The Ministry of Defence has made a £49,978,000 profit on the sale of the Brompton tube station this week to a mystery Ukrainian billionaire.
The sale of the tube station in South Kensington, originally sold for £22,000 to the Ministry of Defence in 1938, is being seen by some as the loss of a piece of our heritage.
Part of the abandoned Brompton Road station, formerly on the Piccadilly Line between South Kensington and Knightsbridge, is destined for conversion into luxury apartments.
The 28,000sq ft building near Harrods that housed the command bunker for London’s anti-aircraft defences during the Second World War has been at the centre of a multimillion-pound bidding war between the Qatari royal family and a mysterious Ukrainian billionaire.
Ajit Chambers of the Old London Underground Company, which aims to develop disused tube stations, said: “I have worked hard for four years to ensure that these heritage sites are kept for the public, bringing in revenue as tourism sites. In one sense this is great news as our promotion of the station has secured £50million for the public purse. On the other hand we have lost a big piece of our heritage to foreign investors who will turn this into a luxury home. This is a huge property. There's scope for a helipad on the roof and a fantastic roof garden over looking the Brompton Oratory.
"The Qataris were indeed very interested in this site. But they lost out to a mysterious Ukrainian billionaire. He unwittingly contacted the same architect I was using in order to redesign neighbouring property to house the security team for the Brompton Road tube station site. I got an email form the son on one of our billionaire investors informing me that they had lost the bid to a Ukrainian billionaire who won it with a £50million bid.
‘’In 2009 I told Boris Johnson we would make £200 million for the country through my vision for transforming London's hidden and abandoned underground spaces.
My plan was to turn ghost tube stations into valued assets, reviving them for the 21st Century as spaces that could be used and enjoyed by the UK public.
The Old London Underground Company is very proud to have worked on project that has seen 206 Brompton Road deliver £50 million to the UK economy.’’
The War Office bought the above-ground building for £22,000 in 1938 and it became the headquarters of the Army’s 1st Anti-Aircraft Division.
Floors were built into the lift shafts to create operations rooms, complete with a telephone exchange, pneumatic tubes to carry messages and a giant table map of southern England.
Mr Chambers, a former banker, had wanted to convert the rooftop into a garden, bar and restaurant area, while allowing tourists to travel underground to visit the drop-shafts.
It is understood James Arbuthnot, the chairman of the Defence Select Committee, was concerned about the potential sale of the station to private foreign ownership and wrote to the Defence Secretary, Phillip Hammond, to highlight the status of Brompton Road as a “heritage asset”.
The building is apparently being sold by the Ministry of Defence as part of the Government’s cost-cutting drive.
