Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80 - 106)
TUESDAY 16 JUNE 1998
GLENDA JACKSON, LORD LEVENE, and MR MARK LAMBIRTH
80. Well, I hope not, but there are two facts in all that we
are talking about here. The first is that there is a curiosity
value on the site itself and you cannot stop people wanting to
get closer to look at the site regardless of whether they go in
and there is no way that anyone can convince me that that will
not happen. Secondly, the Secretary of State made it quite clear
that there are many other experiences, many other celebrations
going on during the Millennium year. We cannot assume that Mr
and Mrs Smith or Jones who are coming to London are just going
to come to London to see one experience and we have got to assume
that those people may wish to do other things while they are here,
in which case, if I was coming into London from my constituency
in Dorset, I would not necessarily come up by train when I want
to give my children an experience of London and I do not believe
that that aspect of the whole transportation has been taken into
account, not from your side, but when all of this has been put
together.
(Glenda Jackson) Well, with respect, you would be very
ill-advised if you were bringing your children up to London to
work on the assumption that you would be able to show them all
the many fascinating aspects of London by car. It simply is not
on.
81. One drives up and then uses other transport.
(Glenda Jackson) Indeed, but that is already a possibility
as far as the Millennium Experience is concerned. As I have said,
they are examining with London Transport the possibility of the
purchase of a ticket - and let me reiterate again that you will
not be allowed on to the Dome without a pre-booked ticket - where
in some instances that pre-booked ticket will carry with it a
parking space, and it will be in outer London, it will not be
in inner London, but it will be possible for you to come up, to
leave your car and in a safe car parking space in some instances
and then get into Central London and visit all the sites which
are of particular interest to you.
82. I will finish, because I could talk for some time, as I am
sure you appreciate, other than to say that you are giving us
an absolute assurance this morning that members of the public
as families, to use a very good example of a family coming to
London, will not throughout the year of the Millennium be talking
to the press, going on the television, saying, "I am frustrated
by the queues, the congestion. I have spent hours trying to get
to the site and hours getting away from the site", and that
you are convinced that there will not be an anti-Dome feeling
with the Millennium given the infrastructure of the transportation
to the site? You are giving that assurance this morning?
(Glenda Jackson) What I can give you an assurance on this
morning is that we are very cognisant of the fact that the movement
of people to and from the Dome, given that it is a car-free event,
is dependent upon a fully integrated public transport system.
We have done very careful work on what we perceive to be the percentage
which each aspect of that public transport system will have to
carry. We believe that that will meet the requirements of the
people who will undoubtedly wish to come and be part of the Millennium
Experience. I cannot give you a categoric guarantee because everyone
involved in this is human, but I can say to you that I am very
cognisant of the fact, when I speak to the people who are responsible
for delivering these systems, that they are extremely aware of
the responsibility that they carry, that they are extremely effective,
they are very dedicated, they are very willing to work as a team,
and we have the added advantage, as I have said earlier, of having
Lord Levene whose group is actually overseeing it, although it
is not their responsibility to deliver, to ensure that the kind
team work which will deliver the integrated public transport upon
which we are dependent will in fact be delivered.
83. One very last point - who are these VIPs that you talk about
who will get on the site?
(Glenda Jackson) That is a very good question. I personally
am opposed to the idea of parking for VIPs on the site and this
is something that I intend to pursue. If I was a VIP and I had
a choice, I would prefer to approach the Dome from the river.
It is of course the case that for some VIPs, there will be the
need to consider the security of that individual, but again I
do not believe it is impossible to ensure security for VIPs either
by transport on the river - I do not wish to make them sound like
criminals - or via public transport. I do not accept the idea
and I am prepared to continue to argue this.
84. So you will ensure that any Member of the Government will
get to the site by using public transport?
(Glenda Jackson) I can assure you that I will argue strongly
for the removal of parking for VIPs on the Dome site.
85. And what about people working on the site?
(Glenda Jackson) Well, I am glad you have raised that because
it is a point that I forgot to make when we were discussing the
contingency plans. As I said earlier, we have to be aware of the
8,000 people who will be employed on that site and clearly we
are expecting their movements in the main to be ----
86. That is 150 coaches a day.
(Glenda Jackson) And 8,000 on the site, and it is not just
for the Dome, but of course it is also for the Millennium Village,
and here clearly there will be a responsibility within the contingency
plans for NMEC and LT to be working very closely together and
this is what they are at the moment doing.
Chairman
87. There are a couple of things consequent upon a question
Mr Fraser put and your answer to it. There is a brief reference
in paragraph 18 of your Department's memorandum to park-and-ride
which, in view of what you have just been saying to Mr Fraser,
I do not really understand. The memorandum says, "NMEC have
recently completed a review of their policy on park-and-ride.
It has been submitted to the London Borough of Greenwich for approval..."
I am not quite sure what the London Borough of Greenwich has got
to do with a park-and-ride system all around the periphery of
London which you have been referring to. When we were asking London
Underground, who at that time seemed to have next-to-no ideas
on the topic, about the park-and-ride, what we were suggesting,
and it seems from your response is what you have in mind, is that
for people who drive up to London from outside London, there should
be points around the periphery where they can leave their cars
on a park-and-ride system and then ride into the Dome on public
transport. Now, I am reassured by what you have been saying that
this is in fact what you have got in mind, but I would like to
know a bit more about it in view of the fact that London Transport
at that time hardly seemed to have thought about it and, secondly,
this reference to the London Borough of Greenwich approving it
because I cannot quite see what it has got to do with the London
Borough of Greenwich.
(Glenda Jackson) If I could just touch on the change that
there has been as far as London Transport is concerned, it certainly
was not something, I think, that anyone had been thinking about
in any great detail, but they certainly are now and, as I say,
NMEC and LT are working on this and they are also looking at the
potential for there being park-and-ride on the M25 if there is
good public transport in. On the issue of the particular London
Borough of Greenwich, perhaps Mr Lambirth can fill you in on the
detail there.
(Mr Lambirth) Your two questions related. When Millennium
Central Limited, the predecessor of the New Millennium Experience
Company, first thought about the transport strategy for the Dome,
it had one which was based on providing quite large, dedicated
off-site car parks fairly close to the Dome. That was something
the Government had reservations about and you had reservations
about and we are glad to say that they are now looking at something
which does not try to get people to the Dome by boat or by coach
from dedicated sites which are either too far away from the Dome
to provide people with easy interchange or too close into Central
London for our traffic policies, but instead focusing on getting
the estimated 38 per cent of visitors, who will make the main
leg of their trip to the Dome by car, getting them to park close
to rail and tube stations further out of London, which is much
the quickest and easiest way of doing it. Because they started
off with a plan which was based on dedicated off-site parking,
that is what they produced to the London Borough of Greenwich
who are the planning authority for the Dome site. Therefore, one
of very many planning conditions was attached by the London Borough
of Greenwich that they should indeed produce the 8,400 parking
spaces that they had originally said they would, in other words,
they should deliver on all aspects of their transport strategy,
this being one of them, so they are now back to the London Borough
of Greenwich saying, "Would you mind if we changed our strategy?"
88. One other point is this: ever since I first visited the Dome
site, it seemed to me that the potential was absolutely enormous
which is why I came to the conclusion very quickly that the Dome
will be an enormous success, provided problems relating to it
could be solved, and I personally still take the view, and indeed
not still, but I take the view more than ever that the Dome will
be a great success, and I have got a feeling, which may turn out
to be wrong, that the number of people who will be seeking to
go there will be well in excess of 12 million because there is
the tendency among the phlegmatic population of this country to
flock to events. That being so, your planning, the whole planning
has been based on 12 million, and I would have thought that it
is very likely that there will be a lot more than that and I would
have thought that right at the beginning huge numbers of people
will want to be among the first to get there and that the daily
average of, I think, 33,000 to 35,000 will be hugely exceeded
at certain times. Are you making contingency plans for dealing
with potential bottle-necks?
(Glenda Jackson) Well, certainly what NMEC are proposing
is that there should be two performance days, if you wish, but
they would be high days and holidays. They have not actually given
us the detailed breakdown of when they envisage these two performance
days occurring, but they are not during a working week. There
will also of course be events at the Baby Dome, but there the
numbers are expected to be 8,000 and here again they are attempting
to work out the details of whether these evening events will occur.
I sincerely hope you are correct, Mr Kaufman, and you are usually
in most issues, that there will be this huge interest and I agree
with you in that I passed the Dome only on Sunday and it is quite
astonishing, the way it is growing and looking so remarkable,
but it is my understanding from NMEC that the figure of 35,000,
that is the maximum that can be accommodated with any kind of
comfort, with any kind of genuine experience by the people who
have gone to the Dome site at any one time. Of course if it is
a vastly successful experience, I do not see that there could
not be an extension of the initial Millennium year.
Mr Keen
89. Minister, in answer to Mr Fraser, you seemed to be doubting
whether you were a VIP or not. As far as I am concerned, you were
a VIP long before 1997 or even 1992!
(Glenda Jackson) How very kind.
90. I would row your VIP boat down to the Millennium Dome whenever
you shouted. Mr Fraser is right to be concerned about the transport
because we were especially six months ago and I feel happier now,
although I was alarmed at the beginning when you mentioned Charlton
because I thought this was an alternative to the Jubilee Line
and obviously it is not. Could you give us just a little more
detail about the volume?
(Glenda Jackson) The actual numbers that we are expecting
actually to be coming into Charlton which is the railway and then
using the Millennium Transit is approximately 4 per cent of the
passenger numbers and we are, as you know, looking at, and I think
bids have been made, the actual bus itself being environmentally
advanced, that it should accessible, that it should be comfortable
and, as I say, it is estimated that it will run every five minutes.
91. If the outlook of the station is improved as well as it
was for Charlton Athletics now through to the Premier League,
that would be wonderful. What arrangements are being made for
staff? Are they going to be banned from taking private cars on
to the site for their work and be picked up by public transport?
(Glenda Jackson) This is something for NMEC, but it is
a site which is car-free and certainly, going back to the point
about contingency plans, if there are glitches in the initial
deliveries of the JLE, then clearly it would be the responsibility
of NMEC to ensure that their staff get on and off that site, yes.
92. Can I come to something else just quickly? We got an excellent
submission from the Meridian House Tenants' Association expressing
their concerns about how they will be affected as people who live
close to the Dome, and they should be complimented on that submission.
I was particularly concerned because of my own constituents having
most of the noise at Heathrow Airport, although we are glad of
the jobs and everything else. Are there any plans especially to
take note of the concerns of the local residents because the whole
of the United Kingdom is going to benefit greatly from the Dome,
I am sure of that, as the Chairman says, but the local people
may well suffer because of it and I think they deserve to be looked
after especially well and be made to understand that they are
being listened to, so are there any definite plans for that?
(Glenda Jackson) Is the concern about the noise actually
from the Experience itself?
93. No, the pollution from the transport. That is their main
concern. I will not raise the detail of their concern, but there
must be lots and lots of people, not just the Meridian House Tenants'
Association who have put a submission in, but there must be many,
many hundreds or thousands of people affected and I wondered if
there was a committee which was especially looking at that.
(Glenda Jackson) I am not aware of any special committee,
but clearly this is a concern of the London Borough of Greenwich
with regard to their residents, but, as I say, there should be
no adverse pollution in the sense that we know it now inasmuch
as this is a car-free event, so although not a major polluter
as far as road traffic is concerned, but it is essentially the
noise and number of cars, this will not be something that will
be in or around the Dome because, as I say, we are envisaging
the majority of people to be arriving there by the Jubilee Line
extension at this brand-new and indeed largest underground station,
I believe, in the whole of Europe. There will of course be walkways
and cycleways as well, but the concerns of residents are something
that has occasioned Greenwich to argue very strongly and to give
the guarantee that they will enforce equally strongly the no-parking
zone, which, as I said, is going to stretch for three miles south
of the Dome.[3]
94. So people like the Meridian House Tenants' Association should
really concentrate their efforts on lobbying Greenwich who will
fight their corner?
(Glenda Jackson) Absolutely, absolutely, and if I could
just touch on the issue of, for example, the Millennium Transit
bus, as I said, this is going to be at the cutting edge of clean,
green bus technology.
Mr Fearn
95. Planning concerns are perhaps the ones that I want to ask
about. There will be a three-mile zone being car-free and planning
for park-and-ride, and yet nearly everything I see here is, "they
look to provide", "they are discussing", "they
are having a review", but are we sure that they are going
to be ready on time with the park-and-ride sites and what happens
to the residents who have a car as well within those no-car zones
of three miles?[4]
(Glenda Jackson) Well, on the issue of the park-and-ride,
as I have said, these are ongoing discussions between NMEC and
LT, for example, and I gave the obvious example of Wembley. This
is not a parking space on-stream, but these are actual spaces
within car parks and there will be a limited number of those of
course and the idea that people will be able to drive to Greenwich
and park on the streets, as I have made clear, is simply not feasible
because it will be a very strictly enforced no-parking zone for
three miles south of the Dome.[5]
96. For residents as well?
(Glenda Jackson) Well, for residents there will be presumably
residential parking zones, so if anyone does not have a residential
parking zone sticker, then they are going to be guilty of an offence.
97. They will interfere with the routes then, will they not, for
the coaches coming through with the cars parked?
(Glenda Jackson) No. As we have already said, we are looking
at defining if they should need it, but I do not believe that
professional coach drivers would need it and the idea that they
can drive through Greenwich to gain access to the site is not
the best way to go and they would not choose to go that way anyway.
98. On the coach business, at Southport they get 200 coaches per
day for the flower show and here we have got 150 spaces for coaches
and we have got 80,000 employees as well who will go by coach,
but whether they will go out again, I do not know.
(Glenda Jackson) No, there are spaces for 300 coaches.
It is estimated that the majority of coaches that will actually
be going to any one Experience is 150. The amount of workers on
the site will be 8,000, not 80,000.
99. I know there is a lot of evidence from various attractions,
but 150 as the figure, 300 or whatever ----
(Glenda Jackson) One hundred and fifty is deemed to be
the maximum of coaches that will be delivering to the site for
any one performance.
100. Yes, and I think you have mentioned yourself the orange badge
holders, and there are millions of them and they use their orange
badges and they go by car or they use it in a taxi and they very
rarely transfer to a coach or anything like that.
(Glenda Jackson) But the actual parking spaces on the site
for orange badge holders and, as I say, VIPs, although that is
a debatable point as far as I am concerned, I think it is 632,
but I repeat, no one will be able to arrive at the Dome in any
form of transport and get in to see the Experience if they do
not have a ticket. Orange badge holders will equally have to pre-book
their ticket for the Experience, and there are only 35,000 tickets
for any one Experience.
101. So how many car parking spaces are there for disabled badge
holders?
(Glenda Jackson) I do not know that I have the figures
of how it is divided up. I think that the number of parking spaces
in total is 632, but I will be very happy to get back to you with
that division if NMEC have it.
102. I think it is important. A lot of disabled associations are
now asking, "How will we get there? What do we do? Where
do we park?" so I know that is going to come probably in
the future publicity, but at this stage it is just as well to
reassure them that there is something there.
(Glenda Jackson) Well, I repeat that access is only with
a pre-booked ticket. If you apply for that ticket and you carry
an orange badge card, then that will give you your guaranteed
parking space.
103. The numbers that go in and many of the schoolchildren that
go in will be by coach. Are those going to be limited so that
there are so many children and so many adults? Is it possible
to do that with school parties that will want to book? There may
be one day when two-thirds of the people going in will be children
and I do not know whether the Millennium Dome people would want
that or not.
(Glenda Jackson) I should think they would be delighted.
104. Is there any laid-down plan on that particular aspect of
schoolchildren going in? Are they going to have separate days
or what? It is a responsibility to have a lot of children there
and there are going to be many attendants, I know that, but it
is a responsibility to have too many children there perhaps.
(Glenda Jackson) But you cannot have too many of anything
when there is a limit to the number of people who are allowed
actually on the site. As I say, there will be only tickets for
35,000 people. Now, the responsibility for taking school parties
is clearly the responsibility of schools and parents and they
would not send children unaccompanied to such an experience, but
I do not think it would be part of what the Millennium Experience
is about to try and segregate the generations, and I think the
bottom line here is that the accessibility to the site is by ticket
only and that ticket is pre-booked.
Chairman
105. Of course although the numbers are not the same, there is
a precedent for this because the John Paul Getty Museum in Los
Angeles has no-car access too and that seems to work. I think
it says something about the journalistic agenda that when the
previous group of witnesses left, so did most of the journalists,
and yet what we have been discussing in this part of the session
is an absolutely indispensable part of our ensuring the success
of a three quarters of a billion pound public investment.
(Glenda Jackson) Indeed.
106. I personally am extremely reassured that whilst there are
a great many other things to be sorted out, and we hope you will
come again when we have our next inquiry probably before the end
of the year, there is now a structure under a Minister to deal
with these matters and there is a departmental structure as well.
I think that is very reassuring and we are most grateful to you
for your evidence session and I declare this session closed.
(Glenda Jackson) Thank you very much indeed, Mr Kaufman.
3 Note by witness: Although the Minister referred to a controlled parking zone of three miles, the area is in fact up to three kilometres south of the zone. Back
4 Note by witness: Although the Minister referred to a controlled parking zone of three miles, the area is in fact up to three kilometres south of the zone. Back
5 Note by witness: Although the Minister referred to a controlled parking zone of three miles, the area is in fact up to three kilometres south of the zone. Back
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