Surrey Canal Road railway station

Surrey Canal Road railway station is a proposed station on the East London Line of the London Overground network. It will be on the branch from Surrey Quays which carries the East London Line phase 2 extension along the Inner South London Line to Clapham Junction. The extension opened on 9 December 2012 with through trains every 15 minutes between Clapham Junction and Highbury & Islington. The station site is on Surrey Canal Road at the boundary points of Bermondsey, New Cross and Deptford. The station will be adjacent to Millwall Football Club's ground and will help ease the burden of match-day crowds on the nearby South Bermondsey railway station and Surrey Quays Station. Surrey Canal Road and the new station are both named after the former Grand Surrey Canal from Camberwell to Rotherhithe via Peckham and Deptford. The canal carried timber to the Surrey Commercial Docks from the 19th century until the closure of the docks in the late 1960s. The canal remained as a waterway until it was infilled for safety reasons in the mid-1970s and turned into the present road linking Ilderton Road, SE16, with Trundleys Road, SE8. This area known as the 'Surrey Canal Triangle' has begun to be identified as the Surrey Canal district in its own right.

It was announced on 16 February 2009 that the line extension would be built but that funding for a station at Surrey Canal Road might not be available.

Lewisham Council agreed in principle on 26 January 2010 to provide the missing funding to complete Surrey Canal Road station. Transport for London is committed to building the foundations for the station building and platforms to enable construction to take place readily should funding be found. On 3 September 2010, the Department for Transport refused to provide £7 million for building the station as it would not provide good value for money.

A large £850m development around The Den, provisionally called Surrey Canal: London's Sporting Village, has been approved. Renewal, the developer, agreed in late 2011 to fund the missing capital needed for the new station, and Lewisham Council's strategic planning committee resolved to grant the application at a meeting on 13 October 2011. Planning permission under Section 106 was agreed in January 2012, securing its construction.

The new development will include shops, restaurants, business space and new leisure and sports and multi-faith facilities along with up to 2,400 new homes, replacing warehouses, light industrial estates and a handful of 1990s-built residential blocks.

Work on the development scheme is due to start in 2013, and the new station could open by 2015, depending on the pace of new housing in the vicinity. The progress of the station could be accelerated with the news that planning permission has also been granted to redevelop the area immediately to the north-east of the station site at the junction of Surrey Canal, Trundleys and Grinstead Roads. A new complex of over 200 apartments called Neptune Wharf, on the site of the former Neptune Chemical Works, will also help bring a valuable residential market to the area. The Neptune Wharf development will also be significant in opening up the old Surrey Canal towpath (currently a private road called Canal Approach) and creating a pedestrian link between Deptford Park and Folkestone Gardens at the point the canal went under the railway viaduct. This should provide easier, safer and more pleasant access to the Surrey Canal Road from the adjoining streets.