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Camden News - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 31 December 2008

Primrose Hill Station today, following its demoliton

VICTORIAN STATION IS FLATTENED

Sudden ‘safety’ demolition stuns rail campaigners

RAIL chiefs have broken hearts by demolishing a station which campaigners were fighting hard to save from the bulldozer.
Hopes of getting the service back and running at the historic Primrose Hill railway station have been flattened by Network Rail’s shock intervention.
Without warning, the Victorian waiting room, canopy and lamps faced the wrecking ball in the days before Christmas.
Network Rail blamed safety issues for the sudden demolition, which took place just as a campaign to reopen the line was launched by local politicians and had begun gathering weight.
The forgotten station was considered a gem by railway heritage conservationists and fondly remembered by residents, who were recently given a nostalgic reminder of its past when trains were diverted during repair works took place to the North London line.
Network Rail said the station, in Bridge Approach near Chalk Farm Road, had “fallen into a state of disrepair” and needed to be taken away to prevent parts of it falling onto the tracks.
But campaigners – including leading Liberal Democrat cllr Chris Naylor, who called its demolition “crazy” after it “has been sitting there for 20 years not doing anyone any harm” – have been stunned by its sudden destruction.
Residents and rail aficionados are also fuming that they weren’t consulted – particularly as the station lies in a conservation area and rail chiefs knew there was a campaign to save it.
Cllr Naylor said: “Primrose Hill residents are backing our campaign to get the station re-opened, so it seems crazy to demolish the old station now. The Northern line is massively overloaded and we won’t get a new Camden Tube station for 10 years or more. I used Primrose Hill station myself when I first moved to Camden – reopening it now would be an easy way to improve public transport locally.”
The station opened in 1851 as Hampstead Road before being renamed, first as Chalk Farm and then as Primrose Hill in 1950. It closed in 1992.
The line initially ran to Poplar docks before being re-routed from Euston to Watford. A report recently discussed by Design for London – a branch of the Mayor’s office – described Primrose Hill Station as at the centre of “considerable pressure to reopen” precisely because “its platform and buildings still exist,” and stated because it lies between the Primrose Hill and Regent’s Canal conservation areas “any works [to the station] would need to preserve or enhance the setting of these conservation areas”.
Peter Darley, secretary of the Camden Railway Heritage Trust who lives minutes from the station, said his group were “strongly supportive” of a campaign to reopen the station and viewed the demolition as “most unhelpful”.
But a TfL spokesman rejected calls to reopen the station – or the line that runs through it – and insisted that even if that position changed a new station would have had to be built.
A Network Rail spokesman said they did not need to consult because the station was out of use. He added: “It had to be demolished for safety reasons to reduce any risk of debris from the station falling on the track.”

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