please empty your brain below
I bought a car from the Hythe Road site (then called something unmemorably different) in 1999, following a slow southward trawl from Milton Keynes looking for a used Mondeo.

I mention this only because it's the first time in a year or so of reading that you've newly described somewhere in London that I knew before, which is a little bit like the feeling you get as a ten year old when a school outing goes past your street.

Quizzical Eyebrow | Homepage | 07.11.17 - 6:40 a.m. | #

Cargiant's turnover is very rapid. If they ever need to close down, they just need to stop buying cars in about a month before. Anything that hasn't sold within 2 weeks, they can just take a few hundred off and they will sell. They don't do anything older than 4-5 years.

John | 07.11.17 - 6:48 a.m. | #

I was always hoping that a station might be opened to replace the long gone St. Quintin Park & Wormwood Scrubs station on North Pole Road.

Tetramesh | Homepage | 07.11.17 - 7:19 a.m. | #

In my car owning days I bought a few cars from Car Giant.
Maybe they will not need to relocate as car ownership in London is going down.
Perhaps electric car sharing clubs will become the norm.
Now that you have been dg perhaps you will return when work starts and give occasional reports on the areas transformation, similar to your reports of the Olympic sites ongoing changes.
I wonder if Overground will run the proposed passenger line from Hendon to Hounslow/Kew Bridge, which is planned to pass through Oak Lane. it is a little used freight line at the moment,the Dudding Hill line.

John | 07.11.17 - 7:56 a.m. | #

But if Car Giant closes...

Where will London buy its cars?

Kirk | 07.11.17 - 8:45 a.m. | #

CarGiant? Pah! TINY.

Fire up google maps... scroll over to the Ilse of Sheppey. Do a satellite view on the piece of land to the west of the railway between Queensborough and Sheerness station.

You're welcome! :-D

Geofftech | 07.11.17 - 9:07 a.m. | #

Geofftech: WOW!

Joho | 07.11.17 - 10:38 a.m. | #

The Sheppey site is newly imported cars in a non-publicly accessible location. It's also reclaimed land, as much of the boundary between public and private areas is the old sea wall.

Man of Kent | 07.11.17 - 10:45 a.m. | #

Geofftech: What is that then - a giant car dealer?

Boxer | 07.11.17 - 10:47 a.m. | #

As the satellite view shows, you can have a car in any colour you like, as long as it's red, blue or somewhere on the greyscale. I've never understood why !

Gerry | 07.11.17 - 11:22 a.m. | #

For the WLL part, I believe that technically Wormwood Scrubs station should re-open, because trains do stop there for electric changeover. However, its proximity to a prison means that reopening the station poses security risk.

Patrickov | 07.11.17 - 12:59 p.m. | #

Couldn't they build above the rail storage area somehow? There's a lot of space there that can't be used for housing otherwise.

Adrian | 07.11.17 - 3:51 p.m. | #

I think CarGiant have plans for a massive mutli storey car showroom.

Able to hold al it's stock on three or 4 (rather tall) floors.

I think they are sniffing around a big site in Park Royal, off the A406.

rational plan | 07.11.17 - 5:13 p.m. | #

Just wondering how much taxpayers money is involved in all this.

Jerym | 07.11.17 - 5:35 p.m. | #

@patrickov
The site of the old WLL Wormwood Scrubs station would not be very useful for interchange with Crossrail.
As for security, there is already one (maybe two) Tube stations closer to the prison than that.

timbo | 07.11.17 - 5:50 p.m. | #

The Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation provide a sort of 'visualisation' program you can install on a PC or Mac on this page, but many of the options don't work properly on my PC.

Bob L-S | 07.11.17 - 11:37 p.m. | #

My thought is - a mega non-interchange, with - of the five lines passing through the development - there will only be interchange between two. One would have hoped the proposals would have included provision to divert some of the other lines, and provide a more comprehensive interchange.

Jeremy | 08.11.17 - 12:20 a.m. | #

One of the original proposals was to divert the Overground lines so that platforms could be built precisely inbetween the HS2 and Crossrail stations.

This would have been brilliantly accessible. Unfortunately, as well as being prohibitively expensive, it would have made the entire project impractically over-complex to build.

So we end up with an almost-interchange.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 08.11.17 - 12:56 a.m. | #

@timbo: Admittedly that reopening is only for local interests and possibly doesn't interfere with any OOC projects, i.e. I think *two* stations, instead of one, can be added between Shepherd's Bush and Willesden Junction.

Patrickov | 08.11.17 - 3:45 a.m. | #











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