A London train station has been dubbed one of the grimmest in the entire city despite opening just three years ago.
Meridian Water station is by all means a clean and modern-looking train stop - but its location drags it down as it is surrounded by desolate wasteland.
The station in Edmonton, north London, is near highways and large industrial sites which has left it a very eerie place to be.
Most of the time the station has no staff, and is not very well-used by commuters.
This has led some Londoners calling it one of the ‘grimmest’ stations in London.
One review on Google even described the atmosphere around the station as being ‘post-apocalyptic’, MyLondon reports.
“Very bad station, situated in a desolate wasteland with a post-apocalyptic atmosphere to it,” said the person leaving the review.
Meanwhile, another commuter said Meridian Water was “possibly one of the grimmest stations in London” with “absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.”
There isn’t really anything walking distance from the station besides a very large Tesco Extra supermarket and an IKEA megastore.
But the supermarket actually faces away from the station, while IKEA recently the imminent closure of the megastore.
The western side of the station is just a huge construction site which extends towards the horizon, with the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium appearing on the edge like an alien spaceship parked on an otherwise lifeless planet.
To the north of the station lies the North Circular (A406), from which the migraine-inducing noise of road vehicles constantly zooming past echoes into the surroundings.
Occasionally, the foul stench of sulphur wafts over from the nearby Edmonton Incinerator, which has been burning garbage in North London since 1971.
Leaving the station can also be as difficult as getting there.
This is due to limited roads and quite literally no parking so driving to and from the station is pretty much impossible.
Minicabs and Ubers also have nowhere suitable to stop, so you’d need to walk quite a distance to find a decent pick-up point, or the nearest bus stop.
Describing it as the ‘worst station’ in London, one person said: “To get there you need to walk up a steep slope, down a long flight of steps, and along a long stinking walkway, and nine trains out of ten don't stop.”
Train services to Meridian Water have improved in more recent times. The station is generally served by two Greater Anglia services to Stratford every hour, passing through Tottenham Hale.
But with no staff to ask for help and notice boards not always working properly, the station often works like a ‘clockwork orange,’ as one person put it.
This has seemingly been especially frustrating for commuters who have travelled to the station to find the contactless readers on the barricades don’t work, leaving them with no choice but to call TfL or face being overcharged for their journey.
But in its defence, Meridian Water is still very much a work in progress.
The station's wide staircases and spacious interior indicates that it has been built to support a high number of commuters.
Enfield Council aims to complete the construction of 10,000 new homes in the area in a few years, after which services to the station may be increased to four per hour, according to IanVisits .
There has already been some progress, as in 2019, Meridian Water station replaced the now defunct Angel Road station, which had even poorer walking access to the IKEA and buses.
But not all locals are so optimistic.
Shedding some light on the station and the area’s redevelopment in a comment posted four years ago, one person said: “It is bad now but the area is being redeveloped and in a couple of years.
"This should be a nice and busy little station. At least that is the plan but don't hold your breath.”
