Plans for improved Tube station access stalled by reduced office development

Revised plans for an office development next to London Bridge station are unlikely to be able to include the proposed improvements to the tube station entrance on Borough High Street.

The entrance is on Borough High Street and provides access to the Jubilee and Northern lines. However, it is narrow and faces directly onto an equally narrow and busy pavement. Plans for a new office tower behind the station’s entrance would have allowed a new doorway to be cut into the rear of the building, thus creating two doorways for passengers to use.

The rear wall that would have been removed

That office development was refused planning permission due to the size of the proposed tower, so the developers are back with a revised smaller development now known as St Thomas Yard.

The previous plans would have opened up a lot more street space around the base of the tower, which would have allowed them to open up the second entrance for the tube station, but the current proposal largely retains the existing building’s footprint, leaving less space behind the tube station building for a new entrance.

As explained to me at the public open day last week, the changed design for the office development means the open space behind the tube station will remain closed off as it’s needed for deliveries.

Rear courtyard – the left wall is the back of the tube station

The loss of additional tube station amenity has been accepted in principle by the council in pre-planning meetings due to the smaller size of the revised office development.

Even if it could be opened up, it would only lead to the narrow King’s Head Yard rather than a much more useful route to St Thomas Street. Structurally, the only way to open a rear tube station route would now require the demolition of the historic Bunch of Grapes pub, which sits to the north of the backyard.

That would not be a popular decision.

Short of a major rejig of the road layout on Borough High Street, the tube station entrance will likely remain a congestion hotspot.