Celebrities fight to 'defend our streets' from plans to build Crossrail 2 station near their Chelsea homes

 
Battle: Cherie Lunghi and Loyd Grossman oppose a Crossrail 2 station in Chelsea (Picture: Lucy Young)
Lucy Young

Celebrities today urged transport bosses to “defend our streets” by scrapping plans for a new station in Chelsea as part of a proposed high-speed railway linking north and south London.

TV presenter and pasta sauce tycoon Loyd Grossman and actress Cherie Lunghi joined the fight to prevent a station for Crossrail 2 being built near their west London homes.

The King’s Road station would be a stop in the tunnel linking New Southgate and Tottenham Hale in the north to Wimbledon in the south.

Without the £1 billion new stop, at the site of a former fire station, trains would pass straight through from Victoria to Clapham Junction.

Residents are concerned the “village” conservation area will be inundated, that listed buildings are at risk and congestion from works lorries will choke roads for years. About 3,000 people have signed a petition against the plans.

Ms Lunghi fears King’s Road becoming as busy as “another Oxford Street” and “tens of thousands of extra people an hour inundating our narrow pavements”. She said: “A mammoth Crossrail station will radically alter the character of the place.”

Mr Grossman said: “The real issue is the fact that everywhere you look around London’s local distinctiveness is being chipped away.

“It’s not a question of preserving things in aspic, it’s a question of valuing things that add tremendously to the quality of people’s lives. We want London to remain unique and the defence of our neighbourhoods, the defence of our streets, is all about creating a better environment for people.”

Timothy Coleridge, Kensington and Chelsea council’s cabinet member for planning policy, transport and the arts, said: “There’s a huge amount of misinformation flying around. Crossrail 2 gives everyone in Chelsea the chance to be connected to high-speed rail.

“If we decide now in Chelsea we don’t want any disruption, we don’t want any station, that we are happy as it all is, going round on our bicycles with Panama hats on, we are denying future residents in Chelsea [the chance] of having fantastic connectivity to the rest of London.”

He said the council will publish planning guidelines to “make sure the station is small and attractive”.

Public consultation will take place next month and if the plans are later approved the 10-year project would begin in 2020.

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