Michele Dix
Managing Director of Crossrail 2
Transport for London
Dear Michele,
Ref: Crossrail 2 Consultation, Location of Station at Balham or Tooting Broadway
We understand that Transport for London’s preferred site for a Crossrail 2 station in our locality has moved to Balham following the discovery of difficult ground conditions under Tooting Broadway station.
Local residents were surprised by this large change of plan and had strong views about it. In order to capture the consensus mood on the best location for a station I launched a survey website at www.BalhamOrTooting.org.uk and publicised it across the area impacted by this change.
The current consultation on Crossrail 2 asks for feedback from the public in regards to the proposed station at Balham, as well as on the route as a whole across London and the Home Counties. With the consultation deadline approaching, I’m pleased to share with you the results from my survey of local residents, which Transport for London (TfL) has confirmed will be considered in its consultation.
Summary of results
The survey has had a huge response, with 3,000 residents responding, showing the strength of feeling on this topic.
The results show a very definitive opinion, with 83% of residents asking TfL to retain the station at Tooting Broadway, rather than moving it to Balham. The headline result does contain some local variation, with Tooting Broadway the strongly preferred option amongst local residents in Tooting, Earlsfield and Wandsworth Common, while Balham residents were more split, with only a small majority in favour of a station in Balham.
I have attached the responses for you, with postcode identifiers, so that you can further analyse the data as part of your consultation.
Qualitative Feedback
I also wish to share the views that local residents submitted as part of their survey response.
While respondents recognise the extra difficulty, cost and time required to build a station at Tooting Broadway as compared with Balham, we are yet to have seen a detailed geological survey for Balham, nor a detailed plan for how Tooting Broadway could be built despite the difficulties. This is presumably why the extra £500m build cost is such a round number, and residents feel strongly that these further studies be undertaken before TfL reaches a conclusion on the best location.
More pressingly, residents are very concerned that no detailed work has been done on identifying the regeneration benefits for Tooting Broadway and Balham, particularly as it seems likely, and indeed TfL has already recognised, that Tooting has the potential for much more regeneration, housing and economic benefit to be unlocked as compared with Balham. These detailed studies must be commissioned in the next stage of the Crossrail 2 project.
It is notable that few of the respondents to the survey considered the larger building site and degree of disruption at Tooting Broadway to be a major concern. Nonetheless, more information is needed on this aspect of the Crossrail 2 project and I would request that studies looking at the disruptive impact of construction work in Tooting and Balham Town Centres are carried out before a decision is made.
Residents expressed the strong view that in addition to the Northern Line tube service, Balham already has good rail links, with frequent trains to Clapham Junction, Victoria and other popular destinations. Tooting Broadway by contrast has no railway, but is a hub for bus routes. Bringing Crossrail 2 to Tooting would provide additional rail connectivity and allow for much better integration with bus routes, heavily used by residents. A point frequently made in support of the Balham option was that having a Crossrail 2 station there could strengthen the case to have the Gatwick Express stop in Balham, which would be welcomed by local residents.
Many residents cited the benefits that a Crossrail2 station in Tooting Broadway would bring to St George’s Hospital’s patients, staff and visitors. Not only is St George’s relatively poorly served by public transport as compared with other major London hospitals, but the current Northern Line station at Tooting Broadway has no wheelchair access. A Crossrail 2 station at Tooting Broadway would reduce travel times to the Hospital and allow for a lift which would provide a huge improvement in accessibility.
Respondents also expressed strong concerns about the loss of green space that a Balham route alignment would cause, by necessitating an access shaft on Wandsworth Common. In the previous Crossrail 2 consultation you will recall that we were successful in convincing TfL of the case to move the access shafts associated with a Tooting-aligned route away from the Common. This means that having the station at Tooting (rather than Balham) has the associated benefit of not requiring any construction work on Wandsworth Common.
Finally, I should add that there was once again strong support for the Crossrail 2 project as a whole and for us to have a station somewhere in our area, not least because additional capacity is essential to relieve rush hour over-crowding on the Northern Line. Clearly this feedback is in line with results from previous Crossrail 2 consultations that TfL has run in our area.
Conclusion
The survey I have undertaken is very large and representative of the area as a whole. It shows a large majority in favour of a station at Tooting Broadway. Should TfL decide as part of this consultation to press ahead with Balham as the only local option for a station, that would be very premature given local feeling and the fact that so much more research needs to be done into both the Balham and Tooting Broadway options.
Therefore, once the current consultation has concluded, I would strongly urge TfL to keep the Tooting Broadway option on the table and to conduct further detailed studies into the geology, engineering designs, economic benefits and construction impact for stations at both Balham and Tooting Broadway.
Yours sincerely,
Dan Watkins
Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Tooting