EXCLUSIVE: Livingstone 'I'll be dead before Camden Town tube station is fixed'

Wednesday August 11, 2010

Exclusive by RICHARD OSLEY

KEN Livingstone – the former Mayor of London – believes he will be dead before overcrowded Camden Town Underground Station is ever redeveloped.

He told the New Journal today (Wednesday) that the “inconvenience” of the packed station particularly at the weekends when tourists descend on the area in their thousands might never be resolved.

It is the first time that a well-placed or senior politician has admitted improvements to the stations, the subject of discussions and planning briefs going back more than a decade, are nowhere near close to coming to fruition.

Mr Livingstone, 65, a former Camden councillor, was still in the Mayor's office when London Underground drew up plans to seize land around the station in Camden High Street to rebuild the station with a tower of shops and offices.

At the time, the Electric Ballroom faced being demolished as tube chiefs sought a compulsory purchase order on its site. The venue, one of London's most popular, was saved when a planning inspector threw out London Underground's plans in 2005 after a public inquiry. Plans to improve the station have been in limbo ever since.

Mr Livingstone was back at the famous nightclub at lunchtime to launch his proposals for a new London wide music festival and measures to protect live music venues.

He said it had never been his policy to force the Electric Ballroom to move and added that it could be saved even if a new blueprint for Camden Town tube was drawn up. “There's two things you can do. You can build a shell around the Electric Ballroom and say: it can't be touched, we will work around it. You can do that or either you can make sure the venue is accommodated in a replica venue in the development.”

But Mr Livingstone doubts it will come to that – and suggested the future for the station was more likely to consist of a make-do compromise. “There is a very real chance that it may never be redeveloped. It might just be that the numbers that come to Camden Town at weekends means you can never have people coming in and out at the same time.”

Mr Livingstone is fighting Oona King for the right to be Labour's candidate at the 2012 mayoral elections.

He said: “There will always be a pressure from whoever is in charge of the underground to improve it but unless you completely close the area – which is impossible because of the volume of people coming through. It (Camden Town tube station) can be solved but can it be solved to enough people's satisfaction? Would they rather live with the inconvenience of having one way working on a particular station.”

Mr Livingstone said: “There is no easy answer and with the government's cuts there isn't the money to do it anyway. People think that if you turn down a planning application, then somebody will just come up with another one. That's not the case and there isn't another one for Camden Town tube. The last proposal was probably the last realistic chance to get anything done. Now you have the government's cuts, what clearly the Mayor will do will use any money that is available to modernise the line and signalling. Doing up stations will be the last priority. Sadly, I think I will be dead before Camden station is redeveloped.”

Kate Fuller, manager of the Electric Ballroom, whose family has run the venue since the 1930s, said it would be hard for the nightclub – known to be a favourite stage for a host of rock stars – to be simply rebuilt somewhere else.

She said: “There is so much history here: everything about the place, the ambience. It is so hard to replicate that in a new building. There are so few venues like this left.”