Kentish Town Station - Elevators and Escalators

The request was partially successful.

Dear Transport for London,

I am writing to request the following:

1. Any correspondence, reports, or other documents provided to the office of the Mayor of London in respect of Mayor's Question 2017/5169, entitled "Step-Free access for Kentish Town station"

2. Any formal results of any investigation conducted into installing lifts at Kentish Town station since 2015, including the one referenced in the Mayor's response to the aforementioned question. This includes both the LU station and the connected National Rail station insofar as TfL may have conducted any investigation.

3. Any evaluation TfL has made as to the feasibility of reusing the now-disused lift shafts at Kentish Town station, originally installed by the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway.

4. Any current plans or timelines for maintenance or replacement to improve the reliability of the escalators at Kentish Town station

5. Any report relating to the causes of issues resulting in one or both escalators at Kentish Town station being taken out of service for over twenty four hours since January 2021

Yours faithfully,

Mr Ng

FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Ng

 

TfL Ref: FOI-0898-2223

 

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 13
July 2022.

 

We will aim to issue a response by 9 August 2022 in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.

 

We publish a substantial range of information on our website on subjects
including operational performance, contracts, expenditure, journey data,
governance and our financial performance. This includes data which is
frequently asked for in FOI requests or other public queries. Please check
[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transpar... to see if this helps you.

 

We will publish anonymised versions of requests and responses on the
[2]www.tfl.gov.uk website. We will not publish your name and we will send
a copy of the response to you before it is published on our website.

 

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

 

 

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FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Ng

 

TfL Ref: FOI-0898-2223

 

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 13
July 2022, asking for information about Kentish Town station.

 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can
confirm we hold some of the information you require. You specifically
asked:

 

1. Any correspondence, reports, or other documents provided to the office
of the Mayor of London in respect of Mayor's Question 2017/5169, entitled
"Step-Free access for Kentish Town station"

2. Any formal results of any investigation conducted into installing lifts
at Kentish Town station since 2015, including the one referenced in the
Mayor's response to the aforementioned question. This includes both the LU
station and the connected National Rail station insofar as TfL may have
conducted any investigation.

3. Any evaluation TfL has made as to the feasibility of reusing the
now-disused lift shafts at Kentish Town station, originally installed by
the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway.

 

However, we are refusing to provide the requested information under
section 14(1) of the FOI Act. After contacting a number of different
departments within TfL and reviewing some of the records that we’ve
located, we consider that providing the requested information would place
an unreasonable burden on us. Our principal duty is to provide an
effective transport service for London and we consider that answering this
request would represent a disproportionate effort. It would be a
significant distraction from our work managing the TfL network, requiring
re-allocation of already limited resources and placing an unacceptable
burden on a number of specialist personnel. We do wish to clarify that
whilst we consider that your request falls under section 14(1) of the FOI
Act, this does not reflect a conclusion that it has been your intention to
deliberately place an undue burden on our resources.

The ICO guidance provides the following examples of a request which may
fall under section 14(1) if it:

·         Imposes a burden by obliging the authority to sift through a
substantial volume of information to isolate and extract the relevant
details;

·         Encompasses information which is only of limited value because
of the wide scope of the request;

·         Creates a burden by requiring the authority to spend a
considerable amount of time considering any exemptions and redactions.

Our view is that all three of these examples apply in this instance.
Additionally, Paragraph 71 of the guidance on section 14(1)
([1]https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...
) states the following:

71. However, we consider there to be a high threshold for refusing a
request on such grounds. This means that an authority is most likely to
have a viable case where:

· The requester has asked for a substantial volume of information AND

· The authority has real concerns about potentially exempt information,
which it will be able to substantiate if asked to do so by the ICO AND

· Any potentially exempt information cannot easily be isolated because it
is scattered throughout the requested material.

We have located some documentation that’s relevant to your request. Having
gone through some of it, particularly the step-free feasibility study
which was carried out in 2006, it became obvious it contains a lot of
security sensitive information relating to the station operation and
infrastructure. It would be necessary to spend a significant amount of
time considering exemptions which might be applicable. Reviewing the
information in the report and considering the merits of exemptions across
over 300 hundreds pages, would inevitably require the diversion of
specialist resources. Bearing in mind the feasibility report is over 16
years old and the costs identified within will not be correct, we believe
that the wider purpose and value of your request is not necessarily
obvious. It brings into question whether it is a justified and
proportionate use of our time to comply. We consider the burden of
retrieving, reviewing and redacting the information covered by your
request would be disproportionate to the benefit of providing it.
Therefore, we are refusing it under s14 of the FOI Act.

More recently, we’ve had some discussion about the potential for securing
funding from the nearby Murphy’s Yard development towards works on the
station, which could include reconsideration of the step-free access
proposals. This is also mentioned in the Mayoral report, which is in the
public domain.

 

With regard to your last two questions concerning escalators at Kentish
Town station, a project has now started to urgently look at how the
escalators can be replaced – but this work will be subject to funding. 
Details about how this will be done including timescales will be better
understood once further investigation work has been carried out.

 

These escalators have had 40 maintenance interventions in the last 10
years to help prolong their life but are now in urgent need of replacement
and maintain a high risk of a failure leading to unplanned closures. Over
this period of time we have increased inspections in order to better
monitor their condition and enable preventative interventions. In May
2022, following an inspection of the stair tread, we identified a fault
with the escalators. As safety is our top priority, we has to take the
escalator out of service to repair the fault.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

 

 

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