Status Under construction Stations 2 | ||
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Termini KenningtonBattersea Power Station | ||
The Northern line extension to Battersea is an extension of the London Underground Northern line currently under construction from Kennington to Battersea in South West London, terminating at the disused Battersea Power Station. The extension will form a continuation of the Charing Cross branch of the line. Two new underground stations will be built at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms which will serve a new embassy district including, amongst others, the United States embassy and the Dutch embassy.
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The extension is a partially privately funded project by the site developers, SP Setia and Sime Darby, with contributions from other sources such as the new US Embassy. Construction began in 2015, and the extension could be open by 2020. Battersea Power Station will be the new southern terminus, with a new station at Nine Elms on Wandsworth Road. Both stations will be in Travelcard Zone 1.
Provision will be made for a possible future extension to Clapham Junction by notifying the London Borough of Wandsworth of a reserved course under Battersea Park and subsequent streets.
History
A May 2010 consultation put forward four proposals (two with slightly different locations for Nine Elms station, one with an interchange at Vauxhall for the Victoria line, and one with a direct link with no intermediate station). In the light of the consultation results, Transport for London decided to develop the extension with two new tube stations, one at Nine Elms, next to Wandsworth Road and Pascal Street, at a site used as a Sainsbury's car park, and one serving the Battersea Power Station development. In addition to serving the mostly residential communities, Nine Elms tube station will also provide improved access for the nearby New Covent Garden Market and the future US Embassy.
The Greater London Authority advised landowners, developers and council leaders (forming the Nine Elms and Vauxhall Strategy Board) in November 2010 that the extension will be mostly privately funded via developers' contributions and will provide an economic windfall for its regeneration area, it costed the new link at £560 million. Financing of the extension has been aided by the fact that the developers of the area have been made exempt from the Crossrail Levy and instead are required to pay towards the extension.
On 11 November 2010, Wandsworth Council granted planning permission for the development of the Battersea Power Station site, and this permission was then approved by the Mayor of London on 22 December 2010. Although the plans rested upon the new link, the extension itself has been the subject of a separate planning application.
In June 2012, the Battersea Power Station site was sold to a Malaysian consortium, SP Setia and Sime Darby, following the liquidation of the Real Estate Opportunities.
In November 2012, Transport for London launched a consultation on their preferred route option, giving people living in the area a chance to submit their views.
In December 2012, HM Treasury confirmed that it will allow the Greater London Authority to borrow up to £1 billion from the Public Works Loan Board, at a preferential rate, to finance the construction of the line.
In April 2013, Transport for London applied for a Transport and Works Act Order to proceed with the extension.
On 19 November 2013, the Secretary of State for Transport announced the start of a public inquiry into the proposed construction of the extension. The inquiry, conducted by an independent planning inspector, finished on 20 December 2013. The planning inspector in Spring 2014 recommended that the scheme proceed along with other recommendations. Ground investigation works commenced from 2010 to understand the soil and subsoil where the new tunnels are to be engineered.
In August 2014, Mike Brown, the former Managing Director of London Underground (within Transport for London) announced that a forecast £500 million six-year contract had been awarded to Ferrovial Agroman Laing O’Rourke to design and build the Northern line extension to Battersea.
The extension was given the final approval by the Secretary of State for Transport in November 2014 with it projected to open in 2020. In the draft edition of the TfL 'Business Plan 2014', issued as part of the TfL Board papers for their meeting on 10 December 2014, the map TfL's Rail Transport Network at 2021 labelled the terminus as "Battersea Power Station", instead of just "Battersea" as had appeared on previous publications.
Construction
Preparation works started on the route in 2015, and the main tunnelling is scheduled to start in March 2017. In mid-February 2017 the two large tunnel boring machines were delivered to the Battersea construction site, and lowered to tunnel level by a large crane. The boring machines have been named Helen and Amy following a competition amongst local school children.