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Transport for London has been accused of misleading passengers over its attempts to close Caledonian Road tube station on safety grounds, after internal emails leaked to the Tribune revealed experts did not think the public would be put in danger.

It was repeatedly claimed by underground bosses that “it would not be safe” to keep the station open while it repaired 30-year-old lifts one at a time.

Instead, TfL said the station – used by thousands of commuters daily – would have to be shut for eight months while the lifts were updated.

There has been a similar lengthy closure at Tufnell Park station, which has led to months of disruption for travellers and businesses.

The threat of a closure at Caledonian Road has now been abandoned after Islington Council threatened legal action. TfL is reconsidering its lift replacement plans.

But transport bosses are now facing questions as to whether they ramped up the safety dangers to try to get their way.

Internal documents seen by the Tribune suggest there was little basis for the safety argument – and show that closing the station would have cost the public more than £4million.

An email from programme director for infrastructure George McNulty to director of strategy Gareth Powell stated that if repairing the lifts sequentially in­creased risk at all that it would only be “very minimal”. He went on: “I don’t really see that there is much of a safety argument to make/defend.”

The revelations have led Nigel Scott, who started a petition against the closure proposal signed by more than 7,000 people, to suggest that TfL had been deliberately misleading.

He said: “There isn’t really a safety issue. Because an engineer would be on-site anyway they would be able to fix it quickly if it broke down. We held a meeting and the experts and the people who do the maths came down and said: ‘This is the way it’s going to be.’

“They wanted to appear confident that it couldn’t be done any other way.”

Another internal TfL document leaked to this newspaper, dating back to last August, included a discussion of the cost of the two refurbishment options.

The secret analysis shows that closing the station entirely would have saved TfL £524,000, but the “social disbenefit” to the public would have been almost £4.3m. TfL’s usual guidance when comparing project costs to itself versus the cost to the public is 1:3.

Holloway ward councillor Paul Smith said: “TfL thought they could ignore the public interest guidelines on assessing the financial impacts to the public, their own experts on safety and, above all, the law, just to save a relatively small amount of money by causing massive inconvenience to the public. Hopefully, they in future remember they are there to serve the public.”

Islington transport chief Councillor Claudia Webbe said the decision not to close the station following public pressure was “a huge climbdown”.

She said: “It is a victory for common sense, residents and the council. Putting contractors before residents and not consulting properly was a disgrace.”

Although TfL, whose ultimate boss is London Mayor Boris Johnson, has only said it would “withdraw and reconsider” the plans, it is considered unlikely it will come back with the same proposals.

The impact on the elderly and disabled was to be the crux of the council’s argument if the issue went to a judicial review. Caledonian Road is one of the few step-free stations in the area; these stations make up only 25 per cent of the tube network.

It is thought this is the first time TfL has been forced by legal action to stop a temporary station closure. It will meet the council’s legal costs so far, understood to exceed £50,000.

London Underground’s Mr Powell said: “In the light of points raised by Islington Council, we’re reconsidering how we can refurbish lifts at Caledonian Road safely and with as little disruption as possible for local people. We’re currently carrying out an extensive risk assessment of how the work will be done, including the option of keeping the station open while refurbishing the lifts.

“An update on whether the station can remain open during this essential refurbishment will be communicated once a decision has been made.