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A WORLD famous architect has backed calls to save the pedestrian subway where Clash frontman Joe Strummer once busked, saying it should be used as “a cultural asset”.

The so-called Joe Strummer Subway at the junction where Edgware Road meets Harrow Road and the Westway, is one of the last in a series of underpasses constructed in the area when the Westway was built in the 1960s.

Most have now been bricked up, and last week Transport for London, which owns the Joe Strummer Subway, said they were considering closing it. 

Urban planning expert Sir Terry Farrell is more often known for opposing subterranean crossings and favouring “connectivity at street level” but on Wednesday he came out in favour of the campaign to keep the subway open, saying he would take part in discussions with Westminster City Council and TfL and calling it his “next great project”.
 

Sir Terry, who has campaigned for an increase in street-level crossings throughout London and sits on the Mayor of London’s design advisory committee, maintained that above-ground crossings were preferable to underpasses.

He said: “I don’t understand why, on a functional level, people would go down to these subways. Now that we have the power of connectivity at street level, there’s no need.”

But he said he was not necessarily in favour of closing them, adding: “Instead of being a pedestrian nightmare, this subway could be a huge cultural asset.”

Labour London Assembly member Murad Qureshi, who lives in Paddington, said he agreed the subway should be saved, adding: “It should be listed.”

Robert Gordon McHarg, who runs the Subway Gallery in a former shoe repair kiosk under Edgware Road, said he was seeking to renew his lease with TfL.