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Selfish to oppose Tube lifts plan
• SO let me get this straight – Transport for London (TfL) proposes a “lifts at Archway” project, with actual funding and commitment, and Janet Burgess and other councillors complain it costs too much and will hold up the “redevelopment”.
I’m appalled (Cost of £45m Tube lifts queried, September 21).
This initiative will improve the lives of many people by giving them access to something these councillors take for granted. How could it be viewed as anything but positive? How naive to think that things like this can be done cheaply.
That’s what they cost!
And what redevelopment? The one that has no funding, no commitment from anyone, and is supposed to happen at the heart of private land now owned by a company which is clear about the fact it has no plans at all to redevelop, because it is not a developer, and which forced the relocation of Archway Market – the only thing ever to work in that dreadful space. I don’t think there is much on the horizon there.
I understand the Better Archway Forum (BAF) is also opposed to the lifts on the basis that they are expensive and don’t extend the improvements to the walking people of Archway. How disgustingly selfish and absurd.
The lifts will make Archway better. For goodness sake, BAF and councillors, embrace improvements that are not just theory, and support your community, including the wheelchair users who you would seem to prefer remained indoors.
MABEL FERRIER
Hargrave Road, N19
• “OBVIOUSLY everyone welcomes increased access for the disabled...” says Councillor Janet Burgess, and that’s where that sentence should have stopped.
Unfortunately, she goes on to raise “concerns and worries”. I think councillors should be 100 per cent in support of the planned lifts at Archway, and that anything else is morally questionable, particularly from people who are able to use the Tube themselves. How dare they!
I do not understand concerns about the cost, as it is not Islington money, but London Underground money, which is earmarked for the purpose. These councillors are in politics but don’t understand how funding works.
Are they suggesting that the money should be spent on something else and that the wheelchair users of Archway should not have the benefit of this fantastic London-wide improvement?
And to raise the spectre of the Archway redevelopment being “held up” as a reason to worry – please! There is no redevelopment. At the moment it is just talk.
These councillors and the others who are obsessed by redevelopment should know that it is very damaging to Archway and its businesses to go on and on about it. Outsiders view Archway as a fictional place that will happen some time in the future “after the redevelopment”.
But it isn’t fictional, it exists now, and has a diverse community, including a large number of wheelchair users who currently can’t use the Tube.
The lifts will improve their lives, and the benefits will extend to others as well. Support London Underground on this, and please don’t waste public money “consulting”, the answer is “obvious”.
STEPHANIE SMITH
Archway Market manager
Ashbrook Road, N19
• THE various plans for redoing Archway have always had a problem with what to do with the buses.
The land is really needed if any new scheme is to be viable, with enough room to do what planners want.
A solution may have finally appeared. A big site has become vacant at the end of Station Road. This is right next to the railway line, off Junction Road towards Tufnell Park tube. It was BT’s depot, where they kept their vans.
The bus company might not be as keen as you would think because it would mean buses would have to go the few hundred yards up Junction Road to the start/end of the routes, but on the other hand the benefits are many:
1. It is bigger than the current bus stand in Vorley Road (which the bus company says is too small) so it would have the space it needs plus room for a café and loo for the drivers.
Drivers hate Vorley Road for its lack of facilities and also because it is not safe – several have been attacked and beaten up at night.
2. Residents at the bottom of the Girdlestone estate hate the buses because they sit with engines idling (to keep the buses warm) and the vibrations make the flats and houses shake.
3. Archway Children’s Centre hates the buses because of the fumes affecting the kids in the nursery garden. Because there are not enough places for the buses in the stand, they are often found standing outside the nursery, with engines running (although they are told not to).
4. Station Road is a bit of a dodgy no-go place. The fact there are no houses along the road means it feels unsafe so no one walks down there willingly and cars parked there (it is the closest meter parking to Tufnell Park Tube) are vandalised.
Buses going up and down would make it a safer place for parked cars and for the pedestrians who do use it – mainly students at the hall of residence that overlooks the playing fields.
5.The Vorley Road bus stand site must be worth a lot, as it could be redesignated for retail use, so it should raise enough to pay for land on a trading estate next to a railway.
AMY SILVERSTON
Laurier Road, NW5
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