Vauxhall Bus Station

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am very pleased to say that and I will do so because people felt that very strongly.

TfL said that it was trying to get the consultation on the plans “out of the way” by March—that means before the mayoral elections, as public bodies will enter a period of purdah in March. It has refused to extend the deadline and there has been no wider consultation in the area of Waterloo, Westminster or Southwark. Today the first meeting was held in Wandsworth in the Clapham library near Clapham Junction, and I understand that one person turned up in the first half hour.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that the current bus station is a splendid example of what is rarely achieved in urban planning—an integrated transport system where the buses are above the trains? It is also a fine iconic building.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right. How can everybody’s attitude to it have changed so much in a short space of time, especially now it has been used?

I could quote all sorts of users who say how good it is, how much better than in the past, and how angry they are. For example, there are the users who go to St Thomas’ hospital. People from right across south London attending appointments there tend to use it, because south London does not have the network of tubes that other parts of London have. At present they can do that straightforwardly, all on one level and under cover. We should try to imagine what it must be like having to cross roads and pass through a multi-storey block to change buses, with a sick child in a buggy or while on crutches. All these things have genuinely not been looked at. I believe that TfL is letting down bus users, including by reducing the area available.

The bus station is on the border of Wandsworth, Westminster and Lambeth. A lot of children change buses there in the morning to go to school, and their situation has not been looked at. No one has been properly consulted. From our experience so far with the plans and the way the gyratory has been looked at, we genuinely do not think that TfL can be trusted to do the best, because it is not doing this for the right reasons.

I ask the Minister to intervene right away with his colleagues in City Hall, the current Mayor of London and TfL to halt what I call a sham consultation. It is something that will affect transport users across London, and indeed outside London, which is why it is not just a local London issue. This should not be railroaded through.

It is going to fall to the next Mayor to implement whatever is decided, and I think the next Mayor and the mayoral candidates should have a part to play in reviewing what TfL is planning. We want them to be involved in this even leading up to the mayoral elections.

The consultation should be started properly, and it should start with one simple question: “Do you want to retain the bus station?” That has never been asked. No one has had a chance to answer that. This has all been smoke and mirrors.

The bus station should not be demolished, even if this is gone ahead with, before there are the new owners of the island site, which has been put up for sale again, and before TfL has published its plans of what it wants to do with it. This is irresponsible; this uncertainty should not be allowed.

There is absolutely no certainty, and no reason has been given as to why the bus station has to be demolished, other than we know somewhere there is money involved and there is obviously interest in land and development and future plans. Well, the people of Vauxhall and the general area, including Wandsworth, are sick, sore and tired of developers coming in and making huge developments which end up doing very little for people who cannot afford those properties and are on a long waiting list. It would be an irresponsible waste of public money to knock down something that works.

Will the Minister get the Minister for London—who obviously is not in his place so he cannot respond tonight—to come and visit in the next two weeks, before 17 January? I want him to get the period extended, and then to visit and meet the people who have done so much work on a voluntary basis to get this campaign out there in the country.

This is being pushed through by smoke and mirrors. All the people who use the station—from outside London and all over London—will be horrified when they discover what is being suggested. I am suggesting the Minister should get involved now—should come along and talk to people and learn what an irresponsible waste of public money this would be. The bus station is entirely functional, and appreciated by its users from all over London, and especially by the residents of Vauxhall who remember the time before it was built.

I want to end by saying that I wrote to Leon Daniels, managing director of Surface Transport, in November—I have been involved with him many times over different things—and said:

“When is someone like you going to stand up for bus users?”

He wrote back:

“I am! I have called a halt to new schemes which materially disadvantage bus passengers. Poorer reliability and slower journey times are affecting bus passengers negatively as is worsened interchange when stops are moved to less convenient places. I am now sending back such proposals with a clear message that permanent material worsening is not acceptable.”

That was what Leon Daniels said on 6 November 2015, yet TfL has not stopped the consultation and sent it back. Mike Brown, the new head of TfL, should take a lesson from the now much missed Peter Hendy, who was involved when the bus station was built and said things that were proved right about how important it was.

Thank you for the opportunity to raise this issue, Mr Speaker. I hope that the Minister will take it seriously, because it is not just a little local issue. It concerns Londoners, and it will concern more than just Londoners when it gets out into the public domain. We need proper, genuine consultation. We can have changes and get rid of the gyratory, but we have to keep the bus station. The Minister must not allow us to go back to the situation before it was built.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I hear what the hon. Lady says. There will also be canopies providing shelter between the different parts of the new bus station. I should like to assure her that the canopies have been designed to provide a better level of weather protection than the current canopy. As the current canopy is so high, when it is a windy day, the rain can blow under it. I have observed that when I have been in the area.

The design of the bus station may be iconic, but it is certainly not universally popular. I understand that it won a certificate of merit in the structural steel design awards in 2006 in recognition of its high standards of structural and architectural design, with the judges noting that

“the bus station elegantly gathers together all the elements of public transport within an overall umbrella surface which weaves its way overhead”.

In my view, however—a view that I think will be shared by the Prince of Wales—winning an architectural design award is not always a guarantee of long-term popularity for a structure. Although I would not go so far as to describe the current bus station as a “monstrous carbuncle”, I am prepared to say that I am not the biggest fan of the current design, but that is personal taste. Having seen artists’ impressions of the proposed bus station, I would argue that it is much more pleasing to the eye than the current one.

[Paul Flynn]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to call in aid members of the royal family? I understood that it was forbidden under our house rules.

[Mr Speaker]

Ministers should certainly tread with great care in such territory. I think that the Minister was referring to a known public statement of the Prince of Wales, but I am sure that he was not seeking to invoke his support with reference to the future of the Vauxhall bus station. I am sure that he will disavow any such intention immediately.