The Scoop

Woolwich set for Crossrail station after all

Darryl Chamberlain | Wednesday 16 February, 2011 11:27

Crossrail is finally due to get a stop at Woolwich after developers reached a last-minute deal with the government and Transport for London to start initial construction work.

Berkeley Homes will pay the cost of building the shell for the £100m station, which its backers hope will transform one of London’s most run-down districts.

Even though Crossrail was always due to run underneath Woolwich on its way to Abbey Wood, the government has always been reluctant to provide public funding for a station there.

While Berkeley signed an initial agreement four years ago to build the station, last-minute wrangles have held up the final deal, with the firm’s chief executive taking to the Financial Times last month to try to knock heads together.

The company isn’t funding the station out of the goodness of its own heart – it’s developing the old Royal Arsenal site into a residential and business area, with over 1,200 homes already built.

The money still needs to be raised to fit out the station – a job that will fall to Greenwich Council. But without Berkeley building the “box”, that element of the work would have been impossible without massive disruption.

Both Berkeley and Greenwich are desperate to see the station built. The demand’s there – Woolwich’s Docklands Light Railway extension, which opened a year ago, is already seeing twice the anticipated number of passengers.

The council hopes both the Arsenal development and a scheme involving building a giant Tesco in the town centre will finally turn Woolwich’s fortunes around.

Crossrail chief executive Rob Holden said work on the station site would get under way “shortly”.

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