Those of you that use Bank station should be looking forward to the improvements that are currently being made below ground. Your two Common Councilmen recently visited the new Walbrook station entrance opposite the Walbrook building to look at the ongoing construction. The station entrance is due to open in December and will provide better access to the Waterloo and City line.

During the morning peak, 31 percent of all passengers exiting Bank station arrive via the Waterloo and City line. The lack of a dedicated entrance/exit for this line currently leads to severe overcrowding at platform level. This entrance will increase the capacity at Bank and reduce the severe overcrowding that is experienced in the morning peak at platform level. Four new escalators and two passageways connect the entrance to the existing station, as well as two lifts for step-free access.

The new entrance has been greatly facilitated by the construction by Bloomberg Corporation of their new European headquarters and the entrance was an integral part of the construction of the new Bloomberg building.

Construction challenges have included the watercourse of Walbrook itself. The River Walbrook, from which the Ward of Walbrook gets its name, is one of the City’s “lost rivers” and is formed from two tributaries. The first originating in Shoreditch and one from the Barbican.

They merge near Finsbury Circus and flow underneath what is now the Bank of England, then running down Walbrook itself underneath the new station entrance to a sewer outlet on the banks of the Thames.