Cutty Sark DLR station will reopen next week, Transport for London has confirmed, after a ten-month closure to replace its worn-out escalators.

The completion of the £5.2 million project means the station will be back in operation when the London Marathon takes place on April 26.

A new lift has also been installed to replace the one that passengers had to rely on during four years of disruption when the old escalators kept failing.

The news will come as a relief to businesses in Greenwich town centre, where footfall is said to have fallen since the station closed at the end of May last year.

Trains will stop at Cutty Sark again from March 23 – a week earlier than the date TfL had targeted, Rob Rusz, the Docklands Light Railway’s programme manager, told The London Standard, which had been given advance notice of the news.

People at back door of station handing out leaflets
Campaigners set up a petition to press for the replacement of the escalators. Image: The Greenwich Wire

The original escalators dated back to the opening of the DLR’s Lewisham extension in 1999. But the line and stations south of Mudchute were built and maintained by a private business, City Greenwich Lewisham Rail Ltd (CGL), rather than by TfL or its predecessors. 

The stations were taken back in-house by the DLR in 2021. Calum O’Byrne Mulligan, a Labour councillor for the Creekside ward and now Greenwich’s cabinet member for transport, said that Cutty Sark station had been left in a “shameful state”. 

Poor maintenance by CGL, which was dissolved three years later, was widely blamed for the state of the escalators. A petition, which was eventually signed by more than 3,500 people, was set up to press for their replacement.  

Empty station with escalators sealed off an mural of Henry VIII looking across
The blue wall panels have been replaced with white ones to brighten up the station. Image: The Greenwich Wire

The operation was a complex one, with sections of the escalators having to be delivered by train from a makeshift yard next to Elverson Road station. The new escalators should last for 30-40 years, with a major overhaul halfway through their life.

The pale blue wall panels picked by CGL have been replaced with white ones to make the station feel brighter.

“We were aiming for March 31 but we are going to reopen on March 23, so we are a week early,” Rusz told the Standard.

“This station always struggles with capacity on marathon day, but with four new escalators and a new lift we should be able to deal with it this year.”

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