New south plaza entrance now open, giving customers easier entry to the station

 A stunning new 15m tall glass entrance to Tottenham Court Road Tube station was opened today (Wednesday) as Transport for London (TfL) announced that Central line trains will stop at the station again from Monday (7 December).

The new entrance will give customers much easier access to the Northern and Central lines and marks a major milestone in TfL's £500m upgrade of the station.

It is adjacent to the Centre Point building in what will become a new public plaza in 2016, offering better facilities for cyclists and improvements to bus services. When the new plaza is completed, the new entrance will be mirrored by a glass entrance in the same style facing towards Oxford Street.

Once fully completed in 2016, Tottenham Court Road Tube station will feature:

  • three new entrances and a refurbished Dominion entrance
  • a ticket hall five times larger than its original size
  • a connection to the new Crossrail platforms for when services start
  • a series of new art commissions to preserve its unique cultural heritage

David Waboso, London Underground's Capital Programmes Director, said: `The opening of this soaring, colourful new entrance is a significant step in our programme to make Tottenham Court Road fit for the 21st century. Our teams are still hard at work redeveloping the station and restoring the iconic mosaics by the late Sir Eduardo Paolozzi. I'd like to thank Tube customers for their patience while this vital work is carried out.'

While the Central line has been closed at Tottenham Court Road for the past twelve months, TfL has:

  • constructed a new 110m metre passageway which will eventually link to the new five times larger ticket hall
  • built a new step-free access lift shaft
  • refurbished six escalators
  • refitted the platforms and passageways with new finishes and fixtures including lighting and CCTV

The Central line closure at Tottenham Court Road has also allowed a specialist team, employed by TfL, to carefully restore the famous 20th century Paolozzi mosaics. This work is ongoing, and once complete in 2016, around 95 per cent of the mosaics at the station will have been retained in their original 1984 locations.

As many of the original tiles as possible have been reused, with new tiles of the same colour, produced using the original processes, to replace those damaged since they were installed at the station. The famous mosaic piece from the former Oxford Street entrance will be conserved and carefully relocated within the new station.

The remainder of the mosaics have been carefully transported to the world-renowned art institution in Sir Eduardo Paolozzi's home city, where he studied in 1943 and later became a visiting professor. The University Art Collection will use the mosaics in teaching students and in conservation training, and a new undergraduate programme, Edinburgh Collections, will incorporate the Paolozzi mosaics project from the next academic year.

The new south plaza entrance will feature the latest in a series of artworks by the celebrated French artist Daniel Buren, who is a significant contributor to the conceptual art movement. His colourful artworks, which play with simple concepts of repeating shapes, colours and his trademark stripes, will become a key feature of the upgraded station.

Note to Editors:

  • For more information and to have a virtual tour of the new enlarged and fully accessible Tottenham Court Road station: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/tottenham-court-road
  • Photos and artist impressions of the station upgrade are available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tflpress/albums/72157661315104120
  • The new glass 'South Plaza' entrance has been designed by Stanton Williams, as well as with principal contractor Taylor Woodrow BAM Nuttall JV and its subcontractor Seele.
  • Art on the Underground, TfL's official art programme, commissioned Daniel Buren to create new artworks at Tottenham Court Road, due for completion in 2016. More information can be found on Art on the Underground's website: http://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/permanent-commission-by-daniel-buren/
  • Tottenham Court Road station is set to become a major transport hub when Crossrail arrives in 2018, bringing an extra 1.5m people to within a 45-minute commute of the West End.
  • Around 150,000 people currently use Tottenham Court Road station daily, but numbers are expected to rise to over 200,000 when TfL-run Crossrail serves the station in 2018. The fully upgraded station will feature eight new escalators, five new lifts, new Art on the Underground installations, two iconic glass plaza entrances, new CCTV cameras, better lighting and other improvements.
  • Redevelopment work to increase capacity at key stations and make them step-free is underway at a number of stations including nearby Bond Street and Victoria. More than half of London Underground's 270 stations have now been modernised or refurbished to make them brighter and easier to use, with improvements such as tactile strips and better CCTV and help points, electronic information displays in ticket halls and on platforms, as well as improved seating and lighting.