 South Kensington today
Visitor numbers
South Kensington is already the most important single museum destination in London. In the last complete financial year for which data is available (2002-03), the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, together with the Albert Hall and other venues in South Kensington attracted over nine million visitors a year.
This compares favourably with other major London museum visitor numbers: the British Museum in Bloomsbury (4.6 million), the National Gallery (4.1 million), the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square (1.3 million) and Tate Modern at Bankside (4.6 million).
Exhibition Road attracts a third more visitors than any other heritage zone in London.
Need for regeneration
In recent years, the majority of Lottery and other public capital funding for cultural institutions has been given to East and Central London. The result has been a shift of public interest and private investment away from West London. As a heritage site of world significance, and a major tourist destination, it is now essential that the balance be redressed. South Kensington needs a strategic scheme to regenerate the area.
The great success of free admission to the national museums has nearly doubled the visitor numbers of the three major South Kensington institutions alone. Most visitors travel by public transport from elsewhere in the UK or abroad. Free admission makes modernisation of the South Kensington public areas and transport network an urgent priority. They have been neglected for more than half a century.
Transportation links
The Exhibition Road area is crossed by the A4, Cromwell Road, which is the main road out of London to Heathrow Airport.
The Underground station is one of the least accessible in the city. This is in spite of being part of one of the biggest transport interchange systems in London. It is used by 30 million people a year – comparable to Gatwick Airport.
Bus connections with the rest of London are not very good, with no buses currently stopping in Exhibition Road. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea have successfully persuaded Transport for London to introduce bus services in the future along Exhibition Road.
The foot tunnel to the museums is often closed during bad weather, just when it is needed most. The subway is a significant route for visitors travelling from the Underground station to Exhibition Road. It is used by one in eight people leaving that side of the Underground, despite its dark and dirty condition. Most tourists use the subway, rather than the street, to reach the museums. The area is so poorly designed for pedestrians that a majority of the millions each year who leave the Underground station to travel to Exhibition Road at street level jaywalk or cross a pedestrian red light.
Neglected streetscape
The streetscape along Exhibition Road is cluttered, confusing to visitors and unfriendly to pedestrians, despite being almost the busiest street for pedestrians in South Kensington. It bears the scars of years of neglect. Exhibition Road may be the most significant intellectual highway in Britain but this is not evident from the design and identity of the street.
Related facts and figures
For related details on South Kensington from the financial year 2002 to 2003, see the page Facts and figures.
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