Islington Labour councillors have described Transport for London’s (TfL) plans to shut Tufnell Park underground station for 8 months from June as showing ‘complete contempt for local people’. 

Rumours surfaced last summer that TfL were considering closing the station to replace the station lifts. At the time, local St George’s ward and Junction ward Labour councillors worked with residents and local businesses to warn against the plans.

TfL assured the council in writing that no plans were in place to close the station and that any future developments would be communicated to the council first. 

However, earlier this week, TfL announced that the station would indeed close from 8th June until March 2016 – an 8 month closure that will cause massive disruption for residents and hits many local businesses. 

This decision has been made without consultation with local people. 

St George’s ward councillor, Cllr Nick Ward, said: “TfL has shown complete contempt for local people in announcing its plans to close Tufnell Park tube station. 

“Closing the station entirely for 8 months will cause massive disruption and hit businesses hard. Over 2 million journeys would be affected by a six month closure of the station. Thousands of residents use the station every day to get to work. Have TfL considered how this will impact them, or how the local businesses around the station that rely on the passing trade will be affected by a closure? Of course they haven’t.   

“Our community deserves better and the concerns of local people should not be dismissed so easily by TfL.

“My fellow St George’s ward councillors and I are calling for TfL to put their plans on hold and to genuinely consult the local community before starting any work. It is astonishing that TfL has failed to run a consultation exercise for such an intrusive and significant project.”

Leader of the Council, Cllr Richard Watts, and Cllr Claudia Webbe, Executive Member for Environment and Transport, have written to TfL calling for the plans to be put on hold and meaningful consultation to take place with local people. Cllr Watts and Cllr Webbe have also called for local businesses to be compensated if the closure does go ahead.