Spurs are doing an Arsenal as they look to rename White Hart Lane station
Tottenham Hotspur wants to rename White Hart Lane station, which is fine with Transport for London (TfL), but apparently the club will have to shell out £12m to do so.
The North London football club wants the London Overground station renamed Tottenham Hotspur station ahead of the opening of its new £400m stadium.
It's not the first time a football club has renamed a station. Tottenham’s biggest rivals Arsenal also renamed a station back in 1932 – turning Gillespie Road underground station into Arsenal, with its location right beside their old Highbury stadium.
According to Squawka, Spurs are keen for the station to remain strongly identified with the club, particularly as there are plans for a walkway leading directly to the ground. And TfL would be prepared to change the name, but want Spurs to pay a fee and meet all associated costs – that includes changing signage and maps.
In total, that could come to £12m – though TfL and Tottenham wouldn't comment.
Station name changes have proved controversial before. When it was announced the Crossrail service would be named the Elizabeth Line, some dismissed it as a vanity exercise, with speculation over how much it would cost.
Read more: After Crossrail is renamed, Elizabeth Line wakes up famous
Not much, actually, as it turned out. Citymetric sent a FoI request and found out the cost of adjusting all the branding was a mere £5,000 for “a revised roundel prototype”. It seemed “the five grand was to pay a designer to change a piece of text in a photoshop template”.
And last summer Walthamstow Central ran into slight trouble when its name was misspelled on several prominent signs. The north east London rail hub had been renamed “Waltamstow Central” as part of renovation work undertaken to mark the London Overground’s takeover of a main line route through the station.
They were hastily replaced but not before passers-by took to Twitter to ridicule the mistake.
https://twitter.com/danbrowne77/status/629573205057998849
I was always told off for dropping the letter h. Seems like @TfL has made a howler here. #e17 #walthamstow pic.twitter.com/BnuJaQZVRX
— Adrian Justins (@AdrianJustins) August 7, 2015