Cutty Sark DLR station closes for new escalators

Cutty Sark Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station has closed for a year to allow four new escalators to be installed.

The current escalators at the third-busiest station on the DLR have been described as "increasingly unreliable" and "beyond economical to repair".

They will be replaced with state-of-the-art, energy efficient ones, which will provide customers with "more reliable access" to and from the south-east London station, Greenwich Council has said.

The station closed at the end of the day on Saturday and is due to reopen next spring. Greenwich Council urged those who use the station to use nearby Greenwich station throughout the closure, or local bus services.

The council has installed additional street signage to direct customers between the Cutty Sark and Greenwich stations, which is a journey of about 11 minutes on foot.

A Greenwich Council spokesperson said: "We welcome the news of improvement works to Cutty Sark DLR station. The escalator replacement will ensure a fully accessible station for all users for many years to come.

"In the meantime, there are many other ways to get to and from Greenwich including buses, mainline rail stations and riverboat services."

The spokesperson added: "As a Unesco World Heritage Site, millions of people come to Greenwich to visit its world-famous park, observatory and other attractions every year, so we'll be exploring all the ways we can work with Transport for London and others to keep our town centre the vibrant, bustling corner of London that people know and love."

In 2023, Cutty Sark was used by 7.6m passengers, making it the third busiest on the DLR behind Canary Wharf and Limehouse.

Last year, Kentish Town Tube station reopened six months later than planned after the "most unreliable" escalators on the network were replaced.

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