Transport for London plans to install ticket barriers to catch out fare dodgers at Kensington Olympia, but it comes at a price for locals.
Residents are up in arms over controversial plans to shut off public access on a West London station footbridge.
Transport for London (TfL) plans to install ticket barriers to catch out fare dodgers at Kensington Olympia, but it comes at a price for locals, who will lose the useful cut-through provided by the footbridge.
TfL’s solution, a ‘station permit’ scheme, has already resulted in about 50 complaints to Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) Council.
“The council is calling on TfL to reconsider this barmy plan before it’s too late,” said Cllr Victoria Brocklebank-Fowler, H&F Cabinet Member for Transport and Technical Services.
“While we all want fare dodgers to be targeted, this ill-thought-out permit system is a bureaucratic nightmare which will be complicated and costly to administer.”
The council suggested that the ticket barriers could be installed on the platforms, thereby retaining the public right of way across the footbridge.
Instead, the new permit scheme will allocate paper tickets, coded only to work at the Olympia gates, to selected residents, while others will have to provide proof of address.
The proposal has brought heavy criticism from locals in H&F and neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea.
Brendan McGrath, of Sinclair Road, said residents are being pushed too far.
“Even by suggesting this hare-brained scheme TfL is acknowledging that this is an established right of way,” he said.
“First they reduce the District Line weekday service, now they are coming up with a chaotic and haphazard scheme to make some pretty beleaguered residents’ lives even more difficult.
“We were told the C1 bus and the Boris bikes were an alternative to using the District Line. Now residents are effectively being cut off from these, so-called, alternatives.”
According to TfL, fare evasion at Kensington Olympia is as high as 10%, compared to 2% across the rest of the Overground.
TfL is holding a ‘Meet the Manager’ session at the station during the evening rush hour on Thursday (June 21) to answer questions about the proposed permit scheme. For more information email: [email protected].
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