly close TfL got to renaming the Overground lines this week, this is it.
See how the six new Overground line names appear as sub-brands under the overall Overground umbrella, i.e. there's still an orange title at the top, then the other colours underneath. Also note that the new Overground lines always appear with a white band through the middle like a stripe of toothpaste. Officially it's called a dual line and "is composed of two lines and a white space of equal weight". Don't sound too surprised by this - TfL released their Digital Standards for the new Overground lines way back in March where everything's explained, and three weeks ago added a video on YouTube to exemplify the TfL London Overground line naming customer journey. Watch that and you'll be well ahead of the curve.
And then yesterday TfL launched something else which would have made perfect sense if the Overground lines were being renamed this week, but instead looks like pre-arranged premature emission. Six self-guided Overground walking tours were released, each devised in conjunction with walking app Go Jauntly, and promoted in their own press release. They provide six chances to get out and about on the new lines, despite the fact they don't have those names yet, and discover multiple stories behind their heritage. And they look miserable.
To clarify, they've been put together really carefully and are packed with detail and copious background information. They range in length from 5 miles to 8 miles and one of the route descriptions stretches to 42 pages. Someone has spent a lot of time making them relevant, comprehensive and as accessible as possible, paying full attention to visiting points of interest and where to cross streets. And yet this is simultaneously their downfall because they're so circuitous, atomised and tortuous that walking them would bring very little joy. I certainly shan't be bothering, and I'm about as target audience as it gets.
For example the Weaver line walk starts with a loop round Spitalfields (steps 1-75), then a loop round Hackney (steps 78-133), then a loop round Walthamstow (steps 135-139). You're expected to catch the train inbetween. The Suffragette line walk starts in Barking and makes a ridiculous special effort to visit a bench in a distant park before doubling back to the station. The Liberty line walk is a short circuit of Romford and then a lengthy there-and-back along the Ingrebourne Valley, linked by train. The Windrush line walk starts in Dalston and wants to end in Brixton but Brixton doesn't have an Overground station so you have to meander there from Clapham. The Lioness walk could just have been a wander round Wembley but someone chose to add a mundane hike from South Kenton to Headstone Lane past several football pitches which is a step too far.
Practically speaking the worst might be the Mildmay line walking tour (8.5 miles, 5 hours and 40 minutes) which is so keen to link as many points of LGBT interest as possible that it becomes entirely unwieldy. It starts near the Mildmay Hospital, obviously, but in doing so has to admit this is nowhere near the Mildmay line and requires a trip on the Windrush line instead. A loop round Dalston follows, then a lengthier figure of eight round Highbury, admittedly ticking off several historic aspects but along an otherwise circuitous slog. And finally it relocates to West Brompton for an extended plaque-spotting deviation (Freddie Mercury, Frankie Howerd, Radclyffe Hall) ending near Kensington Palace to pay tribute to Mildmay-supporter Princess Di. Full marks for shoehorning in so many diverse icons and events, seriously, but there's no need to actually walk the thing, it's far too impractically contrived.
In summary, six Overground lines should have been renamed this week but they haven't, hence a few linked projects have slipped out anyway. A bit careless really.
I went to the doctor's a couple of weeks ago, not because I needed to but because I thought I should. "Oh that seems fine," she said, in a wholly reassuring way. "But perhaps we ought to do some checks."
And so this week I've been for three checks, coincidentally on three consecutive days, involving visits to three different health-based locations. I should say up front that none of the checks have thrown up anything out of the ordinary, so that was wholly reassuring too.
On Monday I went back to my doctor's surgery for Check 1. It's always fascinating watching the comings and goings while you wait, the constant flow of staff and patients, the latter mostly young or old. I had been expecting the reception desk to be a flurry of activity as potential patients rang in to try to get an appointment, it being that time of the morning, but it seems that's no longer the arrangement. The new normal is to request a telephone consultation*, a chat with someone who doesn't actually have to look at you, merely ascertain whether someone else ought to see you later. You could describe it as an at-distance triage solution, or as efficient use of limited resources, or as an example of the increasing impersonalisation of society.
* I had in fact bypassed all this two weeks ago by taking the self-important approach, which had been to walk in off the street and present myself in person. I was initially told I'd have to go away and ring up in the morning, but when I responded with a querulous stare the receptionist went away and checked. "Can you come back in an hour?" she asked, and I could so I did and the whole thing was sorted that afternoon.
Monday's visit was thankfully brief, being called through to the consulting room after not as long as I was expecting. The check was efficiently completed, not for the first time, and I managed to ignore how mildly unpleasant it was. Thankfully it all went very smoothly, the only unexpected thing being that Wednesday's doctor would be able to deduce what Monday's check had been just by looking at me.
On Tuesday I went to my local pharmacy for Check 2. Pharmacies do a lot more these days than just dish out tablets and offer advice, things which surgeries might have delivered in the past, thereby making greater use of their expertise and easing pressure on the NHS. I had a little scribbled appointment card as if everything was proper, which in the new paradigm it clearly is. I still had to sit around and wait while the usual palaver of pharmacy life took precedence, all the prescription-seeking, linctus-purchasing and paracetamol acquisition the local populace requires. I was at least offered a seat - they keep one for this purpose - but up close to the counter while umpteen medicines exchanged hands which isn't what I'm used to at the doctor's.
I remember the little room at the side of the pharmacy being built but had never been inside before, just thought it looked rather small. And indeed it was, but perfectly adequate for the check about to take place. What struck me most was all the paperwork the pharmacist had to go through before everything could kick off, in this case on-screen IT paperwork using a patently antiquated interface. Type this here, click, type more, click, type it again, next screen, and repeat. Maybe half the time I spent in that cubicle was spent dealing with the computer screen, not delivering the check, which can't have been the best use of a professional's time. But we got there in the end and I couldn't fault the care taken over delivery.
On Wednesday I went to my local hospital for Check 3. The system was very keen to make sure I went because I was sent an email, a text message, a text message and another text message in advance. What surprised me was that the text messages told me where to go, when and why, nudging me strongly towards turning up, whereas the email merely told me to 'Log in to see the details of your appointment'. That meant I had to go through the palaver of logging in to my NHS account, remembering the password and dealing with an unexpected error message that locked me out for an hour before it eventually told me what the appointment was. The email also advised me to "log in regularly" to get all further notifications, so seemed to be relying on me checking rather than proactively managing my visit. I wondered if I'd also get a letter but I didn't - the NHS isn't made of money - and what I ended up thinking was "blimey, no wonder so many people don't turn up".
I knew which hospital and which department to go to but that's as far as the information went. I hadn't been told how to get there, which door to use and which floor it was on, I was left to work that out for myself. What's more they've completely rebuilt my local hospital since I was last inside so I didn't know for sure where the front door was, it's quite well hidden, and inexplicably I'd never deduced where it had to be. It's bloody obvious now but I still walked round the wrong side of the building first and it amazes me that the appointment onboarding process doesn't provide sufficient information to nail down where to go.
As I wandered through the broad white corridors I thought "sheesh, this is completely different to the Victorian building I was wheeled through back in 2008", and also "hang on how many more swing doors have I got to walk through", and also "I wonder if that old man is a patient or a consultant", and also "why am I crossing back over the road again?" I eventually found myself where I was supposed to be, only to be directed down two more corridors past a nurse who asked me where I was going, and settled in the waiting space alongside a rack of leaflets about unpleasant medical conditions. Thank goodness for smartphones, all of us sat there seemed to be thinking, as we flicked through something less downbeat while we waited.
My check-up lasted less than ten minutes and I would give myself six out of ten for my performance. I failed to put my symptoms into words, I couldn't remember the date of my last check-up, I'm pretty sure I gave an incorrect answer to one of the questions and I really shouldn't have brought up that barely relevant childhood anecdote. Something about being in a room with a professional creates an undue amount of pressure, even when they're very pleasant, and I gushed to fill the gaps when I really should have kept quiet. I also misunderstood the part about the couch, because it turned out I didn't actually need to lie down and shouldn't have tried. It's just as well it wasn't my actions being checked, merely my body.
At one point the doctor stopped addressing me and started talking to the medical student who was in the room to observe, using my body as a canvas for educational demonstration. It took a while for me to realise that she'd given me the all clear and I had to ask again to doublecheck. When you're under the care of the NHS it turns out what you really want to know is "will I need to come back again or is this it?" and this needs to be explicit so it sets your mind at rest. I left the room entirely reassured, and then abruptly realised that I'd failed to put my clothes back on properly and that I should probably address that before I reached reception.
So, as I suggested, it looks like checks 1, 2 and 3 all had positive outcomes for which I am particularly grateful. I could still receive a future communication asking me to get back in touch but that now seems much less likely, so it's been a much better week than the week it could potentially have been. But as I walked out of the hospital yesterday I reflected that one day the news may not be as good, that this might one day be a building I become considerably more familiar with, and that engaging with the NHS won't always be the novelty it is today. May that day be as far away as possible.
Paddington tube station has another entrance. I know, another one.
It already has a District/Circle/Bakerloo entrance on the mainline concourse, a separate District/Circle entrance across the road on Praed Street, a completely separate Circle/Hammersmith & City entrance over by the canal and, technically, a newish Bakerloo entrance via a long subway from the very separate Crossrail entrance. It used to have a Bakerloo entrance on the mainline concourse but this narrow passageway closed just before lockdown and has since been converted into something considerably flashier. And further away.
The new entrance is part of the Paddington Square development, a spectral white cuboid with several floors of offices sandwiched between a rooftop restaurant and a retail undercroft. The architect Renzo Piano describes it as "a world-class gateway into London, floating above the ground with an animated and organic public realm unfurled beneath", and I'd describe it as a glass cage of concentrated capitalism, shoehorned alongside a station to funnel hungry tourists into a hospitality honeytrap. The masterstroke is incorporating a tube station at its roots.
If you're disembarking from a mainline train, Paddington Square will be to your left alongside the open ramp out of the station. Head upwards from the piazza and you'll find a Wahaca and a Gail's - obviously a Gail's - plus scrutinised escalators ushering smartly clad office fodder to their desks. For the Bakerloo line aim for the concrete slot guarded by a row of bollards and take the escalators down beneath the swirly red and yellow sculpture - the only new artwork hereabouts worth looking at. Oh look, more shops, so far just a Pret and Starbucks but with room for many more. A separate food hall is due to open before Christmas, but for now the numerous security guards watching over everything have very little to do.
The new ticket concourse is off to the side and is deliberately wide, instantly doubling the number of gatelines leading to the Bakerloo. It all looks functional and modern, but after you funnel up the silvery staircase you'll find yourself in a familiar spot - the tiled concourse at the top of the original escalators. What used to be the (fairly narrow) access passageway is now merely the connection to the District and Circle lines, and thus thankfully rather quieter than it used to be. This being the 21st century there's also a lift, a pair of them in fact, connecting directly down to the Bakerloo line platforms. It's like a totally different entry experience, which eventually evaporates when you see the age of the trains rolling into the platform.
Intriguingly I reckon this'll be more popular as an exit than an entrance. It's so far from the mainline platforms that many people may filter in another way. But as you exit up the escalators the Way Out signs are really clear and they deliver everyone through the new ticket hall and out into a realm of beverages and food-to-go. Everyone's now also forced to go outside before reaching the mainline station, whereas at least with the old squished exit you stayed dry if it rained. On the positive side TfL haven't paid a penny towards all this and have got a step-free entrance in return, so that's a big win. But it also means a longer walk via additional changes of level past a shedload of shops, because that's the reality of unfurling an animated public realm to create a world-class gateway.
I wondered if the new ticket hall at Paddington would display copies of the new tube map but it didn't. They'd put up copies of the old one, the map that should have been replaced by now, and all because the renaming of the Overground lines is running unexpectedly late. Even two weeks ago the 'Go live' dates were officially scheduled to be between Monday 23 – Friday 27 September, i.e. right now, but instead everything's been delayed again behind the scenes. Might be further fallout from the recent cyberattack, might just be project creep, but it all means unexpected delays.
It's a shame because the six Overground line closures scheduled for this weekend are across five different lines and that would have looked properly inaugural on the posters. The spread looks almost suspiciously broad, but I checked and they've been in the calendar for months so I doubt it's deliberate.
This, however, is somewhat embarrassing...
It's a sign on the wall outside Upper Holloway station and it suggests that the Overground serves Highbury & Lisington station.
In good news the error is only on the temporary vinyl covering the new sign underneath, which it seems someone didn't proofread very carefully. I can confirm that the green-edged sign underneath definitely has the correct name because the raised letters are visible as faint contours in the vinyl. But if the Overground renaming had gone ahead on schedule this embarrassing mistake would be in the bin by now, whereas alas today anyone can go along and giggle.
Thankfully signage does sometimes get correctly updated. I'm delighted to say that there is now a poster at Bus Stop M to say that route 8 no longer starts here. Here's the van which turned up on Monday morning to deliver it.
The wording on the poster is generally correct, so should be helpful in deterring passengers from waiting for a bus that isn't coming. But it still mentions Bow Church DLR station twice, which route 8 has never served and which the suggested alternative buses don't serve either. This suggests the minion who wrote it didn't really understand the local situation, but hey, better two weeks late than never.
