South Kensington station to get lifts to all three Tube lines by 2031

Lifts will reach every platform at South Kensington Tube station by 2031, when a long-planned upgrade is due to finish. TfL has now awarded the contracts that allow the project to get under way.

Costain has won the first of them and will design and build the improvements. Once the work is done, passengers will have a step-free route from the street down to the Circle, District and Piccadilly lines. The lifts will also serve the ticket hall and the subway that leads towards the museums. The new accessible entrance will go into 34 Thurloe Street, an empty unit that used to be a shop.

A second eastbound platform for the Circle and District lines

An eastbound Circle and District line platform that exists but has sat unused will be brought into passenger service. Running eastbound and westbound trains from separate platforms should free up space and help the station handle rising numbers. A disused staircase on the old platform will reopen as well.

South Kensington is a Grade II listed building. TfL has promised to keep and restore its historic features during the work, among them parts of the Circle and District line platforms.

When South Kensington station works start

The first enabling work, at the empty Thurloe Street unit, is expected to start before the year is out and to take around eight weeks. Hoardings will then stay up around the unit until the main construction programme begins. According to TfL, the timing was chosen to keep disruption to a minimum, and passengers should see no effect on the station over the October half-term.

TfL’s Business Plan is paying for the upgrade. Kensington and Chelsea council is putting in £12 million, and the 1851 Commission is providing its own share of the money. The 2031 target coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Natural History Museum.

Native Land is also working with Places for London, the property company owned by TfL, on a separate redevelopment of the buildings around the station. The two projects will run side by side, with the work coordinated to limit disruption for passengers and people living nearby. That scheme faced significant local opposition and was approved at a planning appeal, receiving planning permission in December 2023.

Under those plans, the old shopping arcade inside the station will be restored and the neighbouring Thurloe Street shops refurbished. Fifty new homes are included. The existing street-facing block will make way for a four-storey development called the Bullnose.

The approval required TfL to prove the step-free upgrade was fully funded before it could begin, and the station work must be completed before the Bullnose can go ahead.