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.
· 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
