Brockley rail station in south London is having land safeguarded for a future new station entrance as part of a neighbouring housing development.
The area concerned – info overlaid on Google satellite view
Currently, the station on the London Overground has two north-south aligned platforms, with a station entrance on the eastern side and a footbridge linking the two platforms. People on the western side have to cross over the railway on a public footbridge to enter the station, and if heading into London, they have to walk back across another footbridge to get to the northbound platform.
The public footbridge is also quite narrow and hemmed in between a block of flats and an industrial yard.
The industrial yard is now being considered for redevelopment as a block of flats, and thanks to a quirk, part of it could be offered as a new northbound platform entrance for the railway station.
The block of flats would run along the side of the railway station, and the opportunity arises because the flats have to leave a large gap in the building because there’s a big Thames Water mains pipe underneath, and the developer can’t put anything heavy on top of it.
The developer plans to build on either side of the Thames Water easement and span the gap with the flats, leaving open a covered corridor. That corridor could lead to a new entrance to Brockley station on the other side, providing direct access to the northbound platform.
Proposed development (c) Suzanne Brewer Architects / Planning documents
The developer says that they held a meeting with Network Rail and Transport for London in June 2023, where it was confirmed that although the principle of a new entrance to the station was supported, it was not required at this time.
What they have agreed to do though is to preserve the access route through the building for future use as a station entrance should the need and funding present themselves. Although likely to be just a row of ticket barriers, there is an opportunity to provide a ticket office, and the design will allow for stairs, ramp and/or lift within Network Rail land.
If planning is granted for the block of flats, then safeguarding of land for the future station entrance would be captured within the Section 106 legal agreement.
Even without the new entrance, access will be slightly easier as the new building will be set back by just over a metre from the property boundary to open up a bit more pavement space ahead of the existing public footpath over the railway
The planning application is now with Lewisham Council to decide upon.
I’d never realised the entrance to Brockley was so weird, having only been through it rather than alighting there.
How about we get the developer to build some platforms on the Sevenoaks line while we’re at it…
Seems daft not to leverage the opportunity for a new station with step-free access, but UK government is just clearly anti-rail and anti-London so won’t spend on this despite throwing oodles of cash at dubious road schemes
Depressing hat TfL and NR told the developers that the entrance was “not required at this time”. That is not the view of local people – and Lewisham Cllrs and the local MP Vicky Foxcroft have raised concerns about Brockley station access inadequacies over many years. Ironically the proposed development site is that of the original main entrance for the Victorian Brockley station. This was demolished in the 1970s and the site became a skip yard. Toprovide a new station, a portacabin entrance was created on the east side only on the assumption that Brockley was a declining station with few users, and all direct station access remains east side only, which causes supbstantial crowding on the footbridge outside the station especially in the morning peak. It is a busy station, especially since Overground services and ironically local councillors proposed a decade ago that the money invested in creating step free access when the station was given to Overground could be used to reopen direct step free west side platform access via a ramp. For reasons that were never explained, TfL management preferred to spend a larger sum of money installing a lift off the internal footbridge and maintaining the circuitous double back footbridge access for passengers from the west side. Other stations on Overground have access on both sides, including. This is a great opportunity to restore that to Brockley and address community need.