Plans to upgrade overcrowded Stratford station in East London have taken a step forward after a business case was submitted to the government.
Stratford Station CGI view of Station Square towards Carpenters Estate (c) QEOP
The submission, developed by Newham Council, Network Rail, TfL and the London Legacy Development Corporation, sets out the work needed to progress plans for an upgrade to Stratford station. It has been sent to the Department for Transport (DfT), which would need to provide the approval and funding for the next stage of the planning to be carried out.
The work follows increasing concerns about the future capacity of the east London station and overcrowding. Stratford is one of the UK’s busiest stations with more than 128 million passenger movements recorded in 2019, an increase of 90 million in just 13 years.
Apart from the local traffic, the station is also a major interchange linking London with Essex and the East of England, the Thames Estuary and Kent.
The Strategic Outline Business Case shows how an enhanced station can deliver up to 2,000 new homes and support up to 10,000 jobs in new commercial and retail space based around a major new public square.
It follows on from a consultation that was carried out late last year.
Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, speaking on behalf of the Stratford Station coalition, said: “The business case submitted to Government today outlines plans to transform the confusing, constrained and crowded layout at the station. We need a modern, thriving transport hub so that Stratford continues to support the growth of East London and deliver more homes and jobs.
“We are predicting a 60% growth in passenger numbers by 2041 which is why we urgently need to plan now to improve the station.
“The investment will bring major benefits to commuters, businesses and local communities; stimulating growth which will be felt by the people of Newham, Londoners and the wider UK economy as well.”
The partnership will now develop more detailed plans for the station’s redevelopment which will be submitted to Government in the next few years.
Stratford Station Square and Great Eastern Road (c) QEOP
The scale of transformation needed has been previously described as being “similar to what has been seen at Kings Cross and London Bridge”. In the interim, a new entrance is currently being built next to the Jubilee line platforms to improve access to the housing in the west of the station.
They need to do something, probably not of the same scale, at Lewisham Station. And what ever happened to those plans for Clampham Junctions?
Lewisham Station, although totally unsuited to today’s travel needs, is in a severely constrained site and would be very expensive to re-site and rebuild. I expect it has gone into the folder marked “Too Difficult”. At least Clapham Junction has been modified over the years and is now fully accessible to most platforms.
Ian says… https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/proposal-to-extend-the-northern-line-to-clapham-junction-60309/
I hope they go big with this. Stratford suffers from a mismatched layout, the result of multiple additions over the years. It needs a complete rebuild from the ground up.
And unluckily, has no Platform 7.
A ‘London Bridge’ type transformation is probably the route for them to go down. In the lower level (below tracks) if structurally possible opening up the spaces between the three subways would provide a lot more space. At the moment it can be rather confusing and hectic in the narrow subways.
There’s a river and two DLR tracks down there.
At Stratford Railway station. Although they are planning to Build on 2000 New Homes. As they use to have a Railway Service to Enfield Town at one time despite only once a day. I Think they Should bring it back in the future. And I Think they Should run every 15 minutes during the day. Not only that. I Think There Should be a Brand New Direct Train Service from Stratford to Gatwick Airport in the future as well. 1. To Help people get out of their Cars and unto Public Transport. Especially on the A110, A10, M25, M23, A23, A21, M1, M2, M3, M4, M11, A1, A2, A3, A4, A12, A13 and A406 etc. And 2. To Help Reduce overcrowding on London Underground and other Main London Railway Stations as well.
It needs more platforms, especially on the Overground / Lea Valley side where it is a terminus from both directions. Ideally a higher frequency service could be run (one day a Hall Farm / through LO->Chingford?) and another through platform, or a bay, would help immensely.
And of course, circulation space and interchange separately or accommodated separately to entry/exit where possible… how CJ has the (still underused) footbridge.
Homes and jobs are well and good, but not really the point here. It’s about access and capacity. The growth is come…
Is the business case available to read online? I’ve only been able to find press releases.
That’s called Meridian Square, not (boring) station Square.
Should not the top CGI render have an EIizabeth Line roundel as well?
(PS I know TfL supplied this)
It’s just a CGI render, and not to be taken literally at this very early stage of the project.
128 million passengers mentioned. But the station, most days, has no toilets! The ones near the ticket barriers are tiny and stinky There was supposed to be a set near the stairs to Westfield but they never opened.
This may be to enable the much-disliked and feared Madison Square Globe, forced on us by London Legacy, because money is changing hands. The capacity is 17500 and would cause chaos at the station.
As for the ‘retail space’ (more Westfield tat and fast food) and ‘commercial space’, oh really? A few trees in a box abandoned later as only in ‘CGI’ or ‘artists impression’. White collar commuting is probably declining too because of remote work.
Plans to upgrade Stratford Station predate the Madison Square Globe announcement. No need for tin foil hats this time.
Don’t buy into AEG’s manufactured controversy just so they can keep their millennium dome monopoly. The station can handle the stadium which has a far greater volume, and the sphere and stadium have plans to work together to avoid clashes. And the Sphere are building an extra exit and two bridges to increase capacity (not to mention the two extra planned exits each separately planned). The fact is this piecemeal enhancements to accommodate ephemeral visitors won’t cut it for the sustained peak time baseload of usage the station will see, with the near 100,000 new homes planned over the next 20 years for Stratford and the surrounding area, Elizabeth Line-adjacent and Lea Valley which will make an occasional late night throng from the sphere look like nothing at all.
Very tricky with the ‘downstairs’ DLR bisecting the station NS at ground level. ‘Upstairs’ DLR not being accessed the same way as the rest of the upstairs platforms is confusing. DLR confusion might be eased by giving separate names to the separate routes.
Moving the LO platforms *with their numbers* from where the downstairs DLR is now to the other side of the station and upstairs means the platform numbers aren’t in sequence, which is – for passengers a nightmare for legibility/navigability.
As they are planning to change the Trains for Docklands Light Railway in the future. I Think they Should plan to Expand it all the way to Gatwick Airport in the future. But what I can’t Understand is. If you take the Docklands Light Railway from Stratford to Lewisham. Why do we have to keep on changing at Canary Wharf all the time?
I was in the design team for both the 1999 Stratford Station new concourse and the recent London Bridge Station redevelopment.
I agree that something needs to be done. My experience also suggests that opening up below the tracks would be more difficult, disruptive and expensive than the London Bridge work.
In driving the new subway through (the one that was later extended for 2012) structures were discovered that were totally unknown. Piecemeal development has been going on there since soon after it was first built (1839).
A constraint to opening up below the tracks I don’t see mentioned is the Central Line, which dives underground at each end of the station.
Really interesting. Do you know any more about what kind of structures they found down there, out of interest?