In article ews.net,
"JMUpton2000" securitynovels @ freeuk.com wrote:

Would someone mind explaining a mysterious phonomena that seems to be
striking random parts of random Underground stations across Central London?

I refer to the mysterious case of the phantom panel nicker! There does not
appear to be a station left that does not have completely random ceiling
panels missing from ticket halls, corridors and platforms.

I wondered about posting this when it happened a few weeks ago. I'm a
Westminster councillor and sit on one of the Planning Sub-Committees.
One application we recently decided was from London Underground and
concerned Great Portland Street Station (a listed building: had it not
been, then there would have been no requirement to seek planning
permission). The application was for the removal and replacement of
the tiles throughout the station.

The sub-committee looked at the application and decided that it wasn't
happy the case for getting rid of such a large amount of original
features. It decided to have a site visit. When this was announced
it was revealed to the committee that most of the tiles had actually
been removed the previous weekend.

We went on the site visit to be told that there had been a confusion
when the supervisor had been told "We're good to go" (meaning to the
committee), and assumed this meant it was good to go removing the
tiles. Although LUL had claimed that the original tiles were all
badly damaged, it was quite clear that the damage was not that severe.
When it came back to the committee we decided to refuse the application.

As it is now not possible to put the original tiles back, this normally
means that whoever was responsible for removing them gets prosecuted
for damaging a listed building without permission.

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