The front of Kings Cross station is a shabby, embarrassing space that lets the whole area down.
The windy concrete apron is most people's main encounter with Kings Cross. The polluted dismal expanse is haunted by drifts of litter, fag ends, smokers, the odd nutter and huddles of people waiting for things, many of them legal.
The whole place is sterilised by the pending refurbishment of Kings Cross station – nothing will happen to Kings Cross Square until 2013. The authorities seem to be prepared to let it rot in the meantime. Committed residents like Sean Murray put huge energy into making small improvements which even then get thwarted by the council. Railway stations in third world countries are better than this.
Responsibility is diffuse – the square is in Camden, the land is mostly owned by Network Rail. TfL has a stake with the tube and the arterial roads and odd bits of infrastructure that pop up. Closure of the East side of the station means that Islington people will have to walk across the square to get to the entrance in Camden.
Camden has been pretty dismissive of Islington resident's concerns throughout the planning process for Kings Cross. Islington Council has to be consulted as the boundary runs along one side of the square. The security authorities will have a big say.
Against this background the odds of the development meeting the needs of residents and transitors is slim. Overall, this has 'car crash' written all over it.
As proof, one only has to look at how badly Network Rail and Camden have been handling an architectural competion to design a new square for 2013. Beset by delay Network Rail and others skirt around the issue whenever it comes up. I asked Network Rail's normally helpful PR for an update a month or two ago but he didn't return my email. I suspect they are planning a giant statue of Iain Crouch
er with rivet hammer and a rail and bit like the Kiss in St Pancras, but a touch more Stalinist and made of gold. The square has a budget of £6 million, whereas Network Rail have overspent by an incompetent £40million on their own platinum plated, mink lined offices in the Eastern Range that bring no benefit to the travelling public.
But whatever cockups are going on with the competition, teams of architects are beavering away on concepts without talking to the community that live next to and use the square. The whole thing is wrong. The magnificent backdrop of Cubitt's utilitarian station next to Gilbert Scotts high gothic folly of St Pancras requires the very best. We could have something as wonderful as I M Pei's pyramid at the Louvre to access the tube. But a this rate we'll get some decking, a shed and a cast concrete Venus-at-her-toilet fountain. How can we get some concerted cross border action to shock this project out of the mire? Suggestions welcome in the comments.
Kings Cross Environment 
Very well said. The residents and users of Kings Cross are a mere inconvenience to the likes of Network Rail and Camden council. Not only is the front area a tacky shambles, but the new tube station is unfit for the purpose, now that thousands more people are using it. I avoid it at busy times, as the overcrowding and lack of crowd control is fraught with danger and stress. But i don’t expect the bosses who spent a fortune refurbishing their offices give a hoot about that. This could have been a magnificent redevelopment, modern and inspiring. Instead it is a monument to shabby managerial practices, people who have no concept of public service, but think cutting deals with private developers to enrich them at the expense of the publlic is good practice.
It is all so desperately sad. Willfull incompetence, vested interests, big money changing hands all leaving passengers, residents and local businesses all losing out massively. We continue with large blighted areas next to premium but poorly designed patches housing the very wealthy but generally absent and exclusive shops pretending to be what they are not. I’m not sure this fiasco could get any worse if Netwrk Rail, Argent, LB Camden, LB Islington, TfL and central Government tried… The solutions are out there, easy to implement and affordable. Just takes a bit of vision and backbone…….
Given that it took £5m to rebuild the Oxford Circus crossing, I wonder how much “square” you can get for just £6m (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8337341.stm)
Oi, how ungrateful can we surly King’s Cross peasants get? Even as we write, I’m sure someone is toiling tirelessly to spend £££ on some enormous piece of junk to rival that Biggest Piece of Kitsch in the Known Universe, the St Pancras snoggers—the only statue I’ve seen with a visible panty line. I wonder how much money they can waste to outdo that great monument to two of our ancient local industries (he’s got the drugs in his little knapsack, and she’s just going out to turn a trick). Access? Amenity? Local needs? As if! Cubitt, thou shouldst be living at this hour…
Offer to be part of the architectural competition process, as a reservoir of local knowledge that architectural teams can tap. This can apply at the early competition stage and then at all stages of the design process.
Given the number of times our community has been ignored, misled and lied to by Network Rail I don’t have faith in their competition… what I’d like to see is a transparent, open and accountable means of designing the entire station and King’s Cross Central. But in the end it’ll be tiny but wealthy vested interests that make the decision…
What on earth is going on with the proposed ‘Square’designs in front of KX station? It is nearly a year since the proposal was announced and nothing seems to have happened. This an incredibly important site and opportunity. It would be nice to be reassured that it was in good and inspired hands to create something to match the wonderful stations of St Pancras and KX. Or is that too much to expect of today’s public services? Meanwhile, the state of KX underground/railway services are disgraceful. ACTION PLEASE!
I have just noticed – the chewing gum has been cleaned off the pavement around outside King’s Cross. It looks like the entire green-shed-square area has been cleaned. Looks a lot better.