Transport bosses are advising people not to use Victoria tube station during the afternoon rush hour for almost a year.

London Underground will start refurbishing the escalators in the main ticket hall at Victoria Station on Monday, with work scheduled to run until mid-January 2012.

During this time, it warns that from 4pm to 8pm:

  • There will be no ticketing facilities inside the station
  • You may be asked to wait outside the station to prevent overcrowding
  • Once inside the station it may take up to 15 minutes to reach the platform.

The three escalators which run down from the main ticket hall to the Victoria line platforms will be out of service one at a time, in sequence, while they are being worked on.

Howard Collins, London Underground's chief operating officer said: "Victoria Tube station is one of the busiest stations on London Underground, with 80 million passengers a year, expected to reach nearly 100 million a year by 2016.

"It is crucial we do this escalator work as part of modernising and enlarging the station.

"To make their journeys quicker and easier customers should use another route and avoid entering Victoria Tube station in the evening peak times.

"If passengers do use this station they should top up their Oyster cards or buy their tickets beforehand.

"We need to close the ticket office windows and the machines during the evening peak so that we can operate a safe one-way system and keep the station open.

"We apologise for the disruption to journeys this will cause, but this is the only way we can do this work without completely shutting down the station or non-stopping trains, which would be much more inconvenient for commuters and visitors to the capital."