Putney Station is one of the busiest suburban commuter stations in London, with 18 trains per hour passing through at off-peak times alone. Spencer Group was commissioned to carry out a programme of major station improvements as part of Network Rail’s Access for All scheme, providing step-free access throughout the facility. Putney Station is now fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act, with a complete new concourse at street level.
Spencer Group installed three new liftshafts with 16 person lifts, expanded the concourse area, built new ticket gates, installed new telecoms, CCTV, PA and CIS monitors and installed new toilets. To maintain access to all platforms during the installation of the three new lifts, a temporary footbridge had to be installed manually. This involved ‘hand-balling’ 80 tonnes of scaffolding via the pedestrian entrance at night, and removing more than 100 tonnes of soil by hand, due to the severely limited construction access and impossibility of using heavy machinery – Putney station being surrounded by residential properties. The new concourse was designed as a spacious area spanning all tracks and platforms, to alleviate congestion at the gate-line.
The tender originally called for all new structures to be constructed from steel, however due to the sites landlocked location, the times available to work and the logistics involved with getting the components to site, Spencer Group put forward an alternative tender based on insitu concrete. This was more flexible when it came to the methodology as well as offering a time and cost saving to Network Rail by removing the need for cranes. The temporary footbridge we installed was removed 3 weeks ahead of schedule, taken down by hand overnight – removal commenced 2am Sunday and was completed in time for Monday rush hour. Putney is an excellent example of how we innovate to ensure maximum client value with minimal passenger inconvenience during engineering works.