KEITH FENDER visits the Battersea extension of the Northern Line
Tunnelling on London Underground’s 3km Northern Line Extension (NLE) from Kennington to Battersea was completed on 8 November. The new twin bore tunnels are now being prepared for track laying, as construction of the line’s two new stations gets underway. Under construction since 2015, the NLE is due to open in late 2020 and Modern Railways visited just before the completion of the main tunnelling work.
REGENERATION ENABLER
The Battersea power station site has been one of London’s biggest redevelopment challenges in the decades since it closed in 1983. Plans in the 1980s/1990s, some of which would have involved new rail connections to Victoria, came to nothing.
By the mid noughties it was apparent that privately-funded redevelopment, not only of the power station site but also the wider area around Nine Elms, would need new transport links with central London. Planning for a new branch of the Northern Line began.
In November 2010 Wandsworth Borough Council approved the current redevelopment plan for the power station, which was agreed to by then Mayor of London Boris Johnson within weeks. The planning permission was conditional on the new …
