Have Your Say

Everyone that lives in and around the Earls Court area will know the volume of people passing through the area is extremely large. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of jumping on a tube train during rush hour or attempted to get down the Earls Court road when Chelsea are playing at home will know that there’s too many people for the available space.

So lets do some basic maths at the proposed increase in numbers of people in the area.

There’s currently around 600 to 800 homes on the West Ken estate. If you put an average of two adults in each property, that works out to around 1,400 people. This is probably a conservative estimation of number of people currently living in the estate.
If we now look at the number of proposed homes that are being planned to be on the site when everything has been completed, it’s currently estimated to be around 8,000.
Doing the same basic maths as before of two adults per property that works out to 16,000 people. Again this is probably much lower than 8,000 home will hold (i.e. not taking into account children or more people sharing)

Now call me a little be selfish, but having a constant +16,000 additional people living in the area isn’t particularly inviting, regardless of how pretty the building and landscaping turn out to be. To put it into context, the maximum capacity of the Earls Court Exhibition centre is around 19,000 which would equate to having a concert full of people living full time in the area.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that a permanent increase in this number will cause a huge increase in the number of cars and a huge increase in the numbers of people using the trains, tubes and busses. Kensington and Chelsea already over subscribe the number of parking permits and London Transport aren’t going to be installing new train lines and track, so it’s impossible to increase numbers without negatively impacting the existing residents.

Hi Ruben

Thanks for your comments. Other people who live in the area have expressed similar concerns about density, transport and traffic issues.

I have contacted our transport team who will shortly be sending me a synopsis of a recent transport study. I will then reply to your comments in detail. A summary of our transport strategy will also be on display at our next series of drop-in sessions in May.

Hi Ruben

I have just posted a news article about Transport for London’s announcement that a new signalling system and a fleet of new trains will increase capacity on the District Line by 24% by 2016:

http://www.myearlscourt.com/news/view/capacity_on_the_district_line_to_increase_by_24/

The masterplan will include additional improvements to public transport and ways of accommodating an increase in the local population. Please come along to our next set of drop-in sessions in May for more details.

I will be posting details of where and when these drop-in sessions will take place in the coming weeks.

While I have not studied the plans in great detail, I do live very close to Earls Court.  I feel that if we live in a World City which is experiencing a huge housing shortage (particularly in west London) we can’t very well turn down new housing at a location so well served by public transport.  If not here, where?  In the countryside?  People should remember how grateful they were when they found somewhere to live in this area, as we certainly were.

In fact I am actually disappointed that the plans for the Kings Cross redevelopment are not to a higher level of density given the accessibility of the site.  However, here at Earls Court given that investment is planned for the District Line and London Overground we should be looking for much increased opportunities for mixed income housing, rather than a millionaires’ row or ghetto-ized social housing.

To ensure there is sufficient floorspace but also some space to breathe I would welcome a limited number of tall buildings in a cluster.  Some would be for residential use while other buildings would provide new employment opportunities, so some of the residents of Fulham that currently commute to the City instead walk to work, relieving congestion on the transport network.  In fact with more opportunities perhaps the entire area can become more self-contained.

There may be a justification to using the land to increase the number of homes, but it shouldn’t be at the detriment to the quality of life for existing residents. I’ve lived in Earls Court the whole of my life and have seen a continued increase in the volumes of people that travel through the area by public and private transport. At no point would anyone that has lived here say congestion was something they loved and would hope to make even busier, but increasing the volume of people living and working in the area will bump up the numbers. More homes will mean more people and will obviously mean more congestion. This was confirmed by one of the representatives (had a nice pair of glasses) at the exhibition a little while ago, although there was much talk about the potential tube improvements and not allowing new residents parking permits.

So we’re going to see some improvements to the District line which is so badly needed. This will help tackle the current volumes of people and make life just that bit more pleasant, particularly for the rush hour commuters, but then adding several thousand of new working residents who need to travel through the Earls Court tube to their place of employment is just going to ebb away any gains from the increase in capacity on the District Line.
It’s not just the numbers of people who will move into the proposed development area that will cause an increase in the numbers of tube travellers, there’s also the increasing cost of filling up at the petrol station and those wishing to avoid the congestion charging zone that will make the numbers of travellers jump up. This will be coupled with the year-on-year increase the numbers using the tube, so upping the numbers in the area will reduce the benefits of the tube improvements far quicker than it would without the development.

Dan made the point that we “can’t very well turn down new housing at a location so well served by public transport” which in itself is correct, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of existing residents quality of life. Dan then goes on to say “I would welcome a limited number of tall buildings in a cluster” which is a little bit contradictorily of his earlier statement as tall buildings are the best way to allow more people to live in a relatively small area. If we’re going to increase the population in the area because it’s so well served by public transport, then why not build a series of tower blocks. This would maximise the numbers of people that would live in the area and would be much more economical use of the space. However, I doubt very much anyone would be think this was a good idea, and I’m sure any notion of tower blocks wouldn’t get past the initial application stages. It’s exactly the same reason why no one in their right mind would consider building a new estate of commercial and residential property on Hyde Park. Just think, the park is a massive undeveloped site with amazing transport links and in a fantastic location. Again, the detriment to the quality of life for the existing residents and London as a whole from losing such a large amount of space means it would never be considered.

The increase in the volume of residents is of great concern.. The area is already overcrowded and has a very high density. and my understanding is that together with other developments on the north end of Warwick Road the population of the area will be doubled. With this in mind I cannot see that even with the improvements to The District Line that there will not be further overcrowding at Earls Court Station and on public transport in the area. It is not just transport but all services that will be effected by this increased density. Although there is a plan for a new primary school, this will only if it is a 2 form entry of 60 accommodate 420 children in total. Do the maths , will the developers ensure that only 420 homes out of 8000 have 1 child each of the right ages. Then there is secondary school, with reports that the secondary schools in Kensington and Chelsea are heavily oversubscribed with some children at Earls Court Primary schools not getting places at either Chelsea Academy or Holland Park, where are these children meant to go to school or indeed the children who already live in the area outside the new development if their places are taken up by the added pressures of children in 8000 new homes. Similarly how many new GPS surgeries will there be and NHS dentists, and what about the increased pressure on services at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Although the issues of sustainability and transport are addressed in the plans there is no real explanation about what other services are being planned to deal with this large increase in population. Yes it is great in theory to regenerate the area and provide housing where it is genuinely needed, but the issue of pressure on vital services has to be addressed particularly in this age of financial cutbacks. I know that the development is not scheduled to be completed until 2030, so the full impact of 8000 new homes will not be felt until then but it is still of great concern to local residents .

Interesting to read the comments on density and transport. I agree that the transport system is very much overloaded in the area. However, I believe that part of the problem is the shortage of places within easy walking distance from West Kensington that also causes some of the congestion. Many people leave the area to go to cafes, restaurants or parks and then return to go home. If the area was redeveloped to include pedestrian areas where people can go to meet friends and children can play then that should help ease some of the pressure on transport.

I lived in Pimlico/Victoria prior to Earls Court and now West Kensington and saw how redevelopment of Victoria really transformed the area. Victoria station still has high congestion during peak hours but that has always been the case even before redevelopment.

I could be rather selfish and say I do not want more population in the area but then much of the area proposed for develoment is a parking lot and wasteland so it would seem that central London space could be used much better for the benefit of all.

I would welcome some nice pedestrian areas and green space with cafes that I could walk to with my two year old.