Islington Council launches legal challenge over Tube station closure

The station is set to open again in October 2016
Matt Buck/Flickr/Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 2.0
Michael Clarke8 January 2016

Islington Council has started court proceedings against Transport for London over a planned eight month closure of a Tube station.

Caledonian Road Underground station, on the Piccadilly Line, is due to shut from March 14 in order to replace its 30-year-old lifts.

The judicial review application has come after calls from the community and council to have the plan to temporarily close the station reversed.

Islington Council’s executive member for environment and transport, Councillor Claudia Webbe, said: “Closing Caledonian Road station for eight months will have a huge impact on the local community, especially disabled and older people.

“We have asked TfL to look at repairing one lift at a time and keeping the station open, which would be a big help to disabled and older people, but they haven’t done this.”

The council claims TfL did not have due regard for its public sector equality duty when deciding to close the station rather than repair one lift after the other.

An online petition has attracted almost 8,000 signatures from the community and supporters.

One of the other claims made in the legal action by the council is that no consultation was made between TfL and the community.

Caledonian Road is one of the capital’s ‘step-free’ stations, which constitute only 25 per cent of all functioning underground stations across London’s network. The claim also states the closure of the station discriminates against physically disabled and older persons.

TfL have advised Commuters to use Holloway Road Tube station or Caledonian Road and Barnsbury Overground station during the works.

Gareth Powell, Director of Strategy for London Underground, said: “We're sorry for the disruption that the work we are planning will cause customers; however we believe it would not be safe to have the station open while the essential upgrade is carried out.

"Customer safety is our number one priority, which is why we intend to close the station to replace the lifts in the safest way. We have not taken the decision lightly and will complete the work as quickly as possible so that customers can benefit from a much improved, quicker and more reliable service.”

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