In a major public relations exercise yesterday, Network Rail teamed up with Argent to give afternoon and evening presentations about the forthcoming major redevelopment of the station and how it will link closely to King’s Cross Central on the railway lands. It was worrying though that in neither session was the existence of our community on the north eastern side of the station acknowledged. It was left to members of our community to raise questions about how the negative impacts of the massive construction works will be minimised for us, and whether Network Rail will seriously address our potential exclusion from the benefits of the new station.

Our community has fought hard to ensure that the station will remain at least as accessible to us as it is now. Current plans will close the north eastern entrance completely whilst providing cash to improve York Way – although there are no plans to re-site the bus depot. This option has never been attractive to our community as it leaves us having to circumnavigate the station either to the north or the south when walking or cycling, cutting us off from our sister communities on the south and west of the station and ignoring our needs as station users. We have been campaigning to ensure the original bridge giving access to the station from Wharfdale Road is restored, as the construction of a new “Platform Y” where the old taxi rank stood, will remove our current entrance. The need for access from our side of the station is set to increase over the next few years as King’s Place residents move in and other developments such as King’s Quarter complete.

Unfortunately, the planning authority for the station redevelopment is LB Camden, leaving Islington residents without a voice. At the final planning consent meeting last year LB Camden’s attitude could be summed up by the stance of one councillor who stated in the open meeting that providing our community with a pleasant walk to the station out of the rain should not be a priority, totally ignoring key principles of accessibility and inclusion for all – pedestrians, cyclists, disabled people and women.

Network Rail’s response to our campaign has been to undertake a feasibility study into building a bridge from Wharfdale Road to the new concourse. During yesterday’s afternoon session Network Rail said that this study has now come down to two options, although no detail was given. We look forward to publication of this feasibility study.

Network Rail did commit to working equally with LB Camden and LB Islington on community inclusion. Network Rail’s own site states that the benefits of “improved access, including for disabled passengers as well as links to the underground, Thameslink and domestic and international services” will be a result of the new station design, it seems that these benefits maybe limited to passengers passing through the station whilst being denied to local communities. Watch this space to see how this develops…

Meanwhile, we await a response from Network Rail giving details of routes for construction traffic during the next six years. Our community has just seen the end of eight years of construction traffic to and from the CTRL works and is facing a further twenty years of construction traffic relating to King’s Cross Central.

On a personal note, I suddenly realised that I moved here in my twenties and major construction works will not complete until I am at least in my sixties. Surely our community should derive some benefits while all this carries on?