Brixton Tube Station; Can somebody fill me in?!

I've just moved back to Brixton after a good 18 months away, to find the tube changed, but still not complete. Can anybody tell me when they actually plan to finish the station? Any ideas what the inside will look like etc?

Apologies if this has been done to death before, but I am new to this forum. Been very impressed by it though. Spent all of yesterday afternoon going through the archive posts...much more interesting than work or any of that rubbish.

Granted, I wouldnt believe a word LT says regarding the tube station, but I find their silence re Brixtion Tube station all the more worrying!!! What are they currently claiming? I did enjoy having two escalators for a brief period, but it now appears they plan to spend the next two years repairing the other Up escalator. Can anyone confirm this?

http://tube.tfl.gov.uk/ppp/index.asp

Think this may be a case of managing our expectations downwards, so that if it is finished sometime in 2006, they can claim success!!!

Fuck me! 2007?! How long can it bloody take? By the time they have finished it the original repairs will probably need repairing. How long have they been at it now?

Didn't it start around 2002, if not sooner? How long did the Channel Tunnel take?

At the last Brixton Area Committee, the Town Centre Manager said that not only was market trade in decline, but that the major retailers on the High Street were also reporting declines. I'd say the disastrous management of the tube project, with the knock-on effects on crowding, crime and general unpleasantness, has been a major factor in that.

Would it have been tolerated in Hampstead or Knightsbridge?

What a silly question

It's hardly unusual though is it. You only have to see how long it takes to get roadworks/pavement works done in Lambeth.

If Westminster Council dug a hole up in Whitehall one day, it would be gone the next. You'd swear you'd imagined it Why can't they get those guys to come and repair our pavements/roads

To be fair to LT Knightsbridge station is undergoing major rebuilding work far inexcess of what is going on in Brixton. I think Harrods are suffering a bit.

In April time did anyone else see the tiny hole in the road on the junction of Brixton Road and the road to the Academy that had a HUGE plume of water coming out of it? The water shot out of the hole in to road to about 3 storeys high, served as a good bus wash. The funny thing was how small the hole that was producing all this water was...

Got a picture of it in fact, though cant work out how to add it to this post...

they've been replacing all the pipes there, that probably had something to do with it. They had all the rusty pipes lined up along Brixton Road for a couple of days. Surprised they held anything in, they were so rusty and full of holes

Just wish they'd finish the job off. Can't believe how long it's' taking

The work must have started around 2000 or 2001 as the original estimated completion dates were in 2002, IIRC. Specifically, there were delays when asbestos already known to be there was "discovered"; there was a delay when they "forgot" to install a power supply to the new middle escalator, and there's been several other delays.

It really fucks me off that the only people benefitting from this are the private contractors involved - and they're milking the public purse. PFI my arse

(point of order) It's not a PFI project (/point of order)

...ok fair enough, but there are private contractors working on it and they are benefitting financially from the delays (some of which were actually caused by themselves!)

It's very rare for ANY construction/renovation/environment project to not use private firms; the public sector simply doesn't keep a big enough perm blue collar workforce

How so? Is it in need of a rebuild or something?

Yes, but look at some big private sector building projects - anything from Canary Wharf to the Gherkin. Delivered bang on time and to budget. But when public money is involved (e.g. channel tunnel etc) it takes so much longer and costs so much more. We are being rinsed to fuck.

Only proper unionised public sector employees will be allowed to go anywhere near my arse

There was no public money in the Channel Tunnel project (other than tax breaks on share ownership) - Eurotunnel raised most of the capital from greedy French small investors who thought they could "stag" their purchases like a privatisation, only for the share price to plummet.

Eurotunnel assumed that the repayments would come from operating charges to the two state-owned railways, but...

Source

Surely people working on "projects" like this are almost always "private", in the sense that you only need all those people for a defined period, so no-one is going to take them all on as permanent direct employees?

The whole construction industry works on the basis of subcontractors, from one-man-band blokes through small companies to large ones.

Re contractors dragging their feet on work, surely it's up to the Tube or whoever to draw up the contract properly so they just get a fixed price for doing the work, however long it takes?

Giles..

Bump. May 2008 and the ticket hall still has no ceiling, and the escalators have been finished in a natty gaffer tape/chicken wire combo.

I can't even remember when this started but I do recall there was only one skyscraper in Canary Wharf

WTF?

i was talking to mate that works for tfl at the weekend.

you know those closures that we are having till november?

we are getting them next year and the year after too.

Brixton tube station has been under refurbishment so long no one notices anymore

For what?

Pretty weird. Other stations are being refurbished just fine, so I cant think what would affect Brixton in particular.

Robills was bought by Lambeth Council in March 1999. Work on the new tube entrance would have started soon after. So how long is that?

9 years. christ.

I'm no good at maths but I'm guessing March 1999 to May 2008 is 1 year and 2 months short of 10 years

but how soon work started after that I can't remember

The tube station is Brixton's Sistine Chapel. The ceiling will only be done when Michelangelo is reincarnated and learns how to paint again. The glory that is Brixton tube station will then be known across the entire world.

Either that or they should get the hell on with putting up whatever shitty white-painted metal panels they've had sitting in a yard for ten years (assuming they haven't rusted away) and at least get rid of the third world underground feel.

They really are taking a bogglingly long time about it. How long did it take to get to the moon once the project was started? I'm pretty sure brixton tube station has already topped that.