Elizabeth Line's flagship Bond Street station opens after five-month delay


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Five months after London's Elizabeth Line started running, its "jewel in the crown" Bond Street station has opened.

Transport for London said the step-free station would "relieve congestion at Oxford Circus and make the area more accessible".

London transport commissioner Andy Byford called the line "truly spectacular" and a "highly significant new link to one of the busiest shopping districts in the UK, enabling even further connectivity to jobs and leisure for people across London and the South-east".

London mayor Sadiq Khan visited the station on Monday morning and tweeted his appreciation of the "spacious, stylish and step-free" site.

Capable of carrying 140,000 people a day, trains into Bond Street will initially run every five minutes although there will be no services on Sunday, October 30.

From Sunday, November 6, trains will run every three to four minutes, seven days a week.

The new station has two main entrances, one near Oxford Street and another close to Regent Street. Retailers in the area hope it will provide a boost in the build up to Black Friday and Christmas.

Dee Corsi, interim chief executive of business group New West End Company, said the opening of the Bond Street station was "a welcome boost to the West End's economic recovery and a key driver in returning us to our historic £10 billion annual turnover".

Paul Marsden, branch manager of the John Lewis shop on Oxford Street, said "the timing couldn't be better".

Queen Elizabeth visited the construction site at Bond Street in 2016 to mark the naming of the railway in her honour.

Queen Elizabeth on a visit to Bond Street in 2016. Getty
Queen Elizabeth on a visit to Bond Street in 2016. Getty

The route stretches from Reading in Berkshire and Heathrow Airport in west London to Abbey Wood in south-east London and Shenfield in Essex.

It runs through new tunnels between Paddington in west London and Abbey Wood.

Passengers will be able to travel from Reading and Heathrow to Abbey Wood without changing at Paddington, and from Shenfield to Paddington without changing at Liverpool Street.

The final timetable, bringing full end-to-end journeys and up to 24 trains per hour, is expected to be introduced by May.

Elizabeth Line passengers will be able to travel to Bond Street and Liverpool Street in eight minutes and Canary Wharf in 15 minutes.

Passengers heading for the West End from Heathrow, Reading and Shenfield will be able to get a direct train to Bond Street without having to change at Paddington or Liverpool Street.

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Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Homeowners and tenants are allowed to list their properties for rental by registering through the Dubai Tourism website to obtain a permit.

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COMPANY PROFILE

Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
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Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
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Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
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Company profile

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Updated: October 24, 2022, 11:22 AM`