Barking Riverside station on the London Overground is set to open next week, late and over budget.
A new 4.5km stretch of railway costing around £327m will connect Barking town centre to the huge new development at Barking Riverside in seven minutes, which Transport for London (TfL) said compares to the current 25-minute bus journey.
Last month TfL said it had been able to bring forward the opening, which it claimed was originally planned for the autumn, ‘following good progress being made in the completion of the station commissioning and testing stages’.
However, the project has been beset by delays and cost increases. It was initially estimated to cost around £200m and to open last year. In 2016 Transport Network reported that the cost had risen to £263m. A TfL spokesperson told Transport for London this week that the cost is around £327m.
A report to TfL’s Programmes and Investment Committee in May 2018 stated that, despite procurement delays, ‘risk mitigating actions have taken place which still protects the end date of the programme in 2021'.
In December 2018, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure and VolkerFitzpatrick were appointed as contractors to deliver the project but in December 2020 a report to the TfL Board stated: ‘The estimated entry into service date has now been forecast for between July and Dec 2022.’
The line, which extends the recently electrified Gospel Oak to Barking route, will operate with four trains per hour.
image: TfL
Seb Dance, deputy mayor for transport, compared the project to the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail), which also recently opened very late and significantly over budget.
He said: ‘This new station will help to pave the way for up to 10,000 new homes in Barking Riverside, thousands of which will be genuinely affordable and will ensure residents have the high-quality transport links they need. I am particularly pleased that this station is fully step-free and is opening much earlier than planned.’
The Barking Riverside development, which is being delivered by Barking Riverside Limited, a joint venture between L&Q and the Mayor of London, will provide more than 10,000 new homes along with a range of community, commercial and retail spaces along a 2km stretch of River Thames frontage.
Matthew Carpen, managing director of Barking Riverside Limited, said: “The early launch of this Overground service is due to the brilliant partnership we have had with TfL and the contractor Morgan Sindall Infrastructure VolkerFitzpatrick.’
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