South Kensington station step-free work starts by December

Transport for London says it intends to award the contract to make South Kensington station step-free to the contractor Costain, and that the first work on site will happen before the end of this year.

The announcement came in a TfL press release on Tuesday 22 September (reference PN-235). The contract is being let under TfL’s Infrastructure Improvement Framework and covers both the detailed design and the construction.

The station is the busiest in Kensington and Chelsea. TfL’s own Annual Station Counts for 2025 record 27,834,363 entries and exits at South Kensington, nearly twice the figure for Earl’s Court. TfL’s detailed station data, published on 3 August 2026, lists no lifts there at all.

What the contract covers

TfL’s release says the work will deliver:

• step-free access to the Circle, District and Piccadilly line platforms
• a new accessible station entrance on Thurloe Street
• step-free access to the ticket hall and to the subway that links the station to the museums on Exhibition Road
• a new dedicated eastbound platform for Circle and District line trains, brought into customer use
• restoration of the heritage features on the Circle and District line platforms

TfL’s project page adds an expanded ticket hall, a new staircase down to the eastbound platform, lifts to the District line platforms and to the Piccadilly line, and the restoration of the ticket hall skylight.

The completion date is 2031. TfL notes that is also the 150th anniversary of the Natural History Museum.

Here is the full set for the Tube stations in and around the borough, from the same two TfL files. The lift column is what TfL’s station data records, not a judgement about whether a station is usable.

Knightsbridge and West Brompton sit on or beyond the borough boundary and are included because borough residents use them. Kensington (Olympia) has no published Underground count for 2025.

The first work is eight weeks in one empty shop

Before anything visible happens to the station, TfL will carry out what it calls minor enabling works in a currently unoccupied retail unit at 34 Thurloe Street. That unit is the future step-free entrance.

The detail matters if you live or trade nearby:

• the work is expected to last about eight weeks
• it is planned to start before the end of 2026
• TfL says it has been scheduled so it should not affect the station during the October half-term break
• when it finishes, the unit will be boarded behind a hoarding until the main works begin

TfL’s March committee paper, covered in the next section, set the target as a start on site by December 2026.

Who is paying, and what TfL has not said

The scheme is funded through TfL’s Business Plan, with contributions from the council and from the 1851 Commission. TfL’s release does not put a figure on either.

The figures are in the Rail and Station Enhancements Programme annual update that went to TfL’s Programmes and Investment Committee on 5 March 2026. Its table of additional income for the project lists:

• £15m from Places for London, TfL’s property company, as the developer
• £250,000 from the 1851 Royal Commission
• £12m already approved from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

The table’s own total for the station, £15.5m of new income authority, is slightly higher than the two new contributions it itemises.

TfL has not published what the contract with Costain is worth. The March paper sets a 2026/27 budget of £6.0m for the station and says the specific costs sit in the confidential Part 2 paper, which is not published. Figures circulating in the construction trade press this week are not TfL’s, and we are not repeating them.

The same paper rates the project’s value for money as “very high”, with a benefit-cost ratio greater than 4:1, driven mainly by journey time savings for passengers. It also records a £0.9m underspend in 2025/26, caused by a delay in awarding the detailed design contract so that it could be aligned with the new framework. The same paper expected the design and build contract to be placed in the summer. It was announced on 22 September.

One more date from that paper: TfL’s own strategic milestone for starting detailed design at South Kensington is 13 October 2026.

The council fought this scheme, and is now paying for it

The step-free works are not a favour. They are a planning condition attached to the redevelopment of the buildings around the station, imposed by Kensington and Chelsea itself. The March committee paper states that plainly: the capacity enhancement and step-free access “are part of the planning conditions for the around-station development”.

It took years of argument to get here.

The council’s planning committee refused the scheme in November 2021. The applicant appealed, an inquiry ran from January to April 2023, and in December 2023 the Planning Inspectorate allowed it, refusing only two new shopfronts in the subway to the museums. The council’s statement at the time called the decision “a disappointing blow” and said the scheme was opposed by more than 2,000 people.

In that same statement, Cllr Cem Kemahli, then lead member for planning and public realm, said the council would expect TfL to fund step-free access at South Kensington in full. His reason was specific:

This will allow us to divert our own funding earmarked to support step-free access to other stations which need it, such as Latimer Road, Ladbroke Grove or High Street Kensington.

That is not how it has turned out. The council is contributing £12m to South Kensington. On TfL’s station data, Latimer Road, Ladbroke Grove and High Street Kensington still have no lifts between them.

The council’s position shifted in stages. It offered a contribution in April 2025, on condition that step-free access reached both the Piccadilly and the Circle and District platforms. When TfL’s 2026 business plan committed to all platforms, the council confirmed in February that it would keep its word despite what its leader called serious financial challenges.

Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, the council leader, said in TfL’s release on Tuesday: “We have campaigned for years for a South Kensington station that is better for everyone, and we’ve backed that ambition with a significant financial contribution.”

The shops, the offices and the homes

The station work runs alongside a separate scheme by Native Land and Places for London, designed by the architects RSHP, which received planning permission in December 2023. The two are under different contracts but are being programmed together.

That scheme covers:

• restoration of the historic arcade inside the Grade II listed station
• refurbishment of the retail units around the station
• a four-storey building at the front of the station, called “The Bullnose” because of its shape, with shops and restaurants at ground level and offices above
• homes on land along one side of Pelham Street, reinstating what was once a two-sided street

TfL’s figures for the housing do not agree with each other. Tuesday’s release and the project page both say 50 homes, with the project page giving 35 per cent affordable. The March committee paper says 53 homes, 35 per cent affordable. Neither document explains the difference.

What it means for you

If you use the station. Nothing changes yet. The station stays open through the enabling works, and step-free access is a 2031 promise, not a 2026 one. The nearest station with lifts in TfL’s data is Earl’s Court, two stops west.

If you need step-free access now. Plan around the station rather than through it. Our Kensington tube and travel page has the current picture for the borough’s stations.

If you live or work on Thurloe Street. The eight weeks of enabling works at number 34 are the first of several years of construction on this block. Watch for the street works notices; we track them on our Kensington roadworks and travel page.

If you are a trader near the station. The arcade and the surrounding retail units are part of the development scheme, not the TfL contract, and the two run to coordinated but separate programmes. The developer’s own site is at southkensingtonstation.co.uk.

If you objected in 2021. The inspector’s decision stands and the works are now funded and contracted. The remaining decisions are about construction detail and disruption, not about whether the scheme happens.

For the wider picture of what is being built in the borough, see Kensington planning news.