Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter September 2024
In 2024 the Rail Accident Investigation Board (RAIB) published its report into the forced evacuation by passengers at Clapham Common on 5th May 2023 owing to a perceived fire on a Northern Line train, resulting in passengers being forced to smash carriage windows in order to clamber out. Given the narrow island platform design of Clapham Common, the risks of a panic-evacuation were clear enough. Luckily there were no serious casualties but this came uncomfortably close to a tragedy happening. The RAIB report criticized the lack of training in evacuation, noting that despite a similar incident taking place at Holland Park Station in 2013, lessons learnt may well have begun to fade. Amongst the disturbing findings was that station staff could not see the full extent of the incident because CCTV was not working. Recent discussions with station staff this year revealed that the CCTV is only checked on a weekly basis. TfL failed to even notify local community groups about the incident, despite the extensive media coverage with distressing images of panicked passengers. TfL’s at best grudging response was to state that the perceived smoke was dust not a fire – rather ignoring the inability of station staff to execute an evacuation procedure that ought to be well drilled. The lack of any public meeting by TfL’s staff to provide confidence is particularly inexplicable given the large numbers of staff employed in the Local Communities and Partnerships division.
The incident underlines once more the perilous nature of Clapham Common and Clapham North stations the only ones retaining narrow island platforms, regularly featuring in the top ten list of Tube stations that have to close at peak times when overcrowding is particularly critical. Incidents of passengers falling onto the track – though thankfully rare – are not so rare as to brook reassurance.
Equally striking is TfL’s refusal to address the problem, with its consistent and inexplicable failure to provide mitigation, such as better bus links to Central London or specifically the chance to develop the one alternative asset at Clapham High Street railway station into a genuine hub by reinstating a rail service to Victoria, which would take many passengers who work in the Victoria/Westminster area off the Tube at Clapham Common/North and would have the added benefit of enabling many Clapham passengers fast rail travel across South East London, thereby providing a viable alternative to cars, freeing up road space for cyclists.
Yet TfL refuses to countenance the very idea of Clapham High Street having any rail link other than the current London Overground orbital-only service to Clapham Junction, insisting that increasing frequency on this service only is justified. Cynically TfL cites Clapham Common/North overcrowding to argue for projects such as Crossrail 2 to other areas whilst simultaneously doing all it can to avoid providing alternative public transport links to Central London in Clapham.
The situation at Clapham is not sustainable: new housing developments will simply add to the commuter throng on those island platforms; nor can TfL ‘cycle hire’ its way out of the problem.
The panicked evacuation was a warning, in 1984 a fire at Oxford Circus Tube was a warning that was not heeded. Three years later came the King’s Cross fire. If the lessons of the past are not learnt by TfL, the next incident at Clapham Common or Clapham North may be a tragic one.
Nick Biskinis
Clapham Transport Users Group
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