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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 837-xxxix HOUSE OF COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE taken before the on the Tuesday 13 June 2006 Before: Mr Philip Hollobone Kelvin Hopkins Mrs Siân C James Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger
In the absence of the Chairman, Mr Liddell-Grainger took the Chair
Ordered: that Counsel and Parties be called in. 9622. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: As usual, I inform the Committee that it is my intention to suspend at a convenient time, some time or thereabouts at 11.45 so that everybody can have the opportunity of a comfort break. As there are so many cases to hear today, I will now explain exactly how we will proceed. 9623. The Committee wants to hear every Petitioner's case. However, as you know, the Committee will not listen to the same evidence being made more than once. We understand that many people here do have similar concerns. We would ask you to listen carefully to the case being made to you and other responders by the Promoters and try not to repeat, if possible, anything that has been said. If you agree with the case that is being made, you can tell us which points you support, that is absolutely acceptable, and you do not then need to repeat the argument. Some of the issues which are revolving around Hanbury Street and Whitechapel have already been raised by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in last week's committee and have already been taken into account from what was said last week. Equally, we encourage, dare I say it, counsel for the Promoters to refrain also from repeating counterarguments, where possible. I remind everybody that any witness brought forward by the Promoters may be cross-examined by each and every Petitioner, should they wish to, after they have made their case, but we understand it would be helpful to hear the first two cases and then we will ask counsel to respond. We will then call each additional Petitioner to make their case after the first two. Mr Elvin? 9624. MR ELVIN: Sir, the first two Petitioners, and I am not entirely sure which order they are being presented, are the Spitalfields Society and Dr Pedretti. 9625. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: I think we are going to take Dr Pedretti first. 9626. MR ELVIN: Sir, I am going to give an introduction which will just go over some of the main issues the Committee will be hearing from Petitioners today. This will cover not only issues raised by Dr Pedretti and the Spitalfields Society, but some of the more general issues that are raised because I do not propose then to repeat myself, taking my guidance from what you have just said. 9627. As the Committee has already noted, the Petitioners this week follow on to some extent from the issues raised by Tower Hamlets last week and there is a degree of overlap, particularly on the issue of the Hanbury Street shaft. Sir, since a large number of the Petitioners are raising similar issues and there is considerable overlap, I will go through the main issues, although Petitioners should note that I am not dealing with each and every issue in their Petitions, just the very broad issues which are in common. 9628. Those issues appear to us to include issues relating to a station at Whitechapel, secondly what is now proposed as a ventilation and intervention shaft at Hanbury Street, construction impacts on individuals and on the community, the alignment of the tunnels and the impacts in terms of noise and settlement, especially on the many Listed buildings in the Spitalfields area, and compensation issues. 9629. If Mr Fry could please put up plan A2 from the Environmental Statement, volume 4A, and zoom in please on Hanbury Street, that is the main area under consideration. Of course the Committee are very familiar with this, having had a site visit and seen the documents on a number of occasions. Whitechapel of course is to the east of this plan. We have also provided for the Committee, and I will have paper copies distributed, a plan which is GEN-0101 which shows you the location of most of the Petitioners' properties in the area. It is a bit difficult to read on the screen, so I have asked for A3 copies to be provided, but what this will do is give you the Petition numbers, and some of the Petitioners have properties which are off the plan, but the intention is to give you an idea of where the Petitioners are living so that you can cross-reference to Petition numbers. 9630. I remind the Committee, and really say this more for the benefit of the Petitioners than the Committee, that concerns about the various types of impact have been assessed at considerable length, particularly those relating to noise, vibration, construction, lorries, settlement and heritage issues. They have been assessed in various parts of the Environmental Statement, not only the main Environmental Statement, but the first Supplementary Environmental Statement deals with Hanbury Street and the first Environmental Statement relating to AP1 deals with the revised proposals for Whitechapel Station. 9631. As the Committee also knows, in addition to the various volumes of the Environmental Statement and the technical reports on matters such as noise and settlement, there have been available to the public for some time not only those matters, but the IPs, the information papers, and each Petitioner has received an individual Petition response document which the Committee also has. 9632. I will deal firstly then briefly with the issues around Whitechapel Station. As you know, sir, the current proposals were revised in the first AP and described in chapter 4 of AP1. Perhaps Mr Fry can put up the illustrative drawing which the Committee has already seen of the proposed Fulbourne Street ticket hall. The justification and the benefits will be explained briefly by Mr Anderson when I call him. The Committee will recall that in the Tower Hamlets evidence, Mr Whalley, the officer from Tower Hamlets who gave evidence to the Committee last week, spoke strongly in support of the Crossrail station here and of the enlargement of Whitechapel Station and said that it was fundamental to Tower Hamlets' support for Crossrail. The reference to that is the transcript for Day 38, paragraphs 9471 and 9482. Indeed Tower Hamlets' position is that they want the station, as the Committee may recall, with even greater street presence than proposed and they were arguing for the demolition of McDonald's to allow an even greater access to the station. The importance of the station is underlined by the Mayor's London Plan which targets Whitechapel as an opportunity area. These are areas in association with regeneration areas in the London Plan. It is areas targeted for the regeneration of jobs and homes, the promotion of social inclusion, increased accessibility and it is all tied to improvements in accessibility and public transport, such as the East London Line and Crossrail. The key issues which justify a station at Whitechapel are the assistance of regeneration in Whitechapel, which fits in with the Mayor's Strategy in the London Plan and the fact that the station acts as a major interchange, as the Committee knows, between a number of different rail lines, the Tube, the East London Line and Crossrail itself. 9633. I turn then to the issues with Hanbury Street and the Hanbury Street shaft. As the Committee is also aware, Hanbury Street was originally a proposed site for the launch of a tunnel-boring machine. This was revised following the revision to the tunnelling strategy in April with a proposed change in the tunnelling strategy. The proposals at Hanbury Street have been scaled down to a much smaller intervention shaft for emergencies and for ventilation and the position with regards to the new Hanbury Street proposals, which will be the subject of an AP in due course, are set out in a revised information paper D8. As the Committee also knows, the intervention shaft is needed for access during emergencies, particularly by the fire brigade. The Committee is also familiar from the evidence given during the Greenwich Petitions on Arsenal Way that a one-kilometre spacing criterion is preferred by the fire brigade because of the difficulties they have in getting down the shaft and accessing the points of any emergency and getting out again safely. That guidance, I can remind the Committee, is Exhibit 21804-023. The guidance which is currently given by the HSE the Committee can see there and it was produced some weeks ago, but the Committee can see that the reference to the distance is of the order of one kilometre where there are twin single-bore tunnels with adequate intermediate cross-passages which is what is proposed here. 9634. The revision to the tunnelling strategy, as I have already mentioned, led to the revision of the proposals for Hanbury Street and the shaft and its impact will be much reduced over that originally intended. For example, as the Committee will have heard last week, Britannia House will no longer need to be demolished and the shaft itself will be much smaller. Can I ask Mr Fry to put up 21804-025. This is a plan which I think the Committee saw last week. The left-hand side is the original Bill scheme and it shows the land-take needed for the original version of the Hanbury Street shaft. The Committee can see on the right-hand side the considerably reduced land-take, less than half of what was required originally, and Britannia House is outlined which will no longer be required to be demolished. These matters were drawn to residents' attention not simply by general publicity, but a letter was sent to the Petitioner residents on 22 May, which is Exhibit 21804, page 001, which is the first page of it, and it runs over five pages. It was a letter written to the Petitioners living in the area which explains to them what the revised tunnelling strategy meant in terms of the Hanbury Street shaft and the Committee can see that it sets out the information, including the confirmation that the Pedley Street shaft and the additional tunnel will not be required, Britannia House will remain, no need for a conveyer, no need to store excavated material at Mile End Park, et cetera, but it did not mean the alignment would be affected; the running tunnels would remain where they were. 9635. It also made it clear on the second page that the revised tunnelling strategy did not remove the need for the works at Hanbury Street, and it referred to the fact that an additional provision would be required, and then attached are a couple of plans and a diagram. The issue of where the shaft should be has been debated with Tower Hamlets, and I do not propose to go over that. As the Committee knows, the main alternative contender is Woodseer Street which is two streets away. 9636. So far as the additional provision is concerned, it will have its own Environmental Statement in due course, although I will ask Mr Thornley-Taylor to give a brief view as to the comparative position in environmental, noise and vibration, impacts of the two locations. You will recall I said I would do that last week during the course of Tower Hamlet's Petition, but Mr Thornley-Taylor was not available last week. 9637. Crossrail has taken the view that, even before the Environmental Statement has been provided, it is likely that the environmental impacts, in terms of noise and vibration, of the two locations will be broadly similar, and there are good engineering reasons for preferring Hanbury Street over Woodseer Street. As the Committee will be aware from Mr Berryman's evidence last week, there is a range of options for a Hanbury Street shaft. He described Options A, B and C going from a maximum underground intervention where there is much of the equipment placed underground and that involves more excavation, but there is then less equipment and shaft on top of the ground, which allows, if it is thought necessary, greater over-site development, to an option which puts more overground and has less construction impacts and a lesser construction period. That is all a matter which is open for discussion with the local community through Tower Hamlets, as we made clear last week. The options as to what will go on the shaft site precisely remain to be determined. 9638. It is the case that we consider the impacts of the Hanbury Street shaft to have been exaggerated, for example, in terms of lorry movements and perceived impacts on the community over a lengthy construction period, and I just wanted to make it clear now, and this came out in Mr Berryman's evidence last week, that Crossrail's view is that the construction period for the Hanbury Street shaft should be, on the worst case, of the order of two years, not four or six or eight, but two, and that the two years is probably the maximum if you go for the maximum intervention and underground construction as opposed to the option which puts more of the equipment above ground. If you will recall, in terms of lorry movements, Mr Berryman last week said that he thought of the order of five lorry movements a day for that two-year period and less frequently than that, maybe one a day or less, after that. It is important to put those impacts in context. 9639. On the issue of noise and vibration, Mr Thornley-Taylor will explain the position. It is clear that there are likely to be some impacts from noise and vibration during construction. That is unavoidable with any scheme of this sort. They will be fully assessed for the revised Hanbury Street shaft with AP3 and the ES which comes out with that. We have of course assessed the comparative position of Hanbury Street and Woodseer Street for the original Bill scheme with the greater impact and that is, as we dealt with last week, in the first Supplementary Environmental Statement, and Mr Thornley-Taylor will explain the position briefly. 9640. On the issue of the alignment of the tunnels, Mr Berryman will explain that a number of alignments are being considered, not just the three that were considered with Tower Hamlets last week, and the alignment of the tunnels is dictated, as the Committee will be aware, by the need to get a tunnel from Liverpool Station to Whitechapel Station. The Committee will also be aware from last week that the tunnel has to go relatively deep to avoid foundations of various buildings and other tunnels which are in the locality, such as the Post Office tunnel. Again Mr Berryman will explain this. The tunnels clearly go under a number of Listed buildings, but in terms of settlement issues and concern for those, the alignment has been drawn to protect them as best as possible, and we have to bear in mind not only the individual buildings in the area of Hanbury Street and Princelet Street, but there are also buildings, such as Christ Church, Spitalfields and the Brick Lane mosque which also have to be protected as well. The settlement policy and the settlement assessments which have been made more than demonstrate, we say, that there should be no difficulties in terms of settlement and that there are means in place, and we will call brief evidence on this because I appreciate the fact that the Committee heard at some length from Professor Meyer on these issues, there are means in place, including the settlement deed, for resolving any issues should they arise. The Committee will recall that settlement has been the subject of considerable experience in recent years, particularly through central London with the DLR, the Jubilee Line Extension and CTRL, and the Committee may recall, if they cast their minds back to January or perhaps it was 1 February, that Professor Meyer showed you the photograph of the Jubilee Line Extension underneath where we are now and the grout shaft, just out there (indicating) next to Big Ben. The experience shows that tunnelling, even in as sensitive a location as this, with major public buildings in very close proximity, the techniques and the know-how exist to allow such tunnelling to take place without causing difficulties with the buildings above them. 9641. Finally, on the issue of compensation, the Committee has heard from us at length on the issue of compensation. The Committee will be well aware that our position is that which Parliament has endorsed time and time again, which is the National Compensation Code, and I just remind the Committee of my submissions when I first addressed these matters in detail in the Smithfield Market Traders' case, Day 14, paragraphs 4023 to 4051 of the transcript which I put in writing and is Committee document P52. Our position is there set out. We ask the Committee to follow the principle which Parliament has established over many years, which is that the Compensation Code, although it may not be perfect for every case and it may not provide compensation for every case, provides a broad, fair and equivalent treatment for everyone affected by works, including major public works. 9642. Sir, those are my matters of introduction which I hope will be sufficient as a general introduction for the majority of the Petitioners appearing today, if not for the rest of the week. 9643. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you, Mr Elvin. Do you want now to call ---- 9644.
MR ELVIN: What I was proposing to do was to call my witnesses after both 9645. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, would you like to come forward please.
The Petition of Dr Annetta Pedretti was read.
Dr Pedretti appeared in person.
9646. DR PEDRETTI: I had a problem with the medium, and by that I mean things like these pens. I think the whole project suffers from that problem, so I am not just wasting time, but it is actually a crucial problem. What happened with my computer was that all my files were being treated as if they were viruses, so I was trying to organise my photographs and I ended up having to reboot the computer with every picture I tried to look at, so yesterday at about ten o'clock I realised I was not going to get my slides in. They include photographs of maps and all the material that I have collected over the years about how the Bill has been presented to us. I tried to contact Mr Walker and I got back an email to discuss it with me later and I got back an email suggesting that using an overhead projector would work. Therefore, at 2.30 yesterday afternoon, I went and got myself the equipment needed to use an overhead projector, expecting that it will work. If it will not work, I will be flexible enough to try and improvise without, but I do draw attention to the problem of an entire, large Bill which is prepared on a medium which looks something of that size (indicating) and is dependent on an electronic medium. 9647. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pendretti, I think you should try and give your evidence as best you can. Do remember that I have just been flicking through your evidence which you presented, the file which you presented ----- 9648. DR PEDRETTI: I did not send you a file. 9649. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Have you got your photographs with you? 9650. DR PEDRETTI: No, they are on my computer and I could not get them off the computer. What I have done is collected the bits of paper that they were photographs of. 9651. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Well, we can put those on to the overhead projector for you. 9652. DR PEDRETTI: I was told to use the overhead projector, so I have transparencies and things that I would like to be able to move around, so I would prefer to stand near the machine. 9653. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: The Clerk will take the stuff across for you to be put on to the machine, but I would rather you did not stand over there. 9654. DR PEDRETTI: Is it possible to move the machine? 9655. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: No, it is not. 9656. MR ELVIN: I wonder, and I know Dr Pedretti wanted to go first, but would it be better if the Spitalfields Society went first and Dr Pedretti ---- 9657. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: I have to let Dr Pedretti go first, thank you, Mr Elvin. 9658. DR PEDRETTI: Is it possible for me to appear in a week's time? 9659. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: No, I am sorry. We are far too busy. We have got our schedule laid out and we very specifically have put people where we can deal with them. This Committee is doing its very best to get through every Petitioner and we will do so, but we have a tight schedule, so I am sorry, but this is your day, this is your time. 9660. DR PEDRETTI: Okay. Then I will just work with what I can work with. 9661. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much. 9662. DR PEDRETTI: The problem is that I was going to write text on to it as I move it. 9663. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Please explain from the picture and we will follow your instructions. 9664. DR PEDRETTI: This is the picture of what we are talking about (indicating). I would suggest there are problems with this in a number of ways which in my Petition I have described as the "premature nature of the design that should not be allowed to go through to the form of the Bill". What we are dealing with, in my perception, is a rendering to this level of detail a design that has basic conceptual design flaws in it with regard to alignments and, in particular, with regard to the question of this curve (indicating). This is the curve which comes out of Liverpool Street, so you have Liverpool Street Station, which is actually not marked on this, but Liverpool Street Station is there (indicating) and the stations you were discussing with the Corporation at the beginning of the proceedings and the Crossrail entrances, there was a large discussion about moving the entrances around here (indicating). This is the Crossrail station (indicating), but for some mysterious reason, you are turning north. I find that this curve is totally "undesigned". There have been no decisions made about it in the Crossrail scheme or reasons, it has never been questioned that the curve should go anywhere else but there. 9665. The background to that is that that curve is part of the central tunnel safeguard that was inherited from the previous Bill which did not make it, and it was going to stop somewhere over there (indicating). I am sure there are other people who will go into great detail about this in the room and who will petition you later, but that curve, which is why we are ending up under my property and a lot of other people's properties too, is rendered in every detail where we have land not to be required, where we have the whole technical detail about railway engineering questions and it is being done as something which has never actually been allowed to change the fact that we are no longer going to join the Great Eastern Line right outside Allen Gardens which is what that curve was for. 9666. I do not have a picture of the original scheme, the 1991 scheme which was rejected, but what I would suggest to you is that with all the clever presentations which have been presented to you on these screens, they are too limited to actually see anything. This curve has been cut off and it is very difficult to find pictures in which that curve is honestly described. Here is one of them (indicating) and it is a picture which is quite irrelevant in terms of what it was for. I think it came out of the Environmental Statement and it was all I could find last night. You see, this is one of the rare occasions where you can actually see that this curve goes northwards, but there is not even an arrow of direction. You can see that this is Liverpool Street Station British Rail (indicating), although it is not that anymore, but a whole bunch of other companies, but this is the mainline station and all the lines going to Stratford. Now, this curve went this way (indicating) to join that line to Stratford (indicating) and by that I mean that there used to be a tunnel head somewhere in Allen Gardens and that the tunnel head meant that they were going to try and join the Great Eastern Line there (indicating), so it was the end of the tunnel. Therefore, the flaw in the design which I am addressing is that you basically are looking at a scheme in which the length of the tunnels has been doubled virtually in the Borough of Tower Hamlets where the directions to where the scheme goes have been changed and where nobody has bothered actually to change the track. If you have a change, and I am very grateful for the change that we are not digging from Hanbury Street, but if you have a change of projects, say, between the 1991 Bill and the present Bill, surely we should at least be allowed to be consulted, it should be looked into and options should be considered about how we get out of Liverpool Street. 9667. If we go back to the 1991 scheme, and my hesitation is for the following reason, that the earlier slide I had which was the map, and I am just showing the level of detail at which we are looking at this, this Bill is about plots of land, but what this Bill is not about and what is very interesting on this plan is the way they do not draw Liverpool Street Station and the way we get these external spaces of large developments that have taken over what used to be the old - please zoom out on the slide. I am going to jump around a bit as I cannot make an entirely linear presentation, but you have not actually been having just linear presentations. Mr Whalley, who was here last week, was going on about missing opportunities if we did not give him McDonald's. Now, I am going to refer back to the missed opportunities that happened before that development, which you saw on the earlier map, took over, and we have a massive amount of railway land that was Broad Street Station at the front with all these goods lines going out of Bishopsgate, so one of the missed opportunities, and I am not arguing that we go back to it because we cannot, but I am just giving you an idea about how a design actually makes decisions, but the current alignment goes through Finsbury Park and we end up having a Liverpool Street Station that is all of this length (indicating) ---- 9668. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Yes, we have been up there, we have had a visit. 9669. DR PEDRETTI: So you have this whole length from Moorgate coming up somewhere here (indicating), and I remember at the time there was a discussion about whether it should be called "Livergate" or, do you remember, some planner in the City was considering names. I would suggest that the simplest name for the station at Liverpool Street would be to call it "Broad Street" because that is actually where it is. I am not suggesting that that should be done in any form, but it should be noted as a design take for nodding to the Victorians, who were great at building railways, and actually looking at this whole scheme in proportion - and "proportion" is a word that I use carefully - to the Victorian railway structure. The whole of the East End was full of railways and there is not a location on the map that did not have some access for some factory to the railways, and they did a lot more than move commuters on a fast line through London, so there is a very serious problem, which is why I addressed the media issue earlier, with the current reliance on media to design things and to present things which fail to make, for instance, the difference between a photograph and a projected photograph and which fail to have dimensional integrity. There is a story that I heard in 1987, when computers were not as predominant as they are now, where at BAE somebody designed a sparkplug and he got the decimal point wrong. He printed out the drawings and sent them back to the workshop and they had a good laugh, but they built the sparkplug as per the drawings. Two men came back carrying this sparkplug in their arms and the main who had designed it did not see anything wrong. He actually thought that was what he had designed and he did not realise that a sparkplug for an aeroplane should probably not be so heavy that it needs two men to carry it. There is something inherently wrong, sorry, not wrong, but dangerous with relying on media that switch scale like this. Last week there was a discussion about whether a street was 15 metres wide and I raised my hand to try and say something. That street is I do not know how many metres wide, but it is so narrow, Fulbourne Street, that when a bus passes, I have to take my bike off the street because there is not enough space for a bus to pass next to a parked car with me riding up there on my bike, which I do very often.
9670. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, could you sit down. I will stop you there. We are a hybrid Bill at the House of Commons and are trying to get to the bottom of each petitioner's problem and how it affects you. 9671. DR PEDRETTI: How it affects me? 9672. CHAIRMAN: You. A bus and a bicycle yes, but that is not our problem. What I need to know from you is how you are affected, and what you would like us to do about it. If you can perhaps bring everything together and tell us how you are affected and what you want that would be very helpful. Could you carry on, please, Dr Pedretti? 9673. DR PEDRETTI: The answer is, I want my life back. 9674. CHAIRMAN: Explain? 9675. DR PEDRETTI: The harassment, and I use that word carefully, of being told about things when they are already decided; being given misinformation left right and centre that has been called consultation in the area; the sheer amount of paper that I have accumulated - I could describe coming here this morning as trying to tunnel under the documents of Crossrail irrelevancies. This is literally true. 9676. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, I will stop you again. That I understand, but we need to know how it affects you and what we can do about it. It is probably to do with bricks and mortar, what is happening to your building, your house, which is obviously listed. Could you please tell us, as a Committee, what it is you want. 9677. Getting your life back, I am afraid there is not a lot we can do about that. We are a hybrid Bill of the House of Commons, but we are looking at the affect to you and your building and your surrounding area. 9678. DR PEDRETTI: I am sure there are unique things about my building that I would like to get into in a minute, but I go back to wanting my life back. This project, as it is, is going to affect our area for ten years. Okay. So I want those ten years to be years that I can get on with my life in an area which is not being pushed around by motivations that are nothing to do with building a railway. 9679. What I am concerned about is that the Bill as it stands with the alignment in Tower Hamlets, all of the alignments in Tower Hamlets, is not motivated by railway interests. It is motivated by all sorts of other things. 9680. Let us be very specific. We have just heard about the so-called tunnelling methodology (Slide shown) and all the things we have received. I have received a letter which was being projected earlier which has as many ifs and buts in it as legal documents tend to if they are trying to keep the options open. I am concerned (and this is not my site but other people's and we will have do this all over again many times) that when the project changes all the people who have been affected for the last four years by a project that was negotiated behind our backs and are in the book of reference (whether they were aware of it or not, and I am quite happy to show you that we have been affected even if we have not been aware of it) how are we ever going to get our live back out of that if we are on that whole arm ----- 9681. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, could you just sit down again. I must reiterate to you, that is one area we cannot get involved in. What we are trying to ascertain from our perspective is, we are trying to understand how it affects you and what you want. This Committee cannot give you your life back. What we can do is, if you want compensation or you do not want the tunnels under your house or whatever ----- 9682. DR PEDRETTI: I do not want the tunnels under my house. 9683. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, that is very helpful. 9684. DR PEDRETTI: I do not want the tunnels anywhere near an area which is on no line between Liverpool Street and Stratford; which is on no line between Liverpool Street and the Isle of Dogs. It is not even on a direct line between Liverpool Street and Whitechapel. 9685. We have a diversion of the railway to avoid other things or generate other things or to, which my experience I am beginning to suspect, undermine the fact that they cannot demolish us because we are listed buildings. I have serious concerns - why does the building head for any listed building in the borough? 9686. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, I will be corrected by Mr Elvin, but I do not believe your building is scheduled for demolition, or anywhere near your building. 9687. DR PEDRETTI: No, that is not what I am talking about. As I suggested to you, the curve that we looked at at Liverpool Street - I can go into how it was designed (or not designed) - that curve is best reflected --- and perhaps we can look at a map of Tower Hamlets. (Map shown) It is a map of the London Development Plan Preferred Options Map in respect to Tower Hamlets Preferred Options for how the area will be regenerated. I am trying to show you the extent of Crossrail on that, which is (everywhere I know it) more excessive than the actual Crossrail sites proposed. 9688. That faint yellow strip there, it is striped diagonally, if you look at Stepney Green church that faint yellow is where Crossrail is marked on this preferred options map. I have traced it on to acetate so it is easier to see. If that could be overlaid. (Map shown) I promise you that is traced as accurately as possible. Can we see what the borough is. This is the bit after putting Mill Lane. That is the end of the conveyor belt proposals which no longer ----- 9689. CHAIRMAN: Is that as far as you can go? 9690. DR PEDRETTI: We do not want to be in the Lee Valley; we want to be in the borough ----- Can I hold it up and then you can look at it in detail. 9691. CHAIRMAN: Just for the record, we will have to circulate this. This will be circulated. 9692. DR PEDRETTI: To get an overview of the whole borough of Tower Hamlets, I am not sure I have now got it in the right place. You can see what a blight that is. If the planner makes a decision about your property in the future they will say, "Oh, that's a Crossrail blighted site", and will push them around; which is what I have been in for the last four years. I used to have one of the nicest buildings in Spitalfields and I get treated by planners as if I was the last thing in the world. It is just not the intention of your railway. 9693. We can look at this in detail but I am suggesting a) that what they have put on this map is bigger than what you actually see. Even though Mr Whalley was here last week talking about it as if it was merely a question of stations and shafts and there was not a line underneath, he was here begging for a stupid McDonalds. What is under there is a use of the blight to clear sites for redevelopment. Every railway that I know will generate new developments around it. The railway will generate that because if people can get somewhere they will go there. What is happening here is that railway is being pulled in to redevelop a central part of London which is full of vital communities. We are not a brownfield site.
9694. Can we put up some specific areas to show you how it relates to discussions that have been going on. Firstly, what I tried to say earlier about the adit and about the conveyor belt - all the sites on that conveyor belt adit that have been apparently no longer necessary for the bill have already gone through the blighting for four years. 9695. I was trying to take photographs there the other day. Amongst other things, on the other side of the viaduct there was the centre for all London cab repairs. Any part in a London cab you could get repaired there. There were a whole row of railway arches that were being used for that. When I went there last Sunday to take photographs they were all being refurbished and the taxis were not there. I do not know if the taxis intend to come back or not but what I am saying is ----- 9696. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, I am going to bring you back to this. Please will you tell us what you want? Is it compensation? Mr Elvin put the letter out on the screen when he started and said all the things which were not going to happen, including the conveyor belt and everything else. What is it you actually want? 9697. DR PEDRETTI: What I want is for the Committee to consider that everything is not well in Tower Hamlets and that there is no need for a station at Whitechapel because the station at Whitechapel has been negotiated. 9698. CHAIRMAN: In a nutshell you do not want the Whitechapel Station, is that correct? 9699. DR PEDRETTI: I do not want the Whitechapel Station. I want a design phase in Tower Hamlets that completely takes us back to the drawing board. Probably the best thing is to avoid Tower Hamlets altogether. 9700. What is going on is that the area has been totally sold out for some kind of begging game. The reason I cannot answer your question about what I want is because I have spent my whole life restoring a building (or not restoring it, as the case may be); if I say "my life", I mean the criteria by which I have been asked to restore things, the contract that I thought I had with society was that this was an historic building; not that it is in the way of some large redevelopment scheme. 9701. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, I am sorry, I am going to stop you again. We cannot take that into consideration. We can take into consideration if you want something for your building. We can take into consideration that you want a realignment of the track - of course we can - but we cannot take hypothetical situations, I am sorry. 9702. DR PEDRETTI: I want a realignment of the track as far back as Liverpool Street Station - not of the track after it has curved off. That is why I was in Broad Street. 9703. CHAIRMAN: I think we have understood that. Please do not repeat yourself, which is now what you are doing. Would you please carry on as to what else you want. Is there anything else you want? 9704. DR PEDRETTI: I want some reassurances that the worksites along the conveyor belt are taken off the map, and that people who have been affected there are treated with respect considering what they might be losing. 9705. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, I am sure Mr Elvin has listened to this very carefully as the Promoter. 9706. DR PEDRETTI: I want no station at Whitechapel. 9707. CHAIRMAN: We gathered that. 9708. DR PEDRETTI: I would like to discuss Whitechapel if I could? 9709. CHAIRMAN: Yes, of course you may. 9710. DR PEDRETTI: This is a version of the station that was published just before we had to submit our petitions. (Document shown) 9711. CHAIRMAN: I intend to suspend the sitting for a few minutes as I would like to talk to Dr Pedretti quietly as we want to try to quicken this up. I therefore suspend the sitting for five minutes. After a short break 9712. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, you have something to say? 9713. DR PEDRETTI: I am aware I am trying to make a very general case and I believe the Committee has understood that I have made a very general case for Tower Hamlets alignments over the whole borough to be reconsidered, including Whitechapel Station. 9714. I accept that I cannot have a private interest in the context of what is happening to the city that I love, the area that I love and the communities in it. I trust my other petitioners to sort out the specifics. 9715. CHAIRMAN: Dr Pedretti, thank you very much for giving evidence. We are very grateful. If we could now have the Spitalfields Society, please.
The Petition of the Spitalfields Society
MR HEREWARD PHILPOTT appeared on behalf of the Petitioner
BIRCHAM DYSON BELL appears as Agent 9716. MR PHILPOTT: Chairman, I appear on behalf of the Spitalfields Society who are an amenity and residents society covering the parish of Spitalfields. Chairman, the Society is a civic society registered with the Civic Trust and it was established in 1993 to help with the improvement, preservation and appreciation of the Spitalfields area of London. 9717. This opening will be brief. There are four points I wish to make by way of an introduction to our case and the first is as follows: the petition that has been submitted by the Society raises a great number of concerns about the impact of the Crossrail proposals on the Spitalfields area; those concerns range from the general (such as uncertainty over the availability of funding) to the particular (and I have in mind the Hanbury Street shaft as an example of that). I wish to make clear from the outset that in its evidence to the Committee the Society does not propose to deal at any great length with each one of its concerns; and we are realistic about the extent to which our evidence can further the Committee's understanding of issues such as funding for the scheme. That is not to say those concerns are not outstanding or that they are not keenly felt; it is simply that as a Society with limited resources we have decided to concentrate on those matters where we feel we can make our most useful contribution. 9718. Secondly, the Society's main concerns arise from the alignment chosen between Liverpool Street and Whitechapel, and the proposed Hanbury Street shaft and the impact of proposals on the many residents, businesses and historic buildings in the Spitalfields area. 9719. Thirdly, the Society's case on this matter is similar and complementary to the case presented on behalf of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on Wednesday of last week. We also say that the alternative alignments through this area have not been properly investigated and assessed - that is on the criteria which apply after the change in the tunnelling strategy - and that it would be wrong to make a final decision as to the appropriate alignment until that has been done. 9720. We have also focussed, as did Tower Hamlets, on what has become known as Woodseer 2, and you will be familiar with that concept. We have done that not on the basis that it is necessarily the best alignment or necessarily the best site, but rather on the basis that a) it appears likely to offer significant benefits in terms of mitigating impacts on the local community; and, b), it is the furthest advanced of the possible alternative alignments. 9721. Like the Council, we say that it would be wrong to make a final decision on the alternatives before a more detailed assessment is made, both in terms of optimising the alignment and assessing the construction impacts; because we say the Promoter's assessment of alternatives to date cannot properly be described as either objective or thorough. We submit that a further assessment needed should include other alternatives, including in particular what has become known as the "southern alignment". 9722. Fourthly, our evidence will focus on the relative sensitivity and relative impact associated with the two alternative routes and shaft sites. In doing that, we will seek to avoid duplication of evidence that has been heard last week, but we necessarily present a slightly more apt view and perspective of what is going on, and hopefully the Committee will allow us to do that. 9723. So far as the relative impacts are concerned, we are of course placed at a very real disadvantage by the absence of an up-to-date and accurate Environmental Statement assessing those matters, because the Promoters have promised (and it is repeated in their response to our petition) that there will be supplementary environmental information assessing the impacts on this part of London as a result of the change in the tunnelling strategy. That has not been provided. As the Promoters point out in their response to our petition, one of the main purposes of the Environmental Statement (and this will form part of the Environmental Statement - this further information) is to "provide the public with the basis on which to make representations to Parliament as appropriate on the environmental impacts of Crossrail". This is our opportunity to make representations but we have to do so without that important information available to inform and to guide our case. 9724. Although we wish to avail ourselves of this opportunity to explain our case to the Committee, we must nevertheless reserve our position as to the need to present any further evidence once that supplementary environmental information has been published and we have had a fair opportunity to consider and respond to its contents. Those are the brief opening submissions I wanted to make. 9725. There are two witnesses I want to call, and I will ask them to come forward in a moment. With your permission, what I propose to do by way of format is to copy the approach that was taken by Tower Hamlets council last week, which is to have both of my witnesses together, I will deal with them both in turn and then turn them over for cross-examination. I think there is a little bit of overlap between their evidence, and it might help the Promoters to hear the whole thing. 9726. CHAIRMAN: Do carry on, Mr Philpott.
MR RUPERT WHEELER and MR ROY ADAMS, Sworn Examined by MR PHILPOTT 9727. MR PHILPOTT: Could I first introduce Mr Wheeler to the Committee. Mr Wheeler, could you give your full name, your qualifications and your position to the Committee. (Mr Wheeler) My name is Rupert Wheeler. I am Chartered Architect of about 20 years' experience in private practice, many years of that have included working on a considerable number of listed buildings of all categories. I am a resident of about eight or nine years of Spitalfields. 9728. Having introduced Mr Wheeler, before I ask him to go through his matters, and I will call Mr Wheeler first to give his evidence and then Mr Adams, I would also like to introduce Mr Adams to the Committee. Mr Adams, can you give your name, relevant qualifications to the Committee, please. (Mr Adams) My name is Roy Adams. I am an urban planner and a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute. I regard myself as a specialist in urban regeneration and major development schemes. For ten years I was Chief Executive of Europe's largest multidiscipline firm of architects and engineers; and I am currently an Executive Director of one of the largest construction companies in the UK. I have been involved in the implementation of many large development projects, ranging across infrastructure, housing, shopping centres and stadia; and my current responsibilities include a £200 million mixed use development scheme on Brighton Marina. I was awarded an OBE in January of this year for services to urban regeneration in North Belfast, where I am chairman of a cross-community ministerial advisory panel charged with producing a development strategy for a £300 million project on a 30-acre inner-city site. 9729. I am going to begin by asking Mr Wheeler to give his evidence. Could I start, Mr Wheeler, by asking you just to summarise briefly for the Committee the issues you are going to be dealing with in your evidence. (Mr Wheeler) I want to deal with the relative sensitivity of the two alternative shaft sites, with reference to construction issues, access issues, affects on the adjoining properties and on the listed buildings in the Spitalfields Conservation Area. 9730. If you could start then, I think you have got a note of matters you wanted to raise; if you could just pick up where you want to begin. (Mr Wheeler) I will deal with the considerable difficulties and adverse impacts associated with the Hanbury Street shaft which I consider there are likely to be; and that in a number of important respects the Woodseer alternative is likely to be better. I should just mention here that the further review of the Hanbury Street shaft, which you looked at last Wednesday with the council of Tower Hamlets, was not supplied to us by the Promoter until last Friday morning. We have taken some bits out of it but it has been a bit of a hurried exercise. I will not go into the engineering and curve issues that Dr Bowers dealt with last week; and have to say that a line under Bishops Square may not be a problem at all and, even if it is, the risk to be dealt with by best engineering practice; and, even if not, a revised curve which is operationally acceptable can be found. We will take it that a line through Woodseer is feasible, as referenced by page 32 of the Council's evidence, paragraph 9564. 9731. That is a reference, is it not, to the transcript of the evidence of last Wednesday? (Mr Wheeler) Yes. I should explain to the Committee that the Woodseer site is a huge, redundant former brewery site with tracts of open ground. In fact, it is misleading to call it the Woodseer Street Option, for this reason. This is why it seems to be appropriate to look at it in depth, the reason being that it is entirely contained within the brewery; it has no access on to Woodseer Street at all. 9732. I am sorry, I think you wanted to look at some slides. Is that right? (Mr Wheeler) Yes, slides 7 and 8, I think. 9733. I think those have been given in advance We can start off perhaps by looking at slide 7, then you can tell us which one you want to actually speak to. Slide 7 is the appropriate one to start with (Mr Wheeler) Can I point out, while we are talking about this brewery site, this site did not feature at all in the early options looked at by Crossrail, and that is why we choose to dwell on it now, and I believe the Council did the same. Slide 7 in front of you, is a fairly distant view, but the orange lines are known as the Woodseer 2 option and you are obviously familiar with the base case. You will see that for much of the route as it passes through Spitalfields it actually runs entirely through the brewery site as opposed to the base case route which runs entirely through the conservation area and under a great many houses and businesses. Can we go to the next slide? 9734. Slide 8 is centred on the shaft. (Mr Wheeler) It is worth just dwelling on these. Your Committee made a visit to the area a couple of weeks ago, and I was on that visit. I do not know if any of the Committee here today were on that visit, but we were shown the Hanbury Street site here, we walked around this corner, we stopped and looked at these gates here and how close these dwellings are - close, they actually immediately adjoin it - we then walked up here and as we were walking up here I asked Keith Berryman: "Are we not going to look at this site?" and I was told: "No, no, we are not going to look at that, it is not part of our presentation", and we were hurried on. None of the Committee saw this site and we were hurried on up to this street, where we went down here and looked at the schools inside the lorry access route. I want to take you through this bit because even if you had attended the site visit you would have missed this site, which is a bit of a shame because it is fairly obvious when you walk past it. 9735. We have photographs of that, which we will look at a little later so the Committee can get an idea of what is there. (Mr Wheeler) It is particularly peculiar because in Mr Berryman's evidence he named it as the most controversial issue on the whole project, so not to look at the site that is a critical part of it seems odd. Can I move to slides 9 and 10? 9736. Yes, start with slide 9. These are both showing the Option A, as it were, for how the Hanbury Street site might be worked. Is that right? (Mr Wheeler) Yes. We have a number of sites which I have taken from the Promoter's evidence about how these sites work. This is a plan of Option A. You will see that the site is so small that lorries are shown on these two plans as having to offload in the street. Slide 11 is a photograph of a street. Let me just dwell on this briefly. This is the lorries loading ---- 9737. Can we go back to slide 9? (Mr Wheeler) There is the articulated lorry unloading in the street. Here are the gates at either end which represent the other access. You can see from this plan that not only does the lorry have to unload in the street (God knows what happens when two lorries turn up!) but even these lorries cannot get on and off the site in a forward gear. Under any highway principles in a development such as this they would be obliged to get on and off site in a forward gear; they cannot be reversing out on the highway. What is not also apparent from the previous evidence we have heard from the Promoter is that, of course, this site takes up the pavement as well as much of the street while this lorry is being unloaded, so all the pedestrians are going to have to cross from the south side of the street on to the north side to access Brick Lane. There are enormous mansion blocks over here to the east and the local shopping area, the centre of the community for most of these people is Brick Lane, so there is a lot of pedestrian traffic along here. Not only do they have to cross the street but they actually have to cross the very same street that the Promoter is bringing all his construction traffic in. Can we move to slide 10? I do not think I need go over slide 10. Let us move to slide 11. It makes the same point: the lorry is still unloading in the street. This is the street in question. This is the site. This building would be demolished under the Promoter's proposals. This lady here will not be able to walk up and down that pavement because that will be taken into the site area; she will have to walk over here and cross this road. These are bollards in the middle of the street. I imagine those would be moved. This is where you see that lorry parked. Obviously, it fills half the road, so this is going to have to be a one-way street of one sort or another, with traffic lights. This is a small area of landscaping; these are the flats that overlook the site and there is a little children's playground here, which is accessed off this road. Next slide, please. 9738. Just before we move on to slide 12, I understand there is a point you wanted to make about the dimensions of the lorries that were shown. (Mr Wheeler) Yes. There are a couple of points I could develop here. This is the lorry shown. Keith Berryman made considerable play that these lorries are shown to scale. Well, they are; we have scaled them. This lorry is 15 metres. Most modern, articulated lorries and, certainly, all flat-bed loaders and so on are not 15 metres, they are 16.5 metres long. That is quite critical. That is probably the difference between the end of that lorry and the edge of the site here, in this instance. These are not accurate and they are using very old-fashioned vehicles to service this site, which I am sure will not be the case in reality. There is another point here: this plan does not show it, of course, because it is at an earlier stage of this particular development, but all these developments use a tower crane. That tower crane, to unload lorries parked in the street, will have to swing out over the public highway. That conventionally is not allowed. It also swings out over these buildings, although they use a flapping rig (?) which means that they can possibly raise the arm so that it does not go over these houses, but whether you believe that they will do that every time is open to question. Certainly they cannot be allowed to be swinging out over the highway, and if they were to do that they would either have to do it at night time working or they would have to close the street entirely, for obvious means of safety to the public and passing traffic, and so on. 9739. If we go on to slide 13, I think this is a photograph from which we can see the entrance that is indicated on Option A. Is that right? (Mr Wheeler) Yes. Can I just go the previous one and explain the route that lorries take to get into this site, and then I will come back to this photograph. This is a slightly different version (I am not quite sure which option this is) but it shows an articulated lorry coming in through this entrance here and, presumably, it will leave here and then turn up here and out. 9740. I am being told this is Option B. If this is slide 12, it is Option B. (Mr Wheeler) Not the Promoter's preferred option but one of the options. Now let us go to the photograph and I will show how difficult it is going to be to get this truck in here, as it is shown. This is the road. The articulated lorry has got to come along here, it has got to turn around this bend, it has then got to turn through an opening - this will be demolished but the gates are shown here - roughly where these two windows are. So it has got to turn round here and then it has got to turn back through there. That distance is actually shorter than the lorry itself. We have got lots of eminent engineers here but I do not think even they will be able to get a lorry to bend twice to snake its way in here and into here. So they may do things to this opening, or whatever, but the point is, there have been no track plots produced by the Promoter to demonstrate that these vehicles can get on the site in this instance. In any event, the preferred option, is that these lorries, if they do not try and do that, for the whole duration of the project - the full four years - will be loaded and unloaded on the street. 9741. Is that what you want to say about slide 13? (Mr Wheeler) Yes. We will go on to Option C now, slides 14, 15 and 16, which is, we understand, the preferred route. Counsel for the Promoter, on page 16, paragraph 9465, last Wednesday, indicated that there is room to get lorries off the street. These plans show that this is simply not the case. Slides 14, 15 and 16 are all plans of Option C at various stages of the work. Again, not only is loading done on the street but these trucks, again, cannot get on and off the highway in their forward gear. So their preferred option is actually the worst in highways terms. 9742. That is what you wanted to say on 14, 15 and 16, is it? Do we then go on to 17? (Mr Wheeler) Yes. Slide 17 sets out the scale of the predicted lorry movements provided by the Promoter. This shows a four-year period with the peak of about 19 months. I know we heard a statement today that this four-year period may be only a three-year period, but to those involved in the construction industry it seems very odd that the programme seems to constantly shrink with every presentation while the budget seems to constantly go up. I do not think that is quite right. This period still does not include the subsequent redevelopment of the over-site development. So, once again, that is misleading; this should run on another two years. Taking account of the redevelopment, an estimate of, say, six years in all, of lorries seems reasonable. It should be noted that although Keith Berryman said in his evidence, page 33, 9576, that it would be a normal day-time working site, not a 24-hour site, generally speaking, it is not. That was incorrect. I refer you, in our bundle, to tab 3 page 31. 9743. This is our tab 3, 31 of 92. Is that right? (Mr Wheeler) Yes. Can I actually go straight to 81 of 92, and I will be as brief as possible. We have not reproduced these as slides actually, partly because we did not have time because they only arrived fairly late on, but also because it was important for the Committee to realise that this is the exact format in which these papers were produced as part of the packages delivered late on Friday last week. You will probably need to take a magnifying glass but if you can take page 81 in the middle of that presentation, there are some seven or eight categories of 24-hour working. This period runs for about seven months: February through to July/August, through 2010, according to the current programme. So that is six or seven months of 24-hour working, and that is not stuck down the bottom of a shaft or anything like that. If you look at the column entitled "Plant", opposite the various sections that talk about 24-hour working, you will see we have got excavators with hydraulic breakers, concrete mixers, concrete pumps, compressors, generators - we all know how much noise they make - and a real killer here is this shotcrete spray pump - a lot of categories of work that will be carrying on for 24 hours, above ground and below ground. A 24-hour site needs 24-hour deliveries; it is a very, very tight site - far too tight, in our estimation. So they cannot store anything on site, which means that deliveries have to be very well-managed and they will be very frequent. A 24-hour site will also have to be lit to about 500 lux for 24 hours. So it will be daylight all the time, basically, because those are the conditions you need to run a building site - right outside windows of a number of flats in Princelet Street. 9744. On that point, so far as daytime working is concerned, how long is taken as daytime working, as you understand it? (Mr Wheeler) As I understand, it is more conventionally 8 to 5.30. It might vary. It is a local authority applied restriction. 9745. What has been assumed here for this project? (Mr Wheeler) Daytime, I think, they refer to 7 o'clock to 10 o'clock, do they not? If you go to the top of that page --- 9746. Those are extended hours. (Mr Wheeler) Yes. You might ask the Promoter. He does not say; he just says "days" only; he does not say what hours. 9747. I think, actually, if you go to page 31 of 92, you see, halfway down the page, "11.2 Programme Assumptions", and then the second part of that: "Certain assumptions have been made in order to draw up the programme. These include: the programme for all surface based construction activities, i.e. shafts, head structures, etc. is based on 51/2 day, 12 hour working." Then there is a reference underneath that to underground construction, 7 day, 24 hour working. Assuming, therefore, that daytime working is 12 hours, I just want to ask you, so far as the need for lighting is concerned, will there be any need for lighting if it is 12 hours? (Mr Wheeler) It depends. In February, yes. 9748. Thank you very much for that. Unless there is any other point you wanted to make on that part of our material, we come on to slide 18. Is that right? (Mr Wheeler) Yes, please. 9749. Which street is this? (Mr Wheeler) These are photographs of Hanbury Street and Princelet Street. Both these streets run down and join the main route where lorries are coming and going. I think you will see how narrow the streets are. They are both one-way streets and, unfortunately, they are both heading towards the Promoter's site. The impact on traffic here and on Brick Lane and on the businesses and the safety of pedestrians, particularly lots of children, will be enormous. 9750. Of course, we have seen this plan, which was referred to this morning, which bears a number. Sir, if you remember, there was a plan put in - GEN1001 - which indicates not only, obviously, the location of the Petitioners but, also, helpfully puts the indicative lorry route on. So far as this point you were making about the impact is concerned, can you help by referring to how this interacts ---- (Mr Wheeler) There is the worksite. Princelet Street here, Hanbury Street here. This is the Promoter's access. Any jam here, any traffic lights or one-way system or any manoeuvring in and out is going to stop traffic coming down this street. This is a one-way street in this direction. This happens occasionally now when deliveries and people turn up to the cash and carry, which is a busy site here. They have their forecourt here. There was a hotel scheme refused planning permission up here recently because the council would not tolerate the coaches stopping in this street. Essentially, what is going to happen is that traffic will very frequently back up to Brick Lane here, and that will be a chaotic situation. So that is the knock-on impact of unloading lorries in the street here and businesses having to reverse vehicles in and out of this site. 9751. MR PHILPOTT: Sir, we are about to move on to the Woodseer site. I do not know whether you wanted to take a break. 9752. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: I think, Mr Philpott, we will take a break for ten minutes. The documents of Spitalfield will be A113. 9753. MR PHILPOTT: That is the bundle in its entirety? 9754. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Yes, please.
After a short break
9755. MR PHILPOTT: I think we had reached the stage where we were going to move on to Woodseer site itself. I think we were going to start with slide 20. Is that right? (Mr Wheeler) Yes, slide 20. 9756. Tell us what we are looking at here, please. (Mr Wheeler) This is Woodseer Street. This is what is known as the Woodseer Street site. This is basically the brewery complex here and it would propose that these buildings are demolished. They already have consent to demolish and a scheme to redevelop that site, so this lot is coming down anyway. To the left you have got a high brick wall there. Behind that is the car park to the cash and carry site. There are no other businesses or properties or flats or anything like that opposite the brewery site on the south side of Woodseer Street. 9757. Could you go to slide 21 next, please? (Mr Wheeler) This is the site, by and large, shown by the Promoter as the Woodseer Street Option. These over here are the large double gates that allow the articulated lorries to get in and out of the street. It has a big, wide splayed dropped kerb for that purpose. The north extent of their site probably runs down about here. So, as the plan shows, it is a much larger area with no need to reverse out, and so on. 9758. Slide 22. (Mr Wheeler) These are the sort of trucks that occasionally get in there at the moment. You will see this is a 16.5 metre truck with six wheels at the back, not the two pairs that are shown on the Promoter's drawings. These come and go quite easily without any disruption, at the moment, to local life. 9759. Slide 23. (Mr Wheeler) This is the large, splayed access I was talking about with the wide, dropped kerb. There is an alternative route of the brewery on to Buxton Street, which they might use as well if they wanted to implement a one-way system through the development, but it can be seen that traffic management is likely to be much easier on this second site. We do not know for certain, because it has been ignored in any assessment by Crossrail of the site in their comparative study. It was said last week, page 25, paragraph 9517, that there is nothing to choose between the two sites in respect of access. I think we have demonstrated that is entirely incorrect. The assessment is incorrect for Hanbury Street and the assessment has simply not been done at all for the brewery site, Woodseer Street. 9760. We want to go back, then, with that mind, to look at the Hanbury Street site again. If we can go to slide 24, please, just tell us what we are looking at here. (Mr Wheeler) This is currently the entrance to the Hanbury Street site. This is Britannia House on the right, which is not to be demolished, although this is its loading bay and its only access for vehicular access and so on, so that is going to be closed off by the development. That will obviously seriously compromise the use of Britannia House. At the back here, these are the flats. There are three storeys of them over commercial premises on the ground floor. 9761. Just pause there. If we can go on to slide 25. Carry on; I interrupted you. (Mr Wheeler) If you go on to the next one as well, this pans around. These flats run all the way down to the end. This is Provenance Row Housing Association properties. It used to be the old Hangman pub (?). These walls here will go and the site will have to be cleared for Crossrail's use. The site is very constrained and working will be difficult. There are a number of flats looking directly into the site, which we have just seen on these various slides, and these poor people are now being identified as the barrier - if you like, the human shield - that protects the densely populated areas on the south side of Princelet Street. It is these residents here that the Promoter claims will therefore reduce the unacceptable noise to the remainder of the residents on Princelet Street. 9762. On that point, can you tell us what slides 27 - look at that first - and then 28 show? (Mr Wheeler) This is a view from one of the windows of those flats looking down on to the site area. What I am showing there is the shaft. That is where it is proposed to be. You will see that the people in this flat here will be looking down that shaft. So there is no point in saying that they will not hear what is going on at the bottom, because they can pretty much see all the way down it. It also demonstrates that this loading bay for Britannia House is going to be cut off by this becoming a construction site. 9763. Slide 28. (Mr Wheeler) Slide 28 looks across the site here up Spital Street here. These are the flats that are overlooking the proposed Hanbury Street construction site and this is taken from the roof, I think, of the Princelet Street properties. I do not think we need to dwell any more on that. 9764. I want to move you away from the two sites themselves to the point which, I think, in your note of the things you wanted to say brings us on to paragraph 14, and that is the question of listed buildings. I know there was discussion last week before the Committee when Tower Hamlets were here of relative distances to buildings, shielding effects, and so on, so I do not want to repeat that but we endorse the views of the council. If we can move on to the next point, which is to do with listed buildings, I think you wanted to look, in this context, at slide 30, if that could be put up. (Mr Wheeler) Can I just mention, in respect of the Woodseer Street/Hanbury Street access, and so on, you would really think, would you not, from the Promoter's point of view, that the Woodseer Street site would be the far easier option for them, and would involve them in far less conflict with the local community on highways issues, and so on. That is the gist of our case on that; they just have not looked at that objectively at all. Let us move on. The important factors actually were not mentioned at all in Tower Hamlets' case, which was the effect on the conservation area and listed buildings. The choice of conservation area is entirely down to the local authority with central government approval, so it is rather odd that it has not turned up in their case. Here is a plan of a large number of the listed buildings. I would also point out that this does not show anything like the number of listed buildings that actually appear on that slide. This is Fournier Street, which you probably know of. Bits of it, including the mosque at this end and houses up here, actually fall within the settlement line - this line here - and they are listed buildings (I can categorically tell you that), and they are not shown on these plans and they are missing in listed buildings up here as well. So this is not the whole picture and they have not done the research yet. This is also a slightly misleading plan because it has the tunnelling shaft here and, hence, the lines splaying out here. So you will have to excuse us; we are all looking at slightly inaccurate historic information here. This is a plan of listed buildings, the purple ones are listed; you cannot see but this is black here because it is Christ Church, which is obviously Grade I listed (scheduled ancient monument and all that). Most of the rest are Grade II listed, but in here somewhere - I think it is that one - is number 19 Princelet Street which is Grade II* listed. The Promoters have told us that settlement may be up to 28 mm - that is about 3 cm, which is about half a brick course - and that there will be cracking. We can argue till the cows come home about how much cracking but our point is that there is settlement and there will be cracking. When the Promoters made these assessments they had carried out no internal assessments and this we find amazing. One knows that the Georgian streets of Spitalfields are an absolutely unique, small area. They are lined with fairly uniform facades, generally, four storeys or five storeys. They might look very similar on the outside but it is well-known that internally the buildings are extremely diverse - diverse in their construction, their layout and their use. We were rather taken aback to hear Crossrail's engineers, when we met them early in May, describe them as "piles of bricks". The point they were making is that they were piles of bricks held together with lime mortar and they could move around. Well, they are not "piles of bricks"; that shows a real kind of misunderstanding of what they are. Essentially, a house is bricks to the extent that it has two brick party walls, a brick front wall and a brick back wall. That is all the brickwork in these things. The actual accommodation is a timber frame structure within a brick enclosure. If you go to any single house in Spitalfields you will see the timber structure has deteriorated and moved at a very different rate to the brick structure. Every single house has floors that dip in the middle like that as the timber structure gradually settles and rots, because it will decay at a different rate Timber will always do that; you cannot stop it, it is its natural characteristic. In addition to that, a lot of these buildings contain cast iron as their ground floors were cleared out and converted to commercial use, and in particular there are some very unique buildings, like 19 Princelet Street, and 17 Wilke Street, and the hall on Hanbury Street, where they have been converted to religious use in the past and where large structures have been built outside, or in the back gardens, as it were, over where the wells and the cesspits, and all that sort of stuff, were. These are generally cast iron, Victorian structures, and cast iron is a very brittle material indeed, and it cannot move around like the rest of the buildings. So our point, really - and Crossrail's engineers, I think, have just misunderstood this entirely - is that little bits of these buildings will settle at different rates, partly because they are of different construction and also because they will be of very different weights. The front of the building, if you take 19 Princelet Street, a brick-built structure, five storeys high, is much heavier than the old synagogue that stands behind it, which is virtually a single built storey frame structure - a very tall one but it is a framed and galleried structure. When you reactivate the settlement by taking these tunnels underneath, they will sink at different rates. Really, what Crossrail has not done in their assessments is to focus on the differential movement. They are quite happy that if we all go happily down 28mm together, holding hands together, that may not be a problem, but that is not how it is going to be; they are going to settle in a differential manner. They have treated all these buildings as though they are individual constructions on greenfield sites. They are not. This street here is about 100 metres. So what you have got is not a series of individual buildings; you have got one building that is 100 metres long, it is just in different ownerships. They have not taken account of that in their point. This diagram here does not show it actually but I will describe it: the settlement trough with the tunnels at the bottom of the trough. They have done settlement plans of all the individual buildings and buildings like the back of Princelet Street here, which are near the hogging (?), which is the kind of shoulder of the settlement, the frame structure, that is when it is going to be pulled apart, and we just do not think that a cast iron frame structure like that is going to be able to tolerate being pulled apart like that when it has a brick structure attached to one end of it and another big brick building immediately attached to the back wall of it facing on to Hanbury Street. 9765. If we can explain to the Committee why you feel that individual assessment is important, have you asked the Promoter to carry out internal inspections? (Mr Wheeler) Representing, I think, the kind of fears of all the members of the Society, we had this meeting with the engineers in early May and we identified that we felt they had not done these assessments properly. So we challenged them, or we invited them to come down and just have a look at two or three. They obviously were not going to do so, and did not have time because of these pending proceedings, to get into all the properties, so what I did was choose two. Other people then suggested that we look at Christ Church as well, but I chose number 19 Princelet Street and I chose the Ten Bells Public House, which sits on the corner here (Indicates). I chose these two simply because they are, in effect, public buildings and we could at the time get into them easily, so we were not putting Crossrail to too many problems to come and visit those two. Greg Mason, who is the architect for the refurbishment of Christ Church, came along and explained the settlement problems with Christ Church to them. So we looked at these three buildings. Crossrail has subsequently come back and out of the three they have been persuaded to review two. They were happy with their assessment of the Ten Bells. This big blue line here is the ten millimetre settlement (Indicates); this is right on the shoulder of the trough. It is a building that sits at the end of this terrace and at the end of this terrace it is subject to all sorts of other pressures of settlement and so on. It is an early Georgian Building. Crossrail's information on this building is incorrect; they labelled it as a Victorian building. Indeed, it had been refaced in Victorian times but it is a Georgian building underneath that and it sits on - it teeters on a series of cast iron columns; like all pubs the whole ground floor has been cleared out. So I think that is very sensitive, but they dismissed that. 9766. MR PHILPOTT: Mr Wheeler, I am sorry to interrupt you, but just to shorten the point, if we can, if we come on to slide 32 what we have there is the response from Mr Mantey, which gives the reaction to what they saw on this internal inspection of three of the properties. Can you highlight to the Committee the key conclusions to which you want to draw attention? (Mr Wheeler) As I say, they do not mention the Ten Bells, which is why I mention it, but let us get on to what they did acknowledge needed reviewing. In respect of number 19 Princelet Street they observed during the site visit that there is distress in the floor structures and panellings. I think the critical bit is further down that larger paragraph in the middle of the page, where it says, "In the light of these considerations, the technical advice to the Promoter is that he should increase the building sensitivity rank for this sensitive building from 2 to 3 and undertake further assessment to determine whether and, if so, what protective measures will be required to ensure the proper protection of the building ..." And the Promoter accepts that advice. He then goes on in the last line of the next paragraph, "We envisage that this would be by means of structural strengthening in the way of insertion of further propping and possibly some bracing and/or ties, if necessary." Well, I ask you! Unfortunately you do not have the benefit of having been into number 19 Princelet Street, but the essence of that building is this contrast between the brick structure and the old cast-iron framed synagogue behind. You cannot stick steel beams and cross bracings in it, you will have lost the whole point of the building. It will not help the building anyway because all you are then doing is putting in rigid elements that will not be able to move when the tunnels go underneath. In Princelet Street, because it is quite a long, deep building, you get this kind of double-whammy of the tunnelling effect because of course these tunnels are being dug at different times and the subsidence happens almost immediately as the tunnels pass under the properties. So one day it will have the north tunnel going through underneath it and it will be settling to accommodate the trough for the north tunnel, and then - and I do not know how much later, it has never been identified - you will get the second tunnelling going under it and it has to resettle again, and I think this shoving it around like this is going to be the most destructive thing, and it is what I say about the differential settlement; there is no mention of differential settlement in any of Crossrail's assessments of the impact on these buildings. 9767. I understand obviously that there is other material that you have produced on this point, which I can refer to, if necessary, in closing, but what I want to do is to move on to the matters that you have at paragraph 17 of your note, which is drawing these points together, to give an overview of what you say might be the implications of this. (Mr Wheeler) Certainly. In essence, pursuing the Woodseer route may well be better for Crossrail and a high concentration of the country's heritage in this conservation area. It is bigger with apparently easier access, the potential for greater over site development and minimises the risk to these fragile buildings in the conservation area, and therefore the cost of the protected measures and repairs. That the Promoters have not properly assessed this alternative or the comparative benefits it may bring. I have only shown them two of these listed buildings. I am inspired to show them many more now that we have found that two out of the there that we looked at need reassessing. 9768. If we can move on to what you say from your perspective might be the implications of this for the southern route? (Mr Wheeler) This is implications for the reliability of the assessment of the southern route. The Crossrail report produced at our insistence in 2004 gives four other options. One was the southern route, referred to already, and the other three to the north of Hanbury Street, including Woodseer Street. In respect of all these latter three it was said that the curve would not work. The Promoters produced three alignments therefore where the rail lines were at such a radius that the trains would fall off the line. Is that an option? I do not think so. I would assume that a competent rail engineer asked to undertake a genuine objective consideration of different options would not produce three where the trains left the tracks. I assume that such a person would look at a curve which does work. In fact Roy Adams and I produced what is actually now known as the "Woodseer's tube option", which you looked at with Tower Hamlets last week. It was done sitting at my kitchen table because - not that we are experts in this, far from it - you could see very clearly how the line could be optimised. We knew it could be done but Crossrail kept saying it could not be. We then had to give it to Tower Hamlets for them to insist that it was looked at, and I can do no better than refer the Committee to what Dr Bowers says about the conclusions on the options produced by Crossrail. I was going to refer to Dr Bowers' text. 9769. MR PHILPOTT: Sir, you had that last week. 9770. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: I think we have had that, thank you very much. (Mr Wheeler) I will skip that, if you could make a note of the reference that I was referring to. The further report of June 2006 in your bundle will need further analysis by us and Arup's, as was said in last week's analysis, page 11 paragraph 9440. Tower Hamlets as well are not persuaded that the GOMMMS report is robust, and we are persuaded that it most certainly is not. 9771. Finally, if you can summarise your position, please? (Mr Wheeler) In short I consider that the work done by Arup on behalf of Tower Hamlets has undermined the credibility and the reliability of the Promoter's assessment of these alternatives. If I was funding the project - and I actually assume that you and I as tax payers will be funding the project - I would not consider it until the route had been optimised. What we ask is that the Promoter should be asked to look and assess Hanbury Street and Woodseer Street again, together with the southern route in particular, and to do so in a way that is just, demonstrably objective, thorough and fair. 9772. MR PHILPOTT: Thank you very much, Mr Wheeler. Sir, I was then going to move on to Mr Adams. 9773. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Yes. 9774. MR PHILPOTT: Mr Adams, you have given your qualifications and experience already and I wonder if you could see your note of the matters you want to cover? If you could pick that up from paragraph 2? (Mr Adams) When we first heard of the Crossrail scheme it was not through any information provided directly by Crossrail but through word of mouth from people who were not really sure what it meant. The Society demanded a meeting which was attended by Mr Keith Berryman and others in a church hall in Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, in March 2004, and we were astounded by several findings. First, that nobody in the locality knew what the proposal was actually about. Many people did not even know that there were any proposals let alone a plan with such enormous consequences, tunnelling from the bottom of that same street, for digging an enormous hole, which I could only describe to some neighbours from the Bangladeshi community as the equivalent of digging a hole big enough to put in one of the towers of Tower Bridge and then to build that tower in it. It may be a building slightly less than half the tower but it is still a big hole, in addition to running the route through the heart of the area. The second thing that astounded us is that when we asked to see data on above ground or environmental impact it became clear that not only had no Environmental Statement been prepared before the choice of the route, but that no environmental impact had been considered at all. This can be evidenced in a couple of ways, if we look quickly at slide 5, not wishing to take up too much time - it does not need detailed scrutiny. Slide 5 is just a map with some buildings on and there you will see the area that you have seen on several slides before. You can see a very tight greying of the area and those big grey blobs are the sites that were considered as options for the shaft. I do not know if the person who produced that had actually gone around and looked at these sites but it could well have been done on the basis of looking at a plan in the office because two of these sites were in or abutting the conservation area and all, with the exception of Corbet Place, which is part of Truman's Brewery, up to the top left hand corner of the slide (Indicates) were surrounded by closely packed housing, much of it listed, and restaurants. Referring to slide 6. 9775. This is an extract from a meeting. Do you know the date of that meeting? (Mr Adams) The meeting was held later, in 2004; I cannot tell you precisely the date, right away - I am sure it can be found. It was at some time after the first meeting. A further meeting was held with local residents at which the question was asked of Mr Berryman, "Where are the detailed studies showing environmental impact now that we are several months into round 2?" Mr Berryman replied, "There is no data on this area as such but the environmental impact is a consideration." If you live there it is indeed a consideration, but it was not sufficient consideration for Mr Berryman and his colleagues to have made progress on the assessment in the interim. Mr Berryman went on to say, "We do not have site-specific data." The third reason that we were all rather incredulous is that, as you may know, the Truman Brewery has been redundant to its former use for over a decade. The site is designated an action area for development in the Unitary Development Plan for Tower Hamlets. There had been a safeguarded route through part of the brewery since the early 1990s for the original Crossrail scheme, and this appeared on legal searches until the spring of 2004, which was after the date when we had first met Crossrail to learn of the new proposal. So we were a bit incredulous at the initial meeting that the announcement on a safeguarded route for Crossrail through the brewery was to be lifted from the proposed action area and conferred on to a conservation area, or at least an area of high owner occupation where conservation is a priority, namely around Fournier Street, Princelet Street and Hanbury Street - both the upper and lower parts of those streets. A fourth reaction was the obvious conclusion that routing options had not and still to this day, in our opinion, have not been adequately considered, and certainly had not then, particularly in terms of their above ground impacts but also on engineering grounds. I will return to that shortly. So there is no surprise that the Spitalfields Society and other local groups and individuals began to question these proposals and the assumptions behind them much more vigorously in what I could only describe as at times a David versus Goliath battle to get at the true facts. Our battle is focused on three things: tunnelling, the shaft and the impact of the route. If it is okay I will discuss each of them briefly in turn and I will avoid any duplication, I hope, with what my friend Rupert has been saying. In terms of tunnelling it seems that the tunnelling issue has largely disappeared because the decision not to tunnel from Hanbury Street has been taken and, as you may know, the Society and its advisers argued from the outset that no adit was necessary to Hanbury Street and that the running tunnels could be dug westwards to Holborn directly from Pudding Mill Lane. Crossrail's reaction to this proposal was obdurate; they stated that it would cause a delay of two years and a substantial extra cost with the figures ranging from £500 million to over £1 billion in funding charges. 9776. The tunnelling, you have explained the basic position on that. I want to move on to the shaft because that is obviously still very much an issue. (Mr Adams) I do not want to say too much about the shaft; Rupert Wheeler has talked about it in detail. I would only say simply that a 13 metre in diameter, 30 metre deep hole is still a large element to dig and build out in a dense community with narrow streets much used by children. It is the equivalent of a ten-storey building. So I do not really want to dwell on it or to waste the Committee's time. 9777. If we then move on to the route. (Mr Adams) The Crossrail choice of the base scheme route was arrived at and property safeguarding transfer without any assessment of above ground impact. Therefore it was impossible to know if the base scheme had the best or the worst above ground impact of any of those options considered and drawn by Mott MacDonald, Crossrail's engineering consultant. Crossrail is not just any development scheme, it is perhaps the largest engineering scheme currently proposed in Western Europe and yet, as stated previously, no Environmental Statement was prepared before the choice of route was made. Presently, as mentioned before lunch, I have responsibility for the implementation of a £200 million mixed-use development scheme in Brighton Marina. It is an early design stage and last week I instructed the eminent firms of architects and engineers employed by my company that they were not simply to fall in love with the first concept they thought of, but were to ensure that optional concepts were to be studied and to be informed by the environmental and sustainability assessment. Why should this enormous engineering project of Crossrail be exempt from such consideration at the appropriate stage and be allowed to adopt what can only be interpreted as a practice of retro-fit, because everything that we have seen all the way along is a policy above ground of retro-fit. Crossrail only evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the Woodseer Street option after pressure from Tower Hamlets and the local community, and in appraising their three northern options, particularly the most promising of these, which at that time was referred to as Option A, the Mott Macdonald report underplays the engineering benefits of the option and exaggerates the engineering disadvantages. For example, the report cites the difficulties of conflict with the piled foundations under the Truman Brewery as a reason why tunnel depth would have to increase by seven metres, thus penetrating the water bearing sands of the Lambeth Group, about which you heard last week from Dr Bowers. So the point I am making here is that in several reports Crossrail's engineers were making statements which did not only turn out to be not correct in fact but were self-contradictory, because in the same document they stated in addition to saying that the depth of the tunnel would have to increase by seven metres they also said that the size and depth of the piles on this site are unknown. One could also point out that the 1990 scheme, which linked Paddington to Liverpool Street Station, was due to exit its underground length by a portal at Allen(?) Gardens - and I am assuming you have some idea now where that is in the original route flow, so I do not want to waste time on it. But that route went under some of the tallest buildings in the brewery. So, if then why not now? Engineers from Arup, employed by Tower Hamlets to review the findings of the Mott MacDonald's report, found this report unconvincing and the arguments not proven. Dr Bowers has had a detailed and professional opinion to the engineering matters in his evidence last week. But I would not want to convey the impression that this is just a case of Hanbury Street versus Woodseer Street. Now that the connection with Pedley Street is not required other options are opened, particularly a route to the south. We asked Crossrail to consider a southern route; they had not done so in their initial assessment when they chose the base case route. 9778. I think you wanted to look at slide 1, is that right? Tell us what we are looking at here. (Mr Adams) What you can see about the middle of the slide is the base case route and to the bottom of the slide the blue curving shape is the southern option that was considered by Crossrail and their engineers, Mott MacDonald. This route is described as Option D in the Mott MacDonald report. It is shown in blue. Liverpool Street is just off the plan to the left and the reason for the generous curve from left to right is the desire to avoid the foundations of buildings in Cutlers Gardens, Cutlers Gardens being the red group of buildings to the very left hand side of the image. 9779. You then provided in slide 2 an extract from the report by Dr Bowers of Arup, commenting on the reasons that Crossrail gave for rejecting this route. (Mr Adams) If we can focus in on A45 and A46, I do not want to waste the Committee's time by reading them through but just to draw your attention to two statements in those paragraphs. If you look at the bottom of A45 you will see, 'If the constraint of launching tunnel drives in this area were removed then this fundamental objection to Option D (or any other southerly route) is removed." Then at the beginning of the following paragraph, "It is also noted that Option D might require a line closure of the Metropolitan Line for construction." Then at the bottom of that paragraph Dr Bowers effectively dismisses that as a constraint, pointing to experience with the construction of the CTRL, where a not dissimilar strategy was employed with success. I would just like to draw the Committee's attention to slide 3 because one of the things we were forced to do as a group of residents was to take the Mott MacDonald report and refer it to our own consultant, and we enlisted the services of Dr Mohsen Vaziri of consulting engineers, Whitby Bird, and this time I do want to read to you these few paragraphs because they are very important. So I am reading the bottom three paragraphs of this note. Referring to the Mott MacDonald drawing, "With reference to the drawing, the base scheme crosses over or nearer more than 20 listed buildings, more then en pile buildings and four sensitive sites; whereas the southern route option crosses over or near one listed building, four pile buildings and four sensitive sites. With regard to the piled buildings it is interesting to note that three of the four piled buildings identified along the southern route also lie on the base case scheme and the only piled building identified near the southern route is Cutlers Gardens. The Mott MacDonald report admits that the foundation constraints along the southern route have not been identified fully and that a vertical alignment could be achieved subject to further study. Therefore, in conclusion," said Dr Vaziri, "based upon the attached drawing and the Optioneering Report, there is not enough information to dismiss the southern route option on the basis of the presence of deep piles along or near the route. I recommend that a study be commissioned in order to assess the feasibility of a vertical alignment for the southern option." 9780. I understand that that was put to Crossrail; is that right? (Mr Adams) It was. 9781. Slide 4. (Mr Adams) The reaction of Crossrail is in the bottom paragraph of that letter, which says, "No further work is being undertaken on any other sites within the Truman Brewery and following on from the study on the southern route no further work is being done on the southern route alignment." So the door seems closed. The evidence given there by Dr Vaziri really supports the evidence given last week by Dr Bowers, who pointed out that although there are deep piles which have relevance for a potential route, there are mitigating measures that could be taken, and potentially an even more direct route from Liverpool Street to the station at Whitechapel. 9782. You had reached paragraph 24 of your note on the last page. (Mr Adams) I would simply ask Crossrail how many eminent opinions does it take to prove to you that in the light of the now changed parameters of Crossrail link it would be worthwhile to readdress this issue of the southern route. As I understand it, the normal sequence of consideration in any decision-making activity is to postulate options, to examine them against specific criteria and then to select the optimum solution. Yet one has the impression that the Promoters of this scheme consistently and throughout our involvement have gone to great lengths to retro-fit the arguments to suit the base case. Mr Berryman said last week - page 36, paragraph 9597 - that he was completely satisfied that the revised Environmental Statement would show that Hanbury Street scheme is better. I would say better than what? What is the source of such confidence if supposedly objective studies have not yet been completed? Is it to do with the narrowness of the engineering criteria that was set for the project or could it be that minds have already been made up a long time ago? I think it is inappropriate and dangerous to pre-judge an issue of such sensitivity and with such an impact on people's lives. It is imperative that the engineering and planning team go back to basics, do the assessment thoroughly, take account of above ground as well as below ground issues. Simply because Mr Berryman or the team is fed up with looking at options and wants a decision made - page 39, paragraph 9958 last week - it is not good enough. The Environmental Statement has to be undertaken in conjunction with revised engineering considerations. 9783. If you could draw that together into your conclusions, please? (Mr Adams) I would say that it is simply not possible now to say with any degree of confidence that the Hanbury Street route is the best solution. We are asking respectfully but determinedly that firstly the shaft sites and the base scheme be reassessed in the light of changes in tunnelling strategy, and the belated consideration of above ground impacts. Secondly, that the viable options to the north and south of the base case route are looked at in sufficient detail for all the issues to be understood and resolved and that this exercise is done thoroughly and objectively across all the criteria. Failing to take these steps now will lead to further uncertainty, resentment and possibly additional delays and costs as the sponsors seek to move towards implementation, and inadequately consider it an ill-founded scheme in so far as it affects the area between Liverpool Street and Whitechapel. 9784. MR PHILPOTT: Thank you very much for that, Mr Adams. Sir, that is the evidence from my witnesses.
The witnesses withdrew 9785. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you, Mr Philpott. Given the time, which is 12.53, I intend to adjourn the Committee until 2.30, unless you want to come in very briefly, Mr Elvin. 9786. MR ELVIN: I was going to say to the Committee that there are a large number of misconceptions, which have been evident in the evidence presented by the Society. I think the easiest way of dealing with that, rather than challenging every single item and taking up a lot of time, is to deal with it by calling my own witnesses. I do not therefore propose to cross-examine these witnesses, but to have matters explained that they have raised by my own witnesses, unless the Committee requires me to do otherwise. 9787. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: I am quite happy with that, Mr Elvin. I therefore call the Committee to order. We will re-sit at 2.30 this afternoon.
After a short adjournment 9788. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Elvin? 9789. MR ELVIN: Sir, I will call Mr Berryman first. Before I do so, can I just make one point clear and this is really for the Petitioners' benefit because these are matters the Committee already knows. I am not going to call generic settlement evidence, but I will call a settlement witness to deal with individual properties as they arise. Can I just remind the Committee that the position with regard to settlement was dealt with generically by Professor Meyer on Day 8 and can I remind the Committee that it is Day 8, paragraphs 2390 to 2403 of his presentation and, in particular, in the Information Paper D12 which also has a specific section dealing with Listed buildings and the fact that Listed buildings will be subject to the more detailed Stage 3 assessment. There is something which the Committee may not have picked up because it only appeared in correspondence last week - and I am going to bounce this on Mr Fry, so I hope he is quick on the ball, 21804-C, page 3. Part of the agreement with Tower Hamlets which made them not raise this, and perhaps we can zoom in on 11 please, we have agreed with Tower Hamlets that the Stage 3 settlement reports will be made available to each individual property owner to whom the report relates. If they wish to see the individual settlement reports for their own properties, those will be made available and can I make it clear that if anyone then has any individual queries about the reports and wants them reviewed, I can give an assurance to the Committee that that will be done. Therefore, so far as the individual Listed buildings are concerned (a) they are subject to reports (b) those reports are available, and (c) they can be discussed if owners ask for them to be released. Sir, I do not propose to say anything more on generic settlement issues. 9790. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: I am sure the Petitioners have realised now that that is the case, Mr Elvin, and thank you for clarifying that situation and putting it on the record. Please continue. 9791. MR ELVIN: In which case, I will now come to Mr Berryman, whom the Committee is familiar with. I will ask him to deal with a number of the issues arising from the evidence that has been heard this morning.
MR JOHN BERRYMAN, recalled Examined by MR ELVIN 9792. MR ELVIN: Mr Berryman, firstly, concern was raised by Dr Pedretti with regard to safeguarding, and we saw the plan which she had an overlay for with a black area from the draft LDF for Tower Hamlets. Can you just explain very briefly what the role of the safeguarding of the route was? (Mr Berryman) Yes, the role of safeguarding was, and is, to allow planning control to be exercised over the sites which are over the proposed Crossrail tunnels. The reason for that is clearly that we do not want buildings to be built on the various sites which will obstruct the tunnels. The overwhelming majority of planning applications which are made for buildings above the tunnels are for straightforward buildings with no deep foundations, and we receive about 250 enquiries a month relating to what I would call normal, low-rise buildings which are over the alignments. A very few of those buildings are proposing deep foundations and where that is the case we work with the local authority and the building owner to condition the planning application in such a way that construction of our tunnels in the future is not going to be prevented. That is really the only function of safeguarding. It does not have any other statutory functions to fulfil other than that. 9793. It does not confer on you the right to build or anything of that description? (Mr Berryman) No, it does not. It does not give us anything other than the right to object to a planning application which is made for a building on the alignments. 9794. Secondly, in terms of safeguarding, are issues arising on safeguarding infrequent? (Mr Berryman) Issues which arise on safeguarding are very infrequent. As I say, we get about 250 enquiries a month. If one or two of those a year gets referred to me, I would be surprised because most of them are very routine and they just go through. 9795. Can I move on then to the next issue and can I ask about the issue of the alignment. It was suggested at various points that sufficient consideration had not been given for the alignment of the route east of Liverpool Street. I know, Mr Berryman, that in some respects it has been suggested that Whitechapel Station should not be there, that there should not be a Whitechapel Station for Crossrail, but can you just explain (a) how the alignment was chosen, as briefly as you can, and (b) the extent to which other alignments were considered, other than the two Woodseer Street alignments, which the Committee heard about last week? (Mr Berryman) Yes, the alignment has to fit in with certain design parameters. We have a desirable minimum radius and an absolute minimum radius and they are related to the speed of trains which will be running over the tracks at that location. The alignment has to pass through sites which are suitable for ventilation and intervention shafts, and the alignment has to link the fixed points, which on a railway of course are the stations and in this case it would be Liverpool Street Station and Whitechapel Station. Within those constraints, one can play about considerably with the alignments. Very often in central London, the crucial thing is actually finding a location for a shaft and finding a site which is on the surface where a shaft can be built without knocking down too many properties and without causing too much disruption. Obviously in central London that is not always easy and you can see in this case an example of an area of London where it has been quite difficult to identify shaft sites. 9796. Can I ask Mr Fry please to put up from Volume 4A of the Environmental Statement plan C7-I and could we zoom in on Liverpool Street and east of Liverpool Street please. The Crossrail tunnels leave Liverpool Street where they do and can I just ask, firstly, what would happen if one were to take a straighter route towards Whitechapel? Are there any matters in that route which might give rise to cause for concern? (Mr Berryman) Well, actually this route that we selected is relatively close to a straight line between the end of Liverpool Street Station and the end of Whitechapel Station. The issue is that the two stations are on different orientations. In other words, Liverpool Street Station does not point towards Whitechapel Station and vice versa, Whitechapel Station does not point towards Liverpool Street Station, so we have to put an 'S' bend in to get from the orientation of one station round to the orientation of the other station. If you were to go straight across, as you described it, the first problem you would have is that there are a number of deeply piled buildings quite close to Liverpool Street at this location and you would still have to introduce the 'S' bend at some point on the route, and that brings a number of problems in terms of alignments, radiused curves and so on which can be provided. 9797. Just to remind ourselves, the yellow shading on this plan is all Conservation Area? (Mr Berryman) That is correct, yes, and the purple stuff is Listed buildings of one sort or another. 9798. Which includes, as we can see, Christ Church which, because it is in dark purple, we know is a Grade I Listed building. (Mr Berryman) That is correct, yes. 9799. What time was spent, therefore, looking, for example, at the southern alignment because the Committee was referred to a letter from a Mr Mantie which said, "We do not propose to do any further work on the southern alignment". What actually has been done? (Mr Berryman) We developed four options for the southern alignment. They are all basic variations on the theme. First of all, they are all longer than the alignment which is in the Bill which obviously adds to the cost and is undesirable anyway. Secondly, it is even more difficult to locate a site for a shaft along the proposed southern route than it is in the northern area primarily because there are quite a number of schools and other similar educational establishments, but also because you are much closer to Mile End Road and you have got even more of a matrix of buildings and traffic movements in the area. Therefore, we looked at the four options and appraised them. A statement was made this morning that we appraised three of them where the trains would have fallen off the tracks. Clearly that is not the case. Three of the ones we appraised had substandard curves, but that does not mean that trains will fall off the track; it means that it leads to long-term maintenance problems and speed reductions for the trains using the tracks. 9800. One of the constant criticisms which has been made this morning is that enough time and effort has not been spent looking in detail at this particular area. Just putting aside what proportion of the total project this area comprises, can you give the Committee some idea of how much time and effort has gone into this? (Mr Berryman) Well, for the short section between Liverpool Street and Whitechapel about 25 per cent of the total resource spent on alignment design has been spent on that short section. It is over 20,000 man hours for Mott MacDonald, our principal consulting engineers, at least an equivalent amount for our other consultants who do subsidiary work to that and probably half as much again for our own staff, so it has been a very considerable number of nine years which has been spent on looking at the alignments in this particular area. 9801. Leading on from that, it was constantly being suggested by the Spitalfields Society that you had retrofitted the assessments to preconceptions. Would you like to comment on that in the context of the design process and the assessment process that was carried out, Mr Berryman? (Mr Berryman) One of the features of the design of anything, and I am sure Mr Wheeler would know about this probably better than I, is that you have a first stab at design and you assess it against the criteria that you set yourself to see if you need the criteria. In other words, you do an appraisal of what you have come up with as the first design and if you can improve on that, you keep improving on it. If you get to a point where you are appraising something and it is meeting all the requirements you have set and there does not appear to be a better way, that is the end of the design process and from then on it is just a task of working it up into detail and construction drawings. I should add that the environmental impact assessment can only really be finalised when you have got a design to assess, so the formal document that has been produced and you have seen cannot really be done until the design is, to all intents and purposes, complete, but the work that goes on behind that formal document is being done all the time and is an integral and inherent part of the design process. 9802. The Environmental Statement or at least the first and main Environmental Statement was published with the Bill in February of last year, February 2005. Was any technical work done to support the decisions that were being made and to consider the impacts of the proposals before the Environmental Statement was produced? (Mr Berryman) Yes. In fact all of the work which was described and summarised in the Environmental Statement, it goes without saying, was done before the Environmental Statement was produced. You cannot produce the Environmental Statement unless you have got something to appraise. The process of fixing the design and doing the environment appraisal is a continuous one and it is an iterative loop which goes on right until the design is finalised and the Environmental Statement can be produced. 9803. The next question which runs on from that is in terms of the retrofit argument that consultation was effectively a worthless exercise because all outcomes were predetermined. Did consultation lead to any changes in any part of the scheme, Mr Berryman? (Mr Berryman) Yes, it led to quite a number of changes in different parts of the scheme. I suppose the biggest single one was in the change to the location of the portal which is now in Pudding Mill Lane. That was moved about one kilometre further east as a result of the consultation process. Other areas were to do with shafts in the Woolwich area and issues about station design in quite a number of locations which led to changes to the design because people were able to point out options which we had either not considered or factors which we had not fully appreciated were important when we had done our initial design, so in those cases we have always changed the design. 9804. Can I also ask you this: is the scheme currently before the Committee identical to the base case which Crossrail published when it published its business case two years ago? (Mr Berryman) No, it is not. As a result of various things which have happened since that business case was published two years ago, there have been a number of very significant changes to the design, notably the dropping of a complete branch out in the west of London. 9805. And, as the Committee knows, the termination of the proposals at Abbey Wood rather than Ebbsfleet? (Mr Berryman) That is right, yes. 9806. Can we just put up the report on consultation and can we zoom in please at the bottom right-hand corner. We can see there that this is the overall Crossrail report on the consultation that was carried out in terms of visitor centres and we can see for round one and round two the numbers of visitors. Mr Berryman, you can confirm this in a moment if you need to, but it is clear that, of all the London boroughs, Tower Hamlets had the greatest number of total visitors visiting its centres for both rounds of consultation? (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is true. In addition to that and not part of this round, we set up an information centre nearby which was open for a period of several weeks. 9807. Can I then turn please to the question of whether any consideration was given to options other than Hanbury Street, and ask Mr Fry to put up Supplementary Environmental Statement Volume 1 of 2005, page 624 and could we go to paragraph 6.2.5 just to set the context. We can there see at 6.2.4 and 6.2.5 that the options initially considered are set out in the main ES, that the Hanbury Street shaft location was initially fixed after reviewing six other potential sites in the area. It then refers to the opposite page and figure 6.1. Can you just describe briefly what the position was? (Mr Berryman) Yes, the sites that we considered there were Hanbury Street, which was number seven, which is the site that was selected, number one is the cash-and-carry store which was across the road from Hanbury Street, number eight is part of the old bottling plant of the Trumans Brewery site and number five is another part of that site. Four, three and two are smaller sites which are located within a residential area and they are all warehouses or buildings of that sort, non-residential buildings. You can see, I think, even by inspection of the map, but certainly by inspection on the ground, that those three small sites, two, three and four, are just not really ever going to be suitable on residential streets and so on. We later considered site six which is marked there, which is the Woodseer Street site which we have been talking about. Basically, what we found with all of these sites, one, six, eight and five, was that they introduced curves in the alignment which were sharper than the curves which our preferred design standard calls for. 9808. And that was an issue which was dealt with in the Tower Hamlets hearing last week? (Mr Berryman) Indeed. 9809. Although in the context of Woodseer Street, a new alignment option was looked at, you explained to the Committee last week what the engineering issues were for piling it, the Bishops Square development and the issues that arose with regard to that? (Mr Berryman) Indeed, yes. If the Bishops Square development was not there, it would be possible to generate an alignment for Woodseer Street which was adequate, probably still not as good as Hanbury Street, but adequate. 9810. Keeping that plan there for the moment just because it allows us to look at the comparative locations, it was being suggested that, by reference to the layout for Hanbury Street, lorries could not be easily got on to the site. Are any of those layout options, A to C, set in stone or immutable in any way? (Mr Berryman) Not at all. Indeed the form of development above the shaft head is not fixed yet in any event. The decision as to whether to have sub-surface plant rooms or above-surface plant rooms has not been made. All of those things will influence the site layout. The arrangements for traffic and so on are all still to be finalised as what we are showing is illustrative at this stage, and, generally speaking, we are only looking at this stage at outline planning, not detailed. 9811. I am just going to ask you to look at the map for lorry routing please, which is the main Environmental Statement Volume 8, map C8-IV. While that is being put up, we saw from the photographs produced by the Spitalfields Society a number of articulated vehicles on the Woodseer Street site. Is Spital Street and the route which is to be used by Crossrail traffic already trafficked by lorries at all? (Mr Berryman) It is indeed. The several times I have been down there I have seen very heavy lorries going up and down Spital Street presumably to park in the back of the Trumans Brewery site, though I am not quite sure where they go. 9812. In terms of the very largest lorries, can you give the Committee a feel for how many times they will be required and what they will be required for? (Mr Berryman) I think it is extremely unlikely that any lorries of the dimensions shown on Mr Wheeler's photograph would be used by us. The material that would be delivered by articulated lorry, if it is delivered in that way, would be reinforcing steel. The majority of the deliveries would be of concrete, which would be in an ordinary concrete truck mixer, and empty lorries coming to take spoil away from the site. Flat-bed lorries of the type shown, as I say, would be used mainly for delivering reinforcing steel and possibly some other specialist equipment, but these would be relatively rare visits. I think on our histogram we are showing one a day for the duration of most of the works with possibly two a day for a few months, but I would be very surprised if our heavy lorries exceeded that number. 9813. Here we have at last the plan showing the lorry routing up towards Hanbury Street from Greatorex Street and then up Spital Street, Allen Gardens, Buxton Street and back. Concern was expressed that, if there were problems, traffic might somehow get into more local streets, Brick Lane and the like. Could you give me your views on that please. (Mr Berryman) Certainly our traffic would not. There is a very well established code of practice which is used by many, many sites and construction companies to follow prescribed lorry routes. You will have seen signs as you go around the country, "Construction traffic this way" and so on, and they are usually rigidly adhered to, so we can be reasonably confident that our lorries will use the routes shown there with the arrows. I guess what Mr Wheeler and Mr Adams might have been concerned about is that in some way we would block the road so that Hanbury Street, which runs one way from left to right in this slide, would get blocked up, but, as I have said, the number of big lorries that would be making deliveries to the Hanbury Street site would be very small and would be controlled by banksmen. There is no question of having traffic lights or a single line blocking off part of the road there, but it would be that a lorry would just come in, quickly unload and then go away again. 9814. I just then wanted to ask you about implications for the footpath which were raised. Can we focus in on the right-hand side of the page please. This is Volume 8 still of the Environmental Statement dealing with the assessment of the Hanbury Street worksite, 9.3.5 and 9.3.6. We can see here that the Environmental Statement specifically considers the implications of the use of the Hanbury Street site for the footway and we can see that there will be closure for the works, pedestrians will be diverted, a zebra crossing to provide a safe criss-cross point and the like, so the issue is dealt with in the Environmental Statement. (Mr Berryman) Indeed. 9815. Are Tower Hamlets content with that as an issue? (Mr Berryman) Yes, they appear to be. 9816. Finally, the question of working hours was raised. Certain assumptions appear in the table that was referred to this morning. What is the current position on working hours, Mr Berryman? (Mr Berryman) Well, we are trying to develop a policy which will apply across the whole of London, across all the local authority areas. Westminster City Council is the lead authority in this matter and we are getting very close to an agreement with them which is likely to be along the lines that working hours will be eight in the morning until six in the evening, normal working hours. That is going to be hopefully finalised in the next few weeks and that will apply across the whole of the project, not just this area. 9817. Finally, just flowing from that, it was suggested that if there is working during the night and, as Mr Philpott kindly pointed out, underground working 24 hours, would high levels of illumination have to spill upwards and illuminate the surrounding houses? (Mr Berryman) No, they do not. The lighting levels that would be required would be at ground level and, with modern lighting design, it is possible to achieve those kinds of levels without very excessive light spillage. The whole site would not need to be illuminated at that level and it would only be the walkways to allow access to the shaft and so on. 9818. Mr Berryman, thank you very much.
Cross-examined by MR PHILPOTT 9819. MR PHILPOTT: I am going to start off with just some matters of general chronology, if I can, picking up a point you touched on in your evidence-in-chief about the order in which decisions were made relative to the environmental information which was available. Do you recall that? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9820. You have seen during the course of our evidence slide number 6, and perhaps I can just ask for that to be put up please. This was an extract from a meeting note taken by my clients of a meeting which I understand took place on May 5 2004, and I said I would give that date when that matter came up. The particular point which was focused on was the passage half-way down the page to do with the amount of environmental information then available. Do you recall that? (Mr Berryman) I do recall it. It is not in front of me today of course, but I do recall it. 9821. You have not, I think, taken the opportunity in your examination-in-chief to say if that was an incorrect recollection or note of what you said. (Mr Berryman) Well, can I take the opportunity now of saying that it is a selective note. I am not suggesting that it is inaccurate, but it is certainly amidst a lot of things which were said.
9822. It is the question that begins "there are families living on Hanbury Street". The answer which is given, I take you point you say there were other things said, "There is no data on this area as such that the environmental impact is a consideration. We are working on a lot of sites. I am coordinating this. You can ask specific questions but we do not have site-specific information". So far as that answer goes, that was the condition at that time, is that right? There was not site-specific data? (Mr Berryman) It does not actually make sense. No, that is not true; that is not correct. We probably did not have site-specific data tabulated in a form which we could release to people; but we certainly did have assessments done of the impacts of high level probably at that stage on the various properties and people concerned. 9823. When you say at "high level", what do you mean by that? (Mr Berryman) When you do an environmental assessment there are a whole load of issues which have to be considered in doing that assessment, to be compared one option with another; and they go into all sorts of things like ecology, noise, air quality, settlement and there is a whole raft of things which need to be considered. In a case like this, some of those are just not relevant so we do not assess them; we just focus on the things we think will be important and will influence the decision. Obviously as you would expect, you would do that in your first pass of work and then fill in the blanks afterwards. In a case like this, by inspection you could see that the issues which are likely to be significant will be noise and settlement; and we focussed very much on those in making our preliminary assessment. 9824. Can I just ask for a bit of help on this, so far as the preliminary assessment is concerned. By the time that the preferred route had been identified, how much detail was available on issues such as noise, settlement and impact on residential amenity; how detailed was the information available? (Mr Berryman) When the preferred route was initially selected very little was available because, as I said previously, design is an iterative process. You have to select a route, analyse and see what the impacts are. You cannot analyse the settlement which might be caused by a tunnel when you do not know where the tunnel is going to go. It is a fundamental principle of how these things are done. Similarly with noise, you cannot make a reasonable assessment of how much the exposure of various people to noise is if you do not know where the site is and what kind of equipment has got to be used on it. 9825. Let me help you with this. When you went out to the first round of consultation - and you will have to forgive me because you are more familiar with this than I am - what date was the first round of consultation? (Mr Berryman) I cannot tell you offhand. Perhaps Mr Elvin could refer. It would have been some time in 2003, I think. 9826. How much of this detailed information was available to you at that stage? Detailed information on noise impacts, settlement impacts, impact on listed buildings and that sort of thing - how much detailed information was available to you then? (Mr Berryman) I would say enough to make a preliminary stab at where a sensible alignment might be. For example, the shaft sites I spoke about earlier which were shown on the site, we would have done a recognisance of those and done preliminary alignments for each of them to see which of them worked and which of them did not work. We would have a recognisance of the area to see how many people might be affected by noise, the kind of buildings that would be in the area in a qualitative rather than a quantitative way at that stage. 9827. At that stage you had already decided the option you were going to present to the public for the purposes of consultation? (Mr Berryman) Yes, we had. This is one of the essences of consultation, that you have to have something to present. You are always in this cleft stick because, on the one hand, people want to know what you are planning to build; on the other hand, they do not want to know that you have fixed everything and nothing can be changed. You have to go out for consultation at a fairly early stage in the design process otherwise it is nugatory. If you design the whole thing and finish it off and then go out to consultation, what is the point? What you have got to do is get the design to a point where you have got something to talk to people about; go out and talk to them; find out what the issues are; and then adjust if necessary, or not if not necessary, and go to the next stage of design. You cannot have a fully worked-up design when you go for the first consultation - it would be bonkers to do that. 9828. You have told us already that you had a pretty clear idea of what the issues were going to be here: they were going to be noise; they were going to be settlement impact on listed buildings, residential amenities and those things? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9829. Because of the approach that was taken, when consultation took place people were not given any detailed information or even indicative information at that stage on noise impacts and on settlement because that work had simply not be done? (Mr Berryman) That work had not been done in a quantitative way; it had been done in a qualitative way. For example, if you go to one of the sites that was considered, the corner of Princelet Street and Brick Lane you could see by inspection that a worksite on that corner was likely to be noisy and intrusive for a lot of people. You can walk round and form that kind of impression, as I say, at a qualitative rather than a quantitative level. 9830. I want to come onto another matter, which is the Environmental Statement itself. We have been told both by Alistair Darling in a written statement to Parliament, and also in the Promoter's response, that further environmental information on this issue is going to come forward in due course. That is right, is it not? (Mr Berryman) We are proposing to produce a supplementary Environmental Statement on the tunnelling strategy, yes. 9831. That has not yet been made available? (Mr Berryman) It has not been written yet. 9832. MR PHILPOTT: I see. Do you know when it will be made available? 9833. MR ELVIN: Can I indicate, because Mr Philpott does not know what is happening. The tunnelling strategy will be the subject of a third AEP(?) in due course, which will also accommodate any issues which may arise from the Committee's recommendations. It will be subject to its own petitioning period and will have its own Environmental Statement. Since it is yet to be determined and of course there is yet to be an instruction debate, it is not a matter that can be dealt with at this stage. 9834. CHAIRMAN: Mr Elvin, I take that point. Mr Philpott, do you accept that? 9835. MR PHILPOTT: My point is this: insofar as the change in tunnelling strategy has led to a change in the environmental effects of what is proposed in the area that affects my clients, we are told that firm environmental information will become available. Part of the purpose of that environmental information, as the Promoters say in their response to us, is to inform our ability to petition. The simple point I am making is that we do not have that information here yet but will have an opportunity to observe it. We have reserved our position on that. I just wanted to establish if there was a date. What I want to focus on, just to give us some sort of framework for our discussion, is what seems to me to be the most recent assessment of the two alternative sites that was produced in June 2006. In the material we have put in, it is in Tab 6. I do not know whether that is a document you have available to you, Mr Berryman? It is part of your exhibits. I will start off with page 15 and some general questions first. As I understand it, this is the most up-to-date assessment that we have comparing the two sites, the June 2006 report? (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is right. 9836. Is the intention of this report to present an impartial and objective analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the two sites? (Mr Berryman) This is the GOMMMS report, is it not? 9837. I think it is produced as a result of a GOMMMS assessment. (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is right. 9838. The report, as I understand it, is intended to be objective and impartial in presenting the advantages and disadvantages of the two options? (Mr Berryman) That is right, yes. 9839. To inform the Committee and also to inform petitioners? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9840. CHAIRMAN: Mr Philpot, can we just zoom in on that. We are looking at the map, are we? 9841. MR PHILPOTT: No, mine is page 21 of 47. It has got "page 15" at the bottom. There are two page numbers and I am working from the ones at the bottom. It is page 21. You will have to excuse my lack of familiarity with this. It starts off with "vertical alignment" at the top. This is presenting the advantages and then the disadvantages of Woodseer Street alignment Option 2, as I understand it. If it is meant to be impartial and objective, any disadvantages that are common to both options would presumably be reflected in the equivalent part of the report in with Hanbury Street, which we see on pages 19 and 20? Anything that is common to both ought to be reflected on both, should it not? (Mr Berryman) It should be, yes. 9842. Let us look on page 21; I just want to look at the disadvantages. The first disadvantage of the Woodseer Option 2 is the distances between intervention points, is it not? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9843. That is said to be "1100m ... in excess of the previously agreed maximum accepted by HMRI/LFEPA - this being a relaxation in standards as it is in excess of the required 1000 metres". That is the first disadvantage? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9844. If one looks at page 19 and what is said about Hanbury Street in that respect, under "Advantages" at the first bullet point it says, "The shaft is located within an optimum position in terms of ... [and then there are a series of factors, the last two are] intervention and ventilation requirements". I have understood that to be dealing with the same point? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9845. It is certainly not mentioned as a disadvantage in this respect, but as an advantage. That is right, is it not? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9846. My understanding (and correct me if I am wrong) is that the distance for the Hanbury Street option is 1092m. Is that right? (Mr Berryman) I do not know offhand, but it is slightly over 1000m, yes. 9847. I will tell you where I have taken this from and if I am wrong it can be corrected, the Environmental Statement, page 6 of 23. 1092m of course is in itself in excess of what I think is described elsewhere in this document as the "mandatory requirements", is it not? (Mr Berryman) It is. 9848. It is also only eight metres shorter than the Woodseer Street option? (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is correct, if your numbers are correct. I have got a suspicion that the two tunnels have slightly different challenges, but your general point is correct. 9849. MR PHILPOTT: Neither of those pieces of information is gleaned from this report. It is said to be "optimum" in respect of ------ 9850. MR ELVIN: I just wanted to help Mr Philpott because I am conscious of the repetition point the Committee raised this morning. If you will recall last week, what the comparison came down to with Tower Hamlets is the engineering issue. This was not put forward as a reason for choosing Hanbury Street over Woodseer Street. If Mr Philpott wants to get to the heart of the issue, the heart of the issue so far as Crossrail was concerned was that the engineering side of Woodseer Street was more disadvantageous than Hanbury Street. (Mr Berryman) If I may add to that. It is that first sentence, "The railway alignment ..." The railway alignment - the hybrid Bill alignment is better in terms of railway alignment. 9851. MR PHILPOTT: We can take this quickly or shortly. I am not at the moment on what you say is the crux of it. I am on this issue. The Committee is faced with a case which says that Woodseer 2 may be better than Hanbury Street. This is meant to be an objective assessment. When the Committee comes to look at this, it is entitled to ask itself, "Is this fair; is this accurate; is this objective?" These may be abandoned as points relied upon by the Promoter; but I have to alert the Committee to where they fall in this document. I am sure the Committee will indicate where it feels I have made the point already. What I want to then go back to is page 19 and the advantages that are cited for the hybrid Bill Alignment. I just want to look at a few of these. The third bullet point here says, "The shaft site minimises the impact on the buildings along Princelet Street, and Hanbury Street". I do not think that can be said to be an advantage over Woodseer 2, can it? (Mr Berryman) No. 9852. The sixth bullet point: "The shaft head building has been designed to accommodate over site development, which would benefit the local business, and residential community, with significantly improved commercial premises along with potential residential development". So far as that is concerned, of course using the Woodseer Street site would also allow over site development potentially with the same benefits? (Mr Berryman) Yes, indeed. 9853. It is not a benefit or an advantage over Woodseer 2, is it? (Mr Berryman) It is not an advantage of one over the other, no, it is not. That is not what we are relying on. The issue we are concerned about is the alignment, as was mentioned at some length last week. It is the fact that the Woodseer Street 1 alignment, which is the one which has a substandard curve, is not acceptable from an alignment perspective; and Woodseer Street 2, which is acceptable from an alignment perspective, goes underneath the foundations of the Bishops Square development. 9854. I will come back to that. Just help me with this: I am right, am I not, so far as we only started off with this line of questioning, which is that matters which are claimed to be advantageous for one which apply equally, or similarly matters which are disadvantageous for one but an advantage for the other, they ought to be fairly reported in this document. If something is an advantage for both or simply not an advantage of one site over another, they either ought to be reported on both or not reported at all? (Mr Berryman) Yes, I accept that. 9855. I have put it in a rather convoluted way but I think you get the gist? (Mr Berryman) Yes, I understand what you are getting at and of course you are right. 9856. Coming down further to the next bullet point. "The demolition required to construct the shaft and provide a working site provides the opportunity to significantly improve the visual appearance ..." Again, so far as opportunities for visual improvement are concerned, that applies equally to both? (Mr Berryman) It does indeed, yes. 9857. But not mentioned of course for Woodseer 2? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9858. Next bullet point. "Adoption of this alignment to Whitechapel Station minimises the settlement impact on the historical buildings in Spitalfields (Christ Church) ..." So far as Woodseer 2 is concerned, it moves the line even further away from Christ Church, does it not? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9859. It moves it away from a great number of historical buildings? (Mr Berryman) Yes. If you are treating these as a comparative tale, then the point you are making is perfectly valid. 9860. I could carry on but I think I have made my point. I am reminded by one of my clients that the document is a comparison between Woodseer Street and Hanbury, but that point is, I hope, clear. So far as the relative sensitivity of the route is concerned, this matter is touched on a lot in examination-in-chief and I do not want to go over that in detail but have one or two brief points. Can we see Slide 31, please. You are aware of course, more so than most perhaps, that one of the differences between the two alignments we are looking at is that Woodseer 2 passes under fewer listed buildings? (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is correct. 9861. When we get to Slide 31, this is an extract from the alignment options document, the 2004 document. Figure 2.6, please. From Commercial Street to Britannia House the horizontal alignment was engineered to enable maximum separation from Christ Church. This aids in limiting any settlement close to Christ Church, which is a Grade 1 Listed Building. So far as it is possible to avoid tunnelling under or close to listed buildings, that is something that the Promoter recognises it would wish to do, is it not? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9862. The reason for that is because of the potential effects of settlement? (Mr Berryman) I think there are different kinds of listed buildings, are there not? If you compare the buildings which surround Finsbury Circus, for example, which are all listed, we go underneath all of those buildings without any difficulty because we are fully aware of the structures, what the settlement impacts are likely to be and how they are founded because of the date when they were constructed. With a building like Christ Church that is not so clear. It is a very rigid structure; it is very old, as you know; and it therefore has more sensitivity than perhaps some other listed buildings. Not all listed buildings are the same. 9863. That is very much the point our evidence was making. It is right, is it not, when the Committee comes to look at the question of potential impacts on listed buildings they have to bear in mind that these buildings are individual and their historic structures will vary from one to the other? (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is correct, they will. 9864. That affects the extent to which one has to be careful about treating and trying to avoid them as far as we possibly can when deciding on the appropriate alignment? It is a relevant factor. (Mr Berryman) It is a relevant factor; but it is not by any means the most significant factor. In this particular area we have spent a lot of time on this with English Heritage and other authoritative bodies and this is not perceived as being a particular issue in this area, because of the kind of structure and the kind of building that they are. 9865. We have given detailed evidence on why we are concerned about that. I do not want to go over those matters in details again. Before I move off the question of routes, I promised I would come back to the question you said about the need to avoid the pile of buildings and the redevelopment in Bishops Square. That is a matter on which the Committee has heard detailed technical evidence from Arup and we simply rely on what they say and I do not want to add to it. You will understand, I hope, if I do not tax you with that. So far as the relative sensitivity of the two alternative sites is concerned, again we have given some evidence on this and I do not want to transgress over that too much, but can we agree this: when one is assessing the advantages and disadvantages of the two sites relevant factors will include obviously the proximity of and relationship to sensitive receptors? By that I would mean residential in particular here? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9866. Also the size of the site and the constraints that would exist on operational matters and working conditions and so on? (Mr Berryman) You mean during construction? 9867. Yes. (Mr Berryman) That is right. 9868. The ability to move around the site with various vehicles and machines. Also a relevant factor would be the ease with which one could move heavy goods vehicles in and out? (Mr Berryman) Yes, we would agree with that. We would argue that both of these sites in that respect are identical. 9869. So far as the first of those is concerned, the proximity in relation to sensitive receptors, I know that the impact of noise on residential properties and their proximity was dealt with last week in some depth. Again, we do not want to go over that again but simply endorse the position that has been taken by Tower Hamlets on that. One of the peculiarities of the Hanbury Street site which does not occur on the Woodseer Street site is that there are residential flats immediately overlooking the Hanbury Street site? (Mr Berryman) There are a small number of residential flats, yes. 9870.
The impact on those, there is nothing comparable so far as the Woodseer
Street site is concerned; there is no residential property with a comparable
relationship? 9871. We can look at a slide if necessary and the view from within those flats, but there is really not much one can do to mitigate the impact other than taking those people out of those flats for the duration of the work? (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is one of the options that is there. 9872. It is a pretty unpalatable option, and something you would want to avoid if you could, is it not? (Mr Berryman) Yes, of course. 9873. So far as the relationship to properties is concerned, I am happy to leave that where Tower Hamlets dealt with it. So far as the second factor we identified is concerned, which is the size of the constraints, Woodseer of course is a larger site and you can see that from the guidance we have looked at. That is acknowledged to be an advantage of the site in the June 2006 report, is it not? (Mr Berryman) Yes. 9874. The reference, for the Committee's benefit, is that it is on page 21 of the report, paragraph 4.3.3, "Larger construction site is possible". Of course the relative tightness of the Hanbury Street site we have dealt with in examination-in-chief and I do not think we will gain much going over that again. So far as the third factor is concerned, that is HGV movements, whatever else one might say about the Hanbury Street site it is much easier to get HGVs onto the Woodseer site as opposed to Hanbury Street, is it not? (Mr Berryman) No, I would not say that. The site is still not big enough to turn a vehicle within the site; it would still have to pull-in parallel to the road, either on the road or immediately off the road. 9875. On Woodseer Street? (Mr Berryman) On Woodseer Street. It is not large enough to turn. 9876. The HGVs going there at present reverse out, do they? (Mr Berryman) No, they do not. As you aware, the site at the back of Woodseer Street is a very large open area. We would not have access to the whole of that. 9877. If it were necessary and thought appropriate you could get access to it, could you not? You can get those powers? (Mr Berryman) You could, yes. You could use that argument anywhere. We could take an infinite amount of land. 9878. You have a site at present where larger HGVs than you say would regularly be needed here are able to go in and out in forward gear? (Mr Berryman) Yes, they are because they take the whole of the site. Surely you are not suggesting we should acquire the whole of that site for the purpose of building just a small ventilation shaft. 9879. Would you need to? You would just need to take rights to drive HGVs out, would you not, on the other part of the site? (Mr Berryman) That might interfere with the existing users. 9880. Have you assessed that? (Mr Berryman) No, we have not. 9881. If you look at this factor, again for the June 2006 report, page 21, under the advantages of Woodseer the first point that is made: "Traffic management may be easier along Spital Street during construction as the site entrances are away from road junctions". So traffic management is acknowledged to be an advantage of the Woodseer site? (Mr Berryman) Yes. I have to say, it is a marginal advantage. 9882. We have the report for what it is worth. Do you have the Promoter's response document available, that is the response to us. In particular within that document there is a document G3. That is an information paper. It is page 3 of the document, 4.6, where we are told that the Britannia House site is the preferred location for the combined intervention shaft for the following reasons ..." I just want to see if we can summarise where we have got to on this. So far as the first point is concerned, acceptable railway alignment, as I understand it, it is accepted that Woodseer 2 has an acceptable railway alignment? (Mr Berryman) There might be disadvantages that it goes under somewhere it cannot go. It may be acceptable in railway terms but it is not acceptable in physical terms. 9883. That issue I am happy to leave to the evidence the Committee has heard. So far as the alignment is concerned of Woodseer 2, that is not a disadvantage of Woodseer 2, is it? (Mr Berryman) No, of course it is not, but then you are talking about something which in practice cannot be built. 9884. That is a question outside my remit. So far as the alignment is concerned, that is clear. So far as the second reason given is concerned, we have dealt with that. That is certainly not a matter where it is an advantage over Woodseer 2, is it? (Mr Berryman) No, it is not, but it is an advantage over the other sites we have looked at in the area. 9885. So far as the third point is concerned, we have established there is not much difference between the two on that, is there? (Mr Berryman) Not a lot, no. 9886. So far as the next one is concerned, Spital worksite, there is no real difference between the two, is there? (Mr Berryman) No real difference, no. 9887. Minimising impact on Brick Lane. No real difference between the two? (Mr Berryman) Correct, yes. 9888. Finally, no permanent residential property acquisition, no long-term road closures - no difference between the two. (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is correct. 9889. Going back to that third point, which you seem to treat as a fundamental point, last Wednesday when you were asked about the difficulties with Woodseer 2, this is on page 32 of the transcript at 9564, you were asked about the many examples in London of shafts of this sort being dug through the Lambeth group or through the interface between the Lambeth group and the clays. It was having to go deeper to avoid that obstruction. You said: "Indeed there are. What we are saying here is not that it is impossible and not that the alternative is impossible ... on balance, it is less desirable ...." That was the way you put it. (Mr Berryman) Yes. Nothing is impossible in engineering, if you are prepared to chuck enough money and enough resources at it, but it is certainly not a desirable way of doing it. 9890. MR PHILPOTT: Mr Berryman, thank you very much. 9891. KELVIN HOPKINS: Just from previous sittings, we were told of the impact of boring on settlement. I seem to remember that the deeper you go the shallower the settlement would be but, presumably, the wider the settlement would be, because it is spread out like a fan the deeper you go. (Mr Berryman) Yes, that is correct. The deeper you go the broader the settlement trough. 9892. And the shallower --- (Mr Berryman) Yes. I think I made the point last week about when you go underneath piles with an end-bearing pile it is significant that the foundations of the building are, instead of being that distance above the tunnel, that distance above the tunnel. So it increases the settlement locally on the pile of building. 9893. Some of the piles are not end-bearing they are side-bearing, are they not? (Mr Berryman) Some of them are friction piles. In fact, they are all a combination of end-bearing and friction. So predicting the effects would be quite complex. 9894. The other question I have is: is the separation of tunnels significant? They do not necessarily have to be parallel and close together; they could, at a point, go wide apart. Is that right? (Mr Berryman) Yes, they could be. They are quite widely spaced as we come out of Liverpool Street. It is better to have them close together when you have got a ventilation shaft because, otherwise, you finish up with long, horizontal adits to get from the bottom of the shaft to the tunnels. 9895. KELVIN HOPKINS: What is the impact of the separation on settlement? (Mr Berryman) Well, it is not a huge impact at these kinds of depths. Separating them more widely would make the trough even wider and reduce the amount of it, so it would not be beneficial. At these kinds of depths it is not a big factor.
Cross-examined by MR ELVIN
9896. MR ELVIN: Can I just get this clear: in terms of the impact of the current alignment on the listed buildings, English Heritage is the statutory body responsible for dealing with listed buildings. What is their view? (Mr Berryman) They have expressed themselves satisfied with our approach. 9897. The local planning authority, Tower Hamlets? (Mr Berryman) Also satisfied. 9898. Can I just ask you this: in terms of the approach, and we can see this in IPD12 (7.2 of D12), the specific sensitivity of features within listed buildings is something which is specifically taken into account when looking at settlement issues. (Mr Berryman) Yes, indeed. 9899. Listed buildings are not looked at as a generic group (if we can go to 7.2). The heritage assessment looks at the individual sensitivities of the buildings, and the Committee can see that spelled out. (Mr Berryman) Yes, it is spelled out there in 7.2. 9900. I have already told the Committee what the agreement was with Tower Hamlets, so if there are any issues on any remaining matters then they can be picked up by individual property owners. Would an alignment to Woodseer Street avoid listed buildings in this area? (Mr Berryman) Not completely; it would go under fewer of the listed buildings than the Hanbury Street alignment. 9901. Is Crossrail a type of project which can, given the nature of the area it is going through, avoid listed buildings and, indeed, conservation areas? (Mr Berryman) It is completely impossible to avoid listed buildings and conservation areas in central London; there are so many of them, it is like a patchwork. 9902. It was suggested to you when you were doing consultation assessment there ought to be a detailed appraisal. If you had to do a detailed assessment of the range of potential impacts for a whole range of possible routes before you came up with your preferred route - in other words, you had to do a detailed environmental appraisal of the whole range of options for a route, how feasible would this scheme be in those circumstances? (Mr Berryman) For a linear route like this, like any railway, it would be a monumental undertaking because there are so many sites involved. As I say, you have to, by reconnaissance really, pick out the issues which are likely to be significant and focus on those in making a route selection. 9903. MR ELVIN: I am not going to take you to it but just to remind the Committee that if it wants further detail on consultation, the detail is set out in volume 5 of the main Environmental Statement, appendix 3, starting at page 109. I am not going to re-examine on it because it is in there in writing. Unless there is anything else you want me to go into I do not propose to ask any further questions. 9904. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Elvin, just one point: if a Petitioner wants to get a report on their house on the listed status and what will the effect be, is there any mechanism for that Petitioner to have an individual report? 9905. MR ELVIN: On the? 9906. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: On the listing statement of the house. 9907. MR ELVIN: You mean the formal statement which says why the building is listed. That is already a public document. When buildings are listed formal listing particulars are provided and they are available on public registers. 9908. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: What about settlement? 9909. MR ELVIN: The individual Stage 3 reports - it was part of the agreement with Tower Hamlets - individual property owners will be able to request their individual Stage 3 reports. There are individual reports on each listed building. (Mr Berryman) Actually, I think we have gone further than that, Mr Elvin. I am sorry to interrupt. We have said that owners of listed buildings would automatically be sent copies of their settlement reports on their buildings. 9910. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Elvin. 9911. MR ELVIN: Mr Mould has reminded me, because he was dealing with that, that one was produced with regard to St Dunstan's Church a couple of weeks ago, so you will have seen a specimen Stage 3 report for a listed building. 9912. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Elvin, do you have a second witness you are calling? 9913. MR ELVIN: Mr second witness is going to be Mr Thornley-Taylor, who is going to deal with the noise impacts. I was hoping to deal with that very quickly.
The witness withdrew
9914. MR ELVIN: Sir, in order to save time, because I appreciate there is quite a lot of other business, I am not going to call Mr Anderson this afternoon. He was going to deal just with the benefits of Whitechapel Station. That is not an issue that the Spitalfields Society has really dealt with, so, with your leave, I will not call Mr Anderson this afternoon; I will hold him in reserve for a later occasion. 9915. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: I quite accept that. Thank you very much. 9916. MR ELVIN: In which case I will not call anyone other than Mr Thornley-Taylor.
MR RUPERT THORNLEY-TAYLOR, recalled Examined by MR ELVIN
9917. MR ELVIN: Mr Thornley-Taylor, like Mr Berryman, you are known to the Committee, as they say. Can I ask you just to deal with the issue of your view of the comparative noise impacts of the Hanbury Street location for a ventilation and intervention shaft and Woodseer Street? As we know, the assessments that were previously carried out, which are in Supplementary Environmental Statement 1, were for a shaft of much greater proportions and for the launch of tunnel-boring machines. (Mr Thornley-Taylor) That is quite true. I have prepared an aerial photograph. I do not know whether we can see it. 9918. It is GEN1002 and 1003. Which one would you like us to turn to? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) Could we start with 003, which is Hanbury Street? What I have endeavoured to do is to show at a glance what are the main features of the Hanbury Street site, from the point of view of the noise and vibration effect. Many of them we have heard about already, so I do not need to say very much, other than just to present this aerial view which I think does help to show the important features of the site. We have heard about the reduction in the size of the Hanbury Street site and the retention of Britannia House, which is top-left in the photograph. We have heard about the residential content of the building which I believe contains six flats (if I am wrong I am sure others will be able to give the accurate figure), which will under the Environmental Statement Assessment be eligible for temporary re-housing as well as noise insulation, if they should choose to remain. I am confident that when the revised assessment is carried out on the reduced extent of the site that will remain the case. It means that the combination of Britannia House and the Princelet Street block do effectively screen noise effects for other properties to the south and west, and it leaves us with significant effects, primarily in the three blocks on the right-hand side of the photograph. In the Environmental Statement there is some eligibility for noise insulation in the northern most of those blocks - that one. I think that will probably remain the case when the detailed reassessment is completed. If we now go to 002, which is the Woodseer Street photograph, as has already been made clear the fundamental difference is it does not have the Princelet Street block with the flats in it immediately overlooking it but its main feature is that to the north, the west and the south, the immediately adjoining premises are all industrial and there is a residential block to the south-west with an industrial building in between. Then to the east and the north-east there are some higher blocks which do have the disadvantage that the five-metre high noise barrier translated from the proposals at Hanbury Street will be overlooked by the upper floors and there will be fewer opportunities for noise mitigation. Apart from the presence of the flats eligible for temporary re-housing at Princelet Street, it is possible we may find there is a higher residual significant effect at Woodseer Street than Hanbury Street. It is unlikely to come out better from the noise point of view. 9919. MR ELVIN: Thank you very much, Mr Thornley-Taylor.
Cross-examined by MR PHILPOTT
9920. MR PHILPOTT: I will try to be as brief as I can. Mr Thornley-Taylor, I just want to stay looking at this photograph here, looking at the Woodseer Street site. I just want to get a little bit of help with this. Am I right in understanding it has got industrial on three sides? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) That is my understanding, yes. 9921. Whereas if one looks at the Hanbury Street site it has got residential in front of it and to the right-hand side and behind, though acknowledging the point about the noise barrier. (Mr Thornley-Taylor) A picture speaks a thousand words, and I do not think I can improve on the picture. 9922. We can see that difference between the two. You gave your views about the noise impact of the Woodseer Street site being used. Are there any figures that have been produced that one could look at to examine its impact? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) Some figures were produced by RPS who did the construction noise modelling, but they translated the whole of the Hanbury Street operations to Woodseer Street, and when one takes into account the reduced scale now proposed for the works at Hanbury Street they are not helpful; they do not provide a like-for-like comparison. 9923. So if my clients, or any other Petitioner, wanted to understand in more detail what those comparative impacts were by looking at the figures - the number of properties affected, the decibel levels of each individual property, the effect of noise barriers - there is nothing published that they can look at? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) No. Therefore, they would have to await the Environmental Statement that will accompany the amendment of provision 3. 9924. MR PHILPOTT: Thank you, sir. Those are my questions. 9925. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much indeed. Can I ask Dr Pedretti, do you have any other questions you wish to ask? 9926. DR PEDRETTI: Either of the witnesses? 9927. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Yes. Which witness would you like? 9928. DR PEDRETTI: Before that picture disappears ---- 9929. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, would you like one of the witnesses to stay? 9930. DR PEDRETTI: Who was it who said "the picture says a thousand words"? 9931. MR ELVIN: Mr Thornley-Taylor. 9932. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, would you come as close as you can, so our scribes can hear you. That is all we are asking. Carry on. 9933. DR PEDRETTI: I have this image which we received yesterday as part of my presentation that I did not get round to, and I was describing it as tunnel vision from a helicopter. These aerial pictures. Firstly, if you are a noise expert, are you aware of the decibel levels of being subjected to helicopters overhead for hours on end? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) Yes, I have done many helicopter inquiries. 9934. Last Sunday morning there were two helicopters from 12 to 1 o'clock - maybe ten past one - hovering above us. So these images actually made noise. I am not saying that was this image, I am saying one of the blighting effects - I have described as this black thing - is that we have way too much helicopter overhead ---- 9935. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, I am going to stop you again. Please, this must be something that is attributable to this Bill. Helicopters, unfortunately, are not. Do you have any other questions that are attributable to the Bill? 9936. DR PEDRETTI: I am concerned that the blocks that we are looking at on this thing are foreshortened and, therefore, we cannot see how many people - many, many people actually - live in them. A lot of them are very densely populated. 9937. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: That evidence has already been taken, thank you. 9938. DR PEDRETTI: What decibel levels are you proposing? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) The threshold for noise insulation by day is a figure of 75 and in the evening it is 65 and at night it is 55, subject to it being 5 above the prevailing ambient. The predictions that have been made for the ES scheme show that there would be eligibility for noise insulation - and this time, so that you can see, I will point to that one - there, and there will be eligibility for temporary re-housing, which takes place at levels 10 greater than the ones I have just mentioned, in this block, and there will be lower levels which are regarded as significant effects in the Environmental Statement but they are not so great as to trigger eligibility for secondary glazing. Those levels are visible in this plan. You need very good colour vision to be able to distinguish, but to the right of Spital Street at its junction with Hanbury Street is the eligibility for noise insulation which I have just mentioned. Slightly to the right there is a thicker, blue line which indicates that there is a significant effect but not so great as to trigger eligibility for noise insulation. Then as you go further along towards Greatorex Street there is a further thick blue line, which signifies residual significant effect. To the west of the worksite all those coloured lines will disappear because the retention of the Britannia House building will prevent the opening up of the gap that caused formerly, in the Environmental Statement assessment, the eligibility for noise insulation on the south side of Princelet Street. 9939. Can I ask you a question? How high is the source of the noise that you have measured? At what level do you expect? Assuming this is only the finished ventilation you are talking about. (Mr Thornley-Taylor) No. 9940. Or are you talking about the building noise? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) After the works are completed and the noise source on site is the tunnel ventilation fan, it will not normally run, but on occasions when it does run it will be designed so that it meets the Crossrail policy on noise from fixed plant, which will ensure it performs to the British Standard, which says that it will be no worse than marginal from the point of view of prediction of complaints. 9941. What my question is going to is the height of that. You are saying everything is being shielded by Britannia House. Who knows that Britannia House will be there to shield it? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) I am not saying that Britannia House will be helpful in shielding noise from the permanent tunnel ventilation fan. Noise reduction of that source will be achieved by installing silencing equipment in the shaft, which will work at any height. 9942. Who maintains that? (Mr Thornley-Taylor) The maintenance of the tunnel ventilation fans is part of the maintenance of the railway as a whole. 9943. The lorries that go through Greatorex Street during the building, presumably they make noise. (Mr Thornley-Taylor) Yes, they do. 9944. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: I think that has been covered, Dr Pedretti. If you could move on, please. 9945. DR PEDRETTI: I was going to ask Mr Berryman ---- 9946. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Have you finished with this witness? 9947. DR PEDRETTI: Yes, thank you. I am sorry. I am nervous. 9948. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Please take your time, Dr Pedretti.
The witness withdrew
MR KEITH BERRYMAN, recalled Cross-examined by DR PEDRETTI
9949. DR PEDRETTI: What is the difference between the concepts that have been used to cover what I call design, namely safeguarding route alignment and options on corridors? (Mr Berryman) Can you repeat the question? 9950. I made in my Petition a statement about that curve coming out of Liverpool Street station. I received in response to it a suggestion that the design level was appropriate for a high brick build (?). The response document giving me that answer, you were presupposing the design was separate from route alignments was separate from choosing corridors. Now, in my book, the thing you have called iterative is reiterative. Designing is something that is constantly asking questions, going back and forth and back and forth. (Mr Berryman) Indeed. 9951. DR PEDRETTI: It is not something which takes legal requirements or accounting requirements or lists and checks and points. That is only what you do after you have looked at the ground and informed yourself well about what is going on and actually come up with a common-sense sensible solution. You do not take the solution you want and tick the boxes --- 9952. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, can you ask a question, please? I must keep you on what we are talking about. 9953. DR PEDRETTI: The answer that I was given to why the curve went one way, which is a different answer than other people must have received, was to do with something called Information Paper A1. 9954. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Can you get Information Paper A1 on the screen, please? 9955. DR PEDRETTI: In which paragraph 2.3 describes the LEWS report. That concerns the statement that I made earlier about the 1991 scheme which was rejected and how in history that scheme got given to Cross London Rail Links to study again. The report concluded that work should be carried out to define this project in greater detail. 9956. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, we have got it on the screen. Do let Mr Berryman answer, please. (Mr Berryman) I could not really give a better description of the design process than Dr Pedretti just gave in terms of iteration of thought and the way in which one has to go back and keep looking at the fundamental issues again and again. The LEWS is the London East-West Study and this concluded that we should construct a railway line from east to west in London but that there was greater project definition required for what the project should actually consist of. 9957. DR PEDRETTI: Can I ask my question, in that case? What is written here (and the amount of information we get given that is half-true or provides us with somewhere else, this is the answer I got) is that that report concluded that a rail link. So my first question is what was the assumption that extended the tunnels eastward, rather than the rail link that could have been meant by that? (Mr Berryman) The rail link that was designed in 1992 recognised the geography of London in 1992. Since then the geography of London has changed significantly; the most notable feature is the development of Canary Wharf, but there is also an imperative, I think, now to develop other areas in the East of London, such as Stratford. The Thames Gateway concept has been developed since 1992 and in reviving the project what we sought to do was to take account of those changes to the geography and the policy which has occurred since the original scheme existed. 9958. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, your next question, please. 9959. DR PEDRETTI: You mentioned a considerable amount of design criteria like connected to the City, the Thames Gateway and so on. When were those decisions made? Are you describing ---- (Mr Berryman) Those decisions were made in 2001 and early 2002. There were a number of options developed as to where the trains should go outside the central London area - I think there were about seven in the east and six in the west, from memory - and a brief appraisal of those on cost-benefit terms was done to select the best performers. On that basis the ultimate routes were selected. 9960. DR PEDRETTI: The assumption about tunnels is still somewhat puzzling. If we were designing it all over again today ---- 9961. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, I am sorry, I am going to stop you. This has been gone through. You brought this up this morning as well, Dr Pedretti. 9962. DR PEDRETTI: I have not brought up the Thames Gateway at all. 9963. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: The Thames Gateway? 9964. DR PEDRETTI: That is what I have just had as an answer. The reason we have a tunnel is because of the Isle of Dogs and the Thames Gateway project. Both of those are to the south, I understand. 9965. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, it is the Hybrid Bill, we will look at it. The evidence you have asked for you have got. I am sorry, I do not class this as part of the Bill. It is part of the Bill but not at this stage. If you have any particular questions ---- 9966. DR PEDRETTI: It is part of this thing about reiterating and about consultation. I am part of a group of people that would have been seriously affected by the Hanbury Street shaft. The whole of that community was purposely excluded from consultation until Brick Lane, second round. 9967. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Dr Pedretti, we have heard this evidence. We accept that you do not want the tunnel. We accept that you do not want the tunnel near you. We have heard your evidence. We accept that. As the Committee we will make a decision on what we have heard from you. Have you anything new to add? 9968. DR PEDRETTI: What about Katrina (?)? Let me ask it as two questions. What about Katrina, which is a general one, which remains. Whitechapel Station is presupposed in all the options you have considered on page 7 of the same document, they all assume a tunnel from Liverpool Street to Whitechapel. When was the decision made that there would be a station in Whitechapel? (Mr Berryman) I could not tell you exactly. It would have been sometime in 2002, I would imagine. I have to say that having a station at Whitechapel is a fairly crucial point in the development of the network to allow the various train services to interact with one another. So the East London Line and the District Line connect to Whitechapel. The object of the exercise is to improve that connectivity. 9969. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: May I say to both of you, we will take that into consideration. The points have been made; the Committee will look at that. 9970. DR PEDRETTI: There was a mention earlier of three substandard curves ---- 9971. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: We have discussed that already. 9972. DR PEDRETTI: I am saying the curve northwards was described as substandard by Mr Berryman last week in connection with some discussions. Thank you. 9973. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much indeed.
The witness withdrew
9974. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: I intend now to go through the other witnesses. We have very roughly 25 minutes before we step down. I would remind Petitioners, please, if you have new things to say, say them; if they are repeated I will stop you. 9975. MR ELVIN: I do not want to put a spanner in the works but I think that Mr Philpott would like some guidance from the Committee as to when you would like to hear his short closing. Would you like that at the end of the day? 9976. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Philpott, my deepest apologies. Thank you, Mr Elvin, for pulling me up short. 9977. MR ELVIN: I was proposing to close at the end of the day rather than any other time. 9978. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: I know you were, and I do apologise to Mr Philpott. 9979. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: I am aware that some of those behind me are not necessarily part of this Petition and may have certain points. Sir, there are three points that I want to make in closing, and I will try and keep this brief. The first is that this alignment runs through what is clearly, even in terms of central London, a very sensitive location. It includes very dense areas of residential development, an unusually concentrated number of listed buildings and a conservation area, and also a lot of small businesses, small businesses along the streets that are affected, which, by their very nature, are sensitive to disruptions of traffic use and so on. It seems to us to be pretty clear that it is engineering considerations rather than the environmental impacts upon ground which have been the driving force in choosing this particular alignment and this location for the shaft site. We say that if one were looking at the above ground environmental impacts as a driving factor one would not have settled on Hanbury Street. 9980. We can see it is clear that Hanbury Street is much worse than Woodseer 2, which is the one that has been developed in most detail, both in terms of its impact on residential property - so far as we can assess it without the detailed information - impact on listed buildings - and it is absolutely clear from the drawings that it runs under a far greater number of listed buildings that Woodseer 2 - and also in terms of the impact on local businesses from traffic disruption. We say that if one looks at the Woodseer 2 option, and if one applies even the mildest degree of optimisation to allow traffic to come in and out of forward gear it is plainly going to be less disruptive to traffic movements than having HGVs unloading - and potentially loading of course - along Hanbury Street, which is very narrow and not appropriate as a place for the lorries to be generally positioned. We know that other HGVs, from the evidence we have heard, already go up and down there and they would have to wait or they would have to block the lane off completely to oncoming traffic. The knock-on effects of that on traffic coming down from the streets that run into Hanbury Street, run into Spital Street can be readily imagined, and we have heard evidence that that impact happens already, even without a major worksite at a very sensitive point in that highway network. 9981. The second point is this. So far as those important impacts are concerned we say that the objective should be to minimise those so far as is possible and so far as is reasonably consistent with engineering. It may well be that some engineering costs may increase in order to decrease the sort of impacts that I have been talking about, but that is just the sort of balancing exercise that the Committee, we say, is well equipped to look at. If it can be done - in other words, if those impacts can be minimised, then plainly they should be. We ask the Committee to consider this, that in so far as you are being asked to conclude that options such as Woodseer 2 or the southern route are simply not possible or feasible you have to be very sure in your own minds that the evidence has demonstrated that to be the case, not simply that it might incrementally increase the risk a little, it might involve slightly more in the way of money, and you have to be sure that those impacts and those obstacles have been demonstrated in a thorough, objective, impartial way. We say that they plainly have not. That is the third point. 9982. The assessment that has been made here has consistently been partial and anything but thorough. In cross-examination of Mr Berryman I gave the Committee some examples of where in the most recent report, the June 2006 report, prepared for public consumption at a time when the Promoters are defending the Bill and therefore one would think subject to some scrutiny, the assessment is anything but objective. Advantages for one site, which apply to both, are not applied to Woodseer 2; disadvantages of Hanbury Street are not mentioned as advantages of Woodseer 2. Similarly, when one looks to supposedly critical issues, such as the one kilometre distance is concerned, not only is something which is designed as an indicative guideline of one kilometre up-rated to what is said in the very beginning of the Executive Summary as a mandatory requirement, not only is the language is exaggerated but it has failed to mention that really there is no distinction between the two in that respect. If this was a genuinely objective and impartial document none of those criticisms would be available to be made. Those obvious flaws are only in there because the document is designed to prove a case; it is not designed to present you with an objective and impartial view of a comparison you are being asked to make. So we ask you to be very careful when you look at those documents. That was made even clearer when I went back to the document that was provided in the Promoter's Response - this was the G3 document - where I ran through the reasons given for choosing Hanbury Street, and without exception they could equally be applied to Woodseer 2. The only difference now relied upon from this great long list, produced at the beginning of this month - and we are not two weeks into this month yet - that is now seemingly relied upon is the need to go slightly deeper, to go under Bishops Square, and that will involve additional engineering complications. But as we have heard, nothing is impossible in engineering terms. Arup gave evidence last week which demonstrated that the difference between the two is nothing like as severe as the Promoters are presenting. The difficulty now with the Promoters giving an objective, impartial and realistic assessment in these matters is that they recognise the implications that are being shown, that actually there is a perfectly feasible alternative, which there plainly is - Woodseer 2. There is a feasible alternative. They are going to have to go back and look at it and that will take them time, but that is only reasonable when you bear in mind the magnitude and the scale of the impact associated with the route they have chosen. 9983. We say, in short, that the Committee has not been given a compelling case that the option chosen is the best of those available in terms of balancing engineering costs and constraints against environmental impacts. The evidence that we have, so far as it is available - and of course it is not all available at the moment - suggests strongly that Woodseer 2 is at least as good, if not better in many respects, and nor is therefore one in a position to say with any confidence that the earlier assessments, particularly the assessments in discounting the southern route, can be relied upon. Even at this stage with this degree of iteration we do not have reliable information, we do not have a fair and objective assessment of the route that has been promoted how fair and objective, how thorough were the assessments discounting the southern route? 9984. In conclusion, on the basis of those three points our basic plea today is the same as that which was put before you last week by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. In other words, we say, as they did, that the Committee should indicate firmly, before any final decision is made on the choice of Hanbury Street as opposed to Woodseer Street or, we say, the southern route, that a fully fledged objective and impartial assessment is made of their impacts because of the number of people affected, the number of listed buildings affected, the number of small businesses that are affected. That, we say, is the very least that we can expect. Sir, those are my submissions.
The Petition of Mrs Fiona Atkins and others
The Petition of Roy Adams and Pascale Adams
The Petition of Melanie and Nicholas Symons
MR RUPERT WHEELER appeared as Agent 9985. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Philpott, thank you very much indeed. Mr Wheeler, are you the Agent for Mrs Atkins? 9986. MR WHEELER: Yes, I am. I think we have made the points on behalf of the next three Petitioners, for which I am an Agent. 9987. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: That is the Adamses and the Symonses? 9988. MR WHEELER: Yes and our points are very similar to the points made by the Spitalfields Society, so we were not intending to repeat them again to you. 9989. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much indeed and thank you for making that very clear. Mr Da Silva? No. Mr Nesar Narunassar(?) and others? No. Huguenot Court Limited. Thank you, sir, would you please come forward?
The Petition of Huguenot Court Limited.
The Petition of Mark Stephen Lancaster & Suzanne Mary Lancaster.
MR MARK LANCASTER appeared as Agent.
9990. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: You are doing Mark and Suzanne Lancaster and Huguenot Limited? 9991. MR LANCASTER: That is correct, sir. If I can take the two together, a lot of the material has been covered but I do have a duty to say some of these things that I intended to say. My wife and I own a flat at 79B Brick Lane and another at 6 Huguenot Court. I am the Chairman of Huguenot Court Limited, which is a small company, a property management company for the lessees of that building. On this plan - again the colours are much easier when you are close to the screen - Huguenot Court is the dark blue area which is directly opposite on Princelet Street the planned shaft location. At that level it is the dark blue one at the right middle of the map; it is on the corner of Princelet Street and Spelman Street. The other property that I am referring to is shaded light blue; it is on the corner of Brick Lane, which runs north-south on the left side of that screen, and Hanbury Street, which runs east-west, as we know. There is the number 123 next to it, although that does not refer to my petition. My wife and I have been connected with this area since 1989, which is when we bought the flat on Brick Lane that I have just shown you. At that time it was a very rundown community and it has changed enormously; it has become a very vibrant, multicultural community with lots of artists, restaurants, fashion outlets, designers and creative work going on and it has become something of a tourist centre - it is mentioned now in lots of guidebooks. There is a great deal of heritage and wonderful architecture and it really is a very good community. Much has been going on and being developed and it is our fear that some of the proposals - although many of these now changed, and my Petition in that respect is out of date - the tunnelling strategy itself is very important. The work that is proposed could damage that community and its prosperity and I would not like to see that happen. 9992. I want to turn briefly to consultation and the jeopardy that we have been put in. We bought the flat on Brick Lane in May 1989, and the flat in Huguenot Court in June 2002. On neither of those occasions when we had environmental and local authority searches did any plans for Crossrail appear. So we were not warned that this proposal was coming forward when we made substantial property investments there. We have either lived in these properties or had our mail forwarded from them ever since 1989 and although the Promoters do say that there has been widespread consultation we only got notice of this at a very late stage, I think in January 2004. There is a list of meetings that is given in the response to my Petition from the Promoters, which is a long detailed list and it looks as though an awful lot of consultation has happened, but I would be very surprised if many of those meetings, apart from perhaps the Brady Art Centre one, when the community had actually been awakened to what was proposed were very well attended. I certainly challenge that the consultation was good enough; the notice was good enough to alert everybody in the area who has an interest to what was going on. I am still concerned about communications between the Promoters and people of the area because, for instance, I wrote in response to the response to my Petition, to Mr Mantey on 23 May. I spent a weekend studying the response, which is quite a task anyway, and I did not get a letter back until I prompted on Thursday last, and my letter arrived on Saturday via email, and I was due to appear here today on Tuesday. It is my opinion that we cannot have much confidence in, for instance, having notices of tunnel machines passing, of road closures and so on, unless Crossrail step up their act quite a lot on those communications. 9993. Turning to the location of the vent shaft, I am not going to say much about this because I think it has been covered very well, but I would only say on behalf of the Petitioners I represent, I put that it is very clear from the aerial photos shown early that there is conclusively more residential development and more people to be affected by the Hanbury Street site than the Woodseer Street site, and I would reiterate that the Woodseer Street site in our opinion is a much better site for that tunnel. 9994. I want to talk briefly about settlement. I am not qualified and I am not able to afford expensive engineers or expensive lawyers to make my case for me, but one of the residents of our block of Huguenot Court is an architect and he is a past President of the Royal Institution of British Architects, and he drew up a scale drawing, of which I brought 20 copies. (Same distributed) I did send one in earlier. 9995. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: This evidence will be A115. 9996. MR LANCASTER: The tube is 31 metres down below the ventilation building as drawn. Number 61 is the building that has been referred to as now going to stay, it is the flats that overlook the hole in the ground, which are supposed to shield Huguenot Court Limited, which is called HCL on this, from the noise effects, and that is the width of Princelet Street. What my colleague in the block has done is to draw a line at 45 degrees from the tube 31 metres down to show that Huguenot Court is likely, in our view, to have a settlement impact, and we wish to make sure that we as Petitioners are protected from that settlement by having condition surveys done in advance and regular checks on our buildings to make sure that there is no settlement impact. That drawing shows a building which I think is 25 metres from the tube site. 9997. Turning briefly to the other property I am representing with my wife, that is within five metres of the running tunnel as it is currently proposed. I sent a letter to Crossrail saying would I be affected by settlement and what steps would be taken? I was told I was in the category nought, there would be no settlement within five metres of this tunnel, and this was a letter that I received on Saturday. So I am very anxious about that and I want to make sure that I am considered to be in a higher category than that and that that building too, which is in a conservation area, is monitored before, during and after the construction of this tube. Of course, moving the ventilation site to Woodseer Street would take away a lot of this impact because it would move north through industrial buildings, and we have been through that. 9998. I want to talk about compensation. I suffer from a mental illness called manic depression bi-polar affected disorder and I am not able to work. My wife is pensionable age. We have made provision for our old age and for our living by renting out property - both these flats are rented out and we depend on them to pay the mortgages and to cover our living expenses. I am concerned that the noise and disruption of these works and the long-term effects of the railway running will make it more difficult to let our properties at appropriate levels of rent. We need to rely on this money, as I say, to pay mortgages and for ourselves, and I would like to ask the Committee to consider providing compensation for us and other people who are affected by the building of this railway in a financially negative way. I have been referred continually to the National Compensation Code and I am not very good at reading these things, but I am trying to read it. All I can understand from it is that if you are being compulsorily purchased there will be some compensation. If you are not there will be none. Maybe that is not correct. 9999. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Lancaster, I will stop you there. There is a very strict criteria to what compensation can and cannot be paid, which is laid down by Parliament. We are not, as a Committee, looking at that; we are not allowed to. So if you would like to move on to your next point? 10000. MR LANCASTER: My next point is to do with the noise and vibration, and if this problem can be solved then maybe we do not need compensation. Obviously the construction of the railway and the running of the railway when it is built underneath these properties will have a noise and vibration impact on them and all I am asking here is for the Committee to ensure, on our behalf, that the absolute best possible insulation, vibration protection materials and everything else that can be done to make the construction and the running of this railway as un-intrusive as possible. 10001. On the subject of professional fees, I understand that we are not able to claim anything for any professional fees in preparing presentations here, and that is why I am doing it, and in preparing our petitions and so on. However, I do want to make sure that if we do need condition checks and surveys and work done to ensure that there is not subsidence, that professional fees for those reports are covered by the Promoter. 10002. I am concerned about hours of work and I think that the local authority has dealt with that. 10003. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: They have indeed, Mr Lancaster. 10004. MR LANCASTER: Noise and vibration management. We are told in the response to our Petition that a plan will be prepared where appropriate. I would just ask the Committee, we have not seen this plan and I gather that it is not yet done, but we would ask that the noise, disturbance and dust are controlled in some way, preferably perhaps by the local authority having powers to measure it, control it and prevent that going on during construction. We feel that acceptable levels of dust emissions, noise and pollution from the vehicles and so on should be agreed in advance and adhered to by the construction companies and that such plant as pumps, generators, diggers and so on, the noise from those should also be controlled and monitored. 10005. Two small points, perhaps. We are concerned about the amount of parking. The area is very difficult for parking, it is extremely congested and it is very hard. We are concerned that contractors and other employees involved with the railway, their parking should be managed or they should preferably be arriving by public transport when working here, and if their parking cannot be managed we would like to see the local authority able to enforce the existing parking regulations properly and have support for that. 10006. Finally, again a small point. We noticed in the response that there are plans to deal with pest infestation. I presume this means the release of rats into the area from digging up sewers and so on, and I would like to see that the Promoters provide extra resources to make sure that that health hazard is controlled during construction works. 10007. That is my Petition. 10008. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Mould. 10009. MR MOULD: Would you like me to respond? 10010. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Have you any direct response to anything? I think most of it has been covered elsewhere. 10011. MR MOULD: I think that is right. I can respond very briefly on the points that have been raised. 10012. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: If you feel that something can be added please do. The only thing I would ask is perhaps you would write to Mr Lancaster just to explain the code on compensation? 10013. MR MOULD: We can certainly do that. In fact I think we have sought to do that already. 10014. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: If you would; I think Mr Lancaster would appreciate it. 10015. MR MOULD: We can add a little more on that. I will work backwards, if I may? On the question of controlling pests, that, as you know already, is something that will be dealt with under the provisions of the Code of Construction Practice. The employees' parking, certainly I think Mr Berryman has given evidence already to the Committee that we very much expect that public transport will be the primary source of transportation for Crossrail employees and workers to their place of work at the worksite, but beyond that control over Crossrail related traffic will be part of the Code of Construction Practice. 10016. I do not think I need to say any more about noise and vibration, you know about the COPA Regime. 10017. Perhaps I ought to say very briefly that in relation to settlement both of the properties that the Petitioner owns have been the subject of assessment as part of our settlement process and in terms of settlement effect - and that is the key point, it is not the lack of settlement, it is the lack of any settlement effect on these properties - the assessment shows that those effects are expected to be negligible. 10018. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you. Mr Lancaster, thank you very much indeed. Mr Cleovoulou, I am told by our deputy clerk that you want five minutes only, is that right? 10019. MR CLEOVOULOU: I do not say that, but I will make it as brief as I can. 10020. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: The reason is that at the moment I am inclined to adjourn until six o'clock. If you can do it in five I am happy to let you do it, but if it goes longer I would like to adjourn the Committee because we have been sitting here for quite at some time, as you are well aware. 10021. MR CLEOVOULOU: I am happy to come back. 10022. MR LIDDDELL-GRAINGER: Then I will adjourn the Committee until six o'clock.
The Committee adjourned until 6 p.m.
Ordered: that Counsel and Parties be called in. 10023. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Could we have Mr Cleovoulou?
The Petition of Mr Panayiotis Cleovoulou and others was read.
Mr Cleovoulou appeared in person. 10024. MR CLEOVOULOU: I guess all I want to say is that I represent the owners and occupants of two Grade II English Heritage listed buildings in Puma Court. For those who know Puma Court, it is very popular with the tourists. It has been noted how they show particular regard to these buildings; they are 1720s buildings. I guess the route that they are on is also popular with the everyday commuters who go to and from work. What has been really good for us is that because of this level of popularity a lot of people who really do appreciate listed buildings show an interest in taking up residential tenancy with us and we really do value them. It is true to say they are not the easiest kind of building to live in but for people who really do appreciate them they pay what they can. 10025. We also have the benefit of having commercial tenants with us, again, because of the locality and the nature of the buildings; we have people that are trying to make a name for themselves. Basically, the purpose of my petition is that we are all concerned that the construction and subsequent use of the tunnel is going to disrupt us in one way or another. Did you know that the very existence of the tunnel under the buildings is going to increase the value of our insurance premiums? If my understanding is correct from the Promoters, and this is using my words, it is a personal problem, it is not really their department and it does not form part of the national compensation scheme, so if we could somehow address that it would be very much appreciated. 10026. The other concern is for the value of the buildings. The Promoters' response was that it would be unusual for the value of the properties to be affected, especially with all the precautions that would be taken with the latest mechanisms and what-have-you. I have done a little bit of my own research and have found out from reputable estate agents in the area, including Time & Time(?), that the property values will be affected and if vibrations do exist it will have a serious effect on the property values. We appreciate the Promoters' feedback but at the end of the day it is just their perception of how they think things are going to turn out. Okay, they have done all the precautions but the professionals in the area seem to think otherwise, so you can understand if I come across with the point that the folder that I have been provided with as the response to the petition does not really give me the proper assurance that I need. I would like to see guarantees before anything begins and to me a guarantee means something on a piece of paper with names and signed. I do not want to be referred to countless compensation documents that most of us normal people do not understand. None of us wants to go through the hassle of being inconvenienced because of a project such as this. Do not get me wrong: I think the project is a wonderful idea. We all understand the benefits it is going to bring to all of us, but at what cost? We really want everybody here to give a listening ear. If you do not mind my mentioning this point, in Greek the word "listen", which is "agoua(?)", has two meanings. It means to listen with your physical ears but also to act on what you hear, so we hope that people will take that on board today. 10027. Regarding the issue of damage to the buildings, I have taken on board the comments by the Promoters that they will make good any damages that have been made; thank you very much for that. My only question at this point is, when you say "make good" will they be made good immediately when the damage is done? Will they be done by the building contractors of Crossrail or do we have to make the unnecessary expense? Does it have to go through some kind of compensation scheme that will take who knows how long to go through? These are genuine concerns to which I do not know the answers. 10028. Regarding the issue of vibration to the buildings, again, it has been on a similar note to what the Promoters have already said. The Promoters have assured me that they have taken all the precautions they can, especially with listed buildings, and they were very sensitive in this regard. They have done what they can to minimise it. Let me just give you the example of my washing machine. We installed a good quality washing machine in the building and the result was that the whole building vibrated, so naturally we had to take the washing machine away. We have been told, both by Crossrail and by other teams, that the walls of the listed buildings are structurally sound but this does not mean that no vibrations are going to be caused at the floor level and we really do not want that kind of inconvenience. The vibrations are the most serious concern to us and it is going to have an impact left, right and centre to all the businesses, to all our tenants. We feel that we might lose our occupational tenants and we really do not want that. If that is going to be the case I simply do not want the tunnel to be immediately under the property. It is as simple as that. Of course, if Crossrail do pursue having their way we are going to agree some kind of compensation and, correct me if I am mistaken, but listed buildings, which are not the same as standard, well-structured buildings, need to be given particular consideration when it comes to compensation. It should not be regarded in the same manner as standard compensation plans. 10029. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Cleovoulou, compensation is set not by us but by the House. 10030. MR CLEOVOULOU: You mentioned that earlier but I do not want ----- 10031. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: I am sorry; it cannot be taken into consideration now. 10032. MR CLEOVOULOU: Okay, fair enough. Again, with regard to the assurances, I went to the washing machine example. We are all familiar with the Millennium Bridge. It is a wonderful project but what happened? It started to wobble. Okay, it was fixed at the end but the point is that it is not fair for assurances to be made and then suddenly to find that your buildings actually do wobble, and in the case of delicate, age-sensitive materials it is not a flexible building, it is going to fall down. I really do not want the tunnel under the buildings if this is the kind of risk that we are going to be exposed to. If they can be looked into to see how they can be shifted somewhat that would be good. I do not know how vibrations work. Okay, I have studied physics and I do know that vibrations travel from the immediate vicinity, so even if the buildings are slightly away from the tunnel it does not mean that the vibrations will not affect us. What the level of vibrations will be I really do not know, so if you can take that into consideration that would also be appreciated. 10033. With regard to professional fees, I understand that this is a burden we have to undertake. Listed buildings, especially in this location, are very valuable, but remember that they are illiquid. They are resources ----- 10034. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Cleovoulou, I am going to stop you again. We have covered that; that has already been discussed at great length. Mr Elvin and his team have already covered that. Can we pass on to any other points you have? 10035. MR CLEOVOULOU: In that case, I do not know if I have raised every single point in the petition response but I would just like to make the statement that all the issues I have raised still stand. In my petition I requested that because of the nature of the buildings we should be given a personalised response. Every listed building owner should be treated individually, and I think they are to some extent. 10036. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: They are. 10037. MR CLEOVOULOU: But what I asked for was personal, legally binding documents. We should be told. We should not have to go away and search for what kind of compensation or whatever else we should be benefiting from should something go wrong. Nobody wants this hassle. Unfortunately, for those who knew my dad, who had been for a long time, 30 years, a hairdresser in the area, he has now passed away and this project has come at a very difficult time for all of us. We are still suffering financial burdens and we really do not want to go through the inconvenience of having to deal with compensation and we will not be able to be paid ----- 10038. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Cleovoulou, I am going to bring you back, please. I think you know what I am going to say. We have no say in that, unfortunately. I think you are going to wind up. Are you just giving your final statement? 10039. MR CLEOVOULOU: Yes, I am just coming to the end. 10040. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Please carry on. 10041. MR CLEOVOULOU: I said at the beginning that the project is a wonderful idea. It is going to bring many benefits to the area and we appreciate that but, please, we do not want to develop some kind of a hate relationship between the Promoters and the people on whom it has impacted. We want to benefit and feel proud of your project, so if you can give us our due consideration it would be very much appreciated. Thank you very much. 10042. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much, Mr Cleovoulou. Mr Elvin, have you any points that you would like to make? 10043. MR ELVIN: I do not propose to call any evidence but, like Mr Mould with the last Petitioner, I will simply say this. The Committee has seen our letter to Tower Hamlets which makes specific assurances with regard to the provision of settlement reports. The Petitioner is entitled to his stage three settlement report and to discuss that, and you will have seen from the letter I showed earlier that there will be a guide produced for the owners of listed buildings in due course which will explain how this will all work before construction starts. Could I also say that in terms of vibration, although this does not appear because it does not apply to this particular route window, an assessment has been made for those listed buildings which may be vulnerable to damage from vibration, and where certain criteria have been exceeded mitigation measures have been considered. You have not seen anything with regard to that because there are no properties within this route window which fall within the criteria where there is a risk of damage from vibration. The only vibration which will be perceived will be during construction. That will be perceptible but not significant. There will be vibration as the tunnel-boring machine passes under. As the petition response document says, it will be perceptible, no more than that, and there will be some perceptible vibration from the construction train as it passes through the tunnel but these are short term impacts and they will not cause damage. 10044. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much, Mr Elvin. Could I ask Zoe Hudson please to come to the stand?
The Petition of Robin Tutty and others was read.
MS ZOE HUDSON appeared on behalf of the Petitioner. 10045. MS HUDSON: Good evening. My name is Zoe Hudson. I have lived in the Spitalfields area for ten years now and I am here to represent not only myself but also seven other Petitioners. You will notice that they are a mix of Bengali, Indian and English. They are my neighbours, they are my friends, they are people in the local restaurants. What I really want to explain today is how Crossrail have behaved so appallingly to the people of Spitalfields with respect to a lack of consultation and information that we have received. Would I be allowed to go into a very brief history about my personal experience of consultation with Crossrail? 10046. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: No. This is to do with this Bill, Ms Hudson. This Bill is looking specifically at how things will affect you within the context of Crossrail. We cannot take anything else into consideration. 10047. MS HUDSON: But it is all about a lack of information that we have received, that we have not been able to get any information to be able to ----- 10048. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: To do with the Crossrail Bill? 10049. MS HUDSON: To do with Crossrail. 10050. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Then of course you may. 10051. MS HUDSON: I first heard about it in October 2003, only because of my flatmate, when a single-page letter appeared through the door explaining that her flat might be compulsorily purchased and could we go to a meeting held at Guildhall subsequently. I went to this meeting, a half day. We got to Guildhall. The meeting had been moved with no prior information. We were told it had moved to Ironmongers' Hall. There were no instructions how to get there. We got to Ironmongers' Hall. There was nobody there, there was no set-up. We had to wait half an hour, and then there was no information. There was certainly no information on the Hanbury Street site. I am aware that there was another consultation at Woodham Gardens. 10052. Mr Berryman showed some very interesting stats about consultation in the area; they were very impressive figures. The numbers at Guildhall - there were only 30 there, and that was shortly after, in October. On 29 January Crossrail put their first report on consultation to the Government. We have seen subsequent consultation in the area but a lot of this has been driven by the local community and it has happened in a very drip, drip, drip manner and has not come from Crossrail proffering it. I refer to Mr Berryman's comments again this afternoon when he was talking about the chronology of what happens with Crossrail, that you have to devise some plan before you can put it out to consultation, and this is his quote: "You have to have something to present". They had nothing to present about the tunnelling on Hanbury Street. I do not know if that is consultation. It was about Crossrail and the link but nothing in detail about what was going to the area in Spitalfields. 10053. In August 2004 I am sure you are aware there were was the second round of an information exchange and I am sure you are aware that this was held in a brewery in Brick Lane. Seventy to 75 per cent of the local population are Bengali Muslims. It is forbidden in their religion to go into a brewery and you have to cross through the Vibe Bar to get into this information site. With respect to his impressive numbers I know information sites were put up at Liverpool Street and Whitechapel. Spitalfields around Princelet Street and Brick Lane is a residential area, and it is residential because people work in that area. They do not live in Spitalfields and commute out to Essex; they live and work locally. They do not go to Liverpool Street, so while his figures were impressive I want to know what information they were conveying given that if you went to these sites there was little about the tunnelling at Hanbury Street. 10054. In June 2005 - we have a big festival in the area - myself and a neighbour canvassed about 200 people, locals, people in the playground, neighbours, to ask them if they knew about Crossrail. A lot of them did know, to be fair, about the station at Whitechapel but none of them knew about the tunnelling in Hanbury Street. People who live at the bottom of Hanbury Street who are going to be directly affected knew nothing about the project, and this was two weeks ago last year. The typical thing when I go up to a local in the street is, I say, "Have you heard about Crossrail?", and they will say, "It's that new link that's going from west to east", and, "We are going to get a new station at Whitechapel". I ask them about the ramifications, what they are going to do in the area. I say, "They are going to put a big tunnelling site in Hanbury Street," - and they all know the area - "they are going to put a big conveyor belt going all the way along Pedley Street", so another conveyor belt that is going to take all the spoil ----- 10055. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: That is now not going to happen. 10056. MS HUDSON: Yes, okay. 10057. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Elvin launched that this morning and made it very clear that the Promoters are not going to do that. It will only be the Hanbury Street site. 10058. MS HUDSON: Okay, and they would say, "That cannot be true. I would have heard about it", and then I would show them the route, show them the curve from Liverpool Street to Whitechapel, and they would say, "Why are they not building it in a straight line?", and I would say, "Because they have to take the spoil out at Hanbury Street". We have asked Crossrail for the last two years why they could not tunnel from both ends, and that is what everybody in the area has said, rather than having to tunnel from Hanbury Street, and I am fantastically pleased that in April they presented their revised tunnelling strategy. However, this looks like it is going back to front because originally the route was part devised to get the spoil out. You do not need to get the spoil out now, so why do you still need that route? 10059. The lack of consultation over the last three years has been extremely frustrating. The Select Committee have learnt more in the last week than I have learnt over the last three years from Crossrail and it has been extremely enlightening. The one thing that has come out from not just the evidence today but also from some of the transcripts I have read is that there has been a woeful lack of information, not just for us but it seems to be along the route and there seems to be an awful lot of joined-up thinking. 10060. Dealing with Crossrail has been extremely frustrating and when they have produced information it has been misleading. Most professional bodies have rules of professional conduct and I am sure Crossrail must have some but my analogy for dealing with Crossrail is that they were a doctor I think they would have been struck off. For the sake of the record I do not accept any of the responses I have been given from this petition; I would just like that on the record. From hearing a couple of the bits of information today I am intrigued about why as the Select Committee when you did your site assessment you were not shown around the Woodseer Street site. It seems like you were marched straight past it, and, while they explained about changes as a consequence of consultation, they did not say about any of the changes as a consequence of consultation in the Spitalfields area. 10061. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Ms Hudson, could you come on to what you want us to do? The consultation I accept. I am not sure we can do much about what has happened but what we need to know is what you and the people you represent want. Can you come on to that? 10062. MS HUDSON: Yes. I think the consultation is endemic about their behaviour and their approach, so I do think it is important even though it is historical. From my experience to date and the evidence presented to the Select Committee I think it is clear that Crossrail have not done their job properly regarding consultation, alignment and impact, especially in our area. The decision on this route alignment and the placement of the ventilation shaft is going to have a significant effect on our community in terms of health, noise, vibration. You have heard it all before. It really is a residential community; you have walked around there, so wherever you place a ventilation shaft it is going to have a huge impact on the restaurants and all the local shops. 10063. I think it is unfair on the community to impose this without proper evaluations on some basic fundamental principles, such as alignment and impact. I am really glad I have not got your job because I think it is completely unfair for you as a Select Committee to be asked to make a decision based on woefully inadequate information. What we would like you to do is not to decide. We suddenly seem to have got into the situation, is it Hanbury or Woodseer? It should not even be that. I think Crossrail need to go back and look at all the alternative options and the comparisons should be made in a fair and transparent way, like for like, not just what they are cherry-picking for the latest one. That certainly has not been done in terms of the impact and the various other things. This is not just about whether it is Woodseer or Hanbury but to explore the Bishop's Square and also the southern route which was brought up again this morning. We would like this to be done in a fair and transparent way. That is what we would like you to do. 10064. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Hudson. Mr Elvin, have you anything to contribute? 10065. MR ELVIN: There is nothing I want to ask the Petitioner. I do not want to get into a debate about the pros and cons of the consultation. The Committee has our picture. I think what may be helpful is that I have been given a briefing note on the consultation activities in the Spitalfields area and I am going to ask for it to be ingested into the system so that the Select Committee can have it available because it summarises specifically the consultation activities in the Spitalfields area and I will make sure copies are available for tomorrow. 10066. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: If you could, please, Mr Elvin. I think Ms Hudson has brought up some useful points that we do need to look at. 10067. MR ELVIN: This is about 12, 14 pages. It will give you a little more detail as to what has happened. 10068. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: If you could and if you would let the Clerk have it. 10069. MR ELVIN: I will make sure that the Petitioner gets a copy as well. 10070. MS HUDSON: Thank you. Could I just make one comment on that? As I said, it is a residential area and people work locally. They do not go through Liverpool Street, they do not even use Whitechapel and the other consultation places were 25 minutes' walk away. 10071. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much, Ms Hudson. That is very kind. I would like to call now Mr and Mrs Critchley.
The Petition of H J and S F Critchley was read.
MR AND MRS CRITCHLEY appeared in person. 10072. MRS CRITCHLEY: I am Sandy Critchley and this is my husband John. I am going to read this presentation. 10073. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: This document will be A116. 10074. MRS CRITCHLEY: We both live at 14 Wilkes Street. Our house is above one of the proposed tunnels according to the currently planned route. We do not intend to take a great deal of your time but there are several important points I would like to make. We are very pleased and relieved that the decision has been taken not to actually tunnel from the Hanbury Street site, but under current plans, as you have heard, there will still be a huge hole there with a massive amount of spoil to be taken away by lorry through narrow streets and past residential blocks and primary schools. 10075. We have a vibrant and multi-racial residential and business community in Spitalfields and for centuries it has been an area where immigrants live after arriving in Britain. We all rub along together really well and personally we believe that our community would still be devastated by the remaining ventilation shaft and its associated work at that site in Hanbury Street. Now that Crossrail have made the decision not to tunnel from the middle as well as from both ends there is absolutely no reason for them to stick to the planned benchmark route. We believe that Crossrail have not adequately investigated the alternative routes that would avoid disruption and damage in our community. Why can the more northerly Woodseer route under the old Truman Brewery not be used? In addition to other advantages, as you may have seen from the photographs, the area is hardly used by the public at all. It is not on the way to anywhere. There are no supermarkets down the end of that road, there are no shops, there are no schools. It is very little frequented by the public. The reasons quoted so far by Crossrail for not using that route still do not seem in the least credible, especially, again, after seeing the aerial photos. 10076. As you have heard, there is also a potential southerly route following the District Line under Whitechapel Road. Crossrail do not appear to have given this any serious consideration at all. We look to you, our elected representatives, to make sure that Crossrail explore all the alternatives thoroughly. 10077. We moved to Spitalfields nine years ago to be near our daughter who was then a medical student and she is now a junior surgeon at the Royal London Hospital. It was the only reasonably sized house we could afford in central London. It is also very beautiful inside. Our house was built by Huguenot silk weavers in 1724. The picture gives you an idea of what the whole street looks like. Our house is the third along, the one with the red brick façade, and it has poor foundations and was not really built to last. It and all its ancient neighbours have somehow managed to survive for almost 300 years despite wartime bombs and developers' bulldozers, but they are fragile and vulnerable. Our two conservation areas in Spitalfields represent a unique collection of early Georgian houses and contain priceless relics of the past, including number 19 Princelet Street, which is Europe's only Museum of Immigration, and that is Grade II* listed and already very near collapse. We are extremely concerned about damage to our flimsy house as a result of the Crossrail tunnelling and traffic. 10078. We do not trust anything that Crossrail says. Their local consultation process was pathetic and they seemed initially reluctant to inform us of a change of route from the originally projected route that would have gone harmlessly under the Truman Brewery. We ask the Select Committee to make sure that if the final route does run under our dozens of beautiful, frail old houses, some of which are formally listed and some not - curiously, ours, although it was built in 1724, is not listed; it is some sort of fluke - then we ask you to make sure that any damage to the structures from subsidence or any other cause is made good and properly compensated. Crossrail admit that our own house could suffer up to 28 millimetres of uneven subsidence which is more than an inch. 10079. We were surprised to learn today that Crossrail is going to carry out further assessments on all the listed buildings, but we understood from meetings the Spitalfields Society has had with Crossrail engineers that the phase three reports they had done in April 2004 were the last assessments they would do simply because no buildings in the Spitalfields area scored more than two against their assessment criteria. In view of the recent site inspection, when they re-assessed number 19 Princelet Street as scoring three, and Crossrail agreed to assess Christ Church, what further assessments does the Promoter now plan? 10080. We would also ask the Select Committee to ensure that any noise from the construction and then the trains themselves is minimised and that satisfactory sound insulation is fitted. We are told that the noise level may be 40 decibels from the trains and they would run beneath us every two minutes. What does 40 decibels mean? Crossrail have quoted noise standards that are difficult to locate and impossible to understand, but this level has been likened to the sound of a lorry passing by at the end of the street - a not inconsiderable nuisance every two minutes if you are trying to work or sleep. There are many writers, artists and musicians living and working in our community who would find the repetitive rumbling of trains passing beneath irritating at best and at worst totally off-putting. We personally are also worried about one of the high profile features of Spitalfields, the Spitalfields Festival. It is an internationally renowned music festival which uses our church, Christ Church, Spitalfields, as a venue and which would find the future noise levels completely unacceptable and make recordings of performances, by the BBC, for example, impossible. 10081. We would also like to point out that the funding for Crossrail is far from secure. That is putting it mildly. A final decision to go ahead without committed funding ----- 10082. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mrs Critchley, the funding is outside the scope of this Committee. 10083. MRS CRITCHLEY: Yes, I know, but what I am trying --- it is relevant, actually. What I am saying is that a final decision to go ahead without committed funding, which is the state of it at the moment, would mean that the project might never happen because it would not have the funding but our community would suffer almost infinite blight from the public awareness that Parliament had given it the green light. Thank you for your time and patience. We look to you to safeguard our property, which is our only asset, for which we have both worked hard for more than 40 years, and above all we ask you to protect the interests of the entire community in Spitalfields. 10084. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you. Mr Critchley, did you want to say anything? 10085. MR CRITCHLEY: No, thank you. 10086. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Mould, have you anything to add? 10087. MR MOULD: I am not going to call any evidence on this one either because I think the Petitioners have raised points that you now have heard about in some detail, but perhaps I can just say one or two words. First of all, in relation to settlement issues, we have undertaken a settlement assessment on the Petitioners' property and the results of that assessment, which accords with the process that you have been told about in earlier evidence, indicates that there will be negligible effects from the tunnelling works beneath the Petitioners' property at 14 Wilkes Street and we are not proposing any further assessment in the light of that finding. 10088. Just to clarify a point, in relation to the assurance that was repeated today about the disclosure of reports to Petitioners we should make it clear, in case there was any misunderstanding from what was said a minute ago, that that of course does not commit us necessarily to undertaking any further assessment work. We have carried out the stage three assessments through what we call the first iteration in relation to each individual listed building that falls within the ten millimetre settlement contour and we have indicated to the Committee what that entails. As we have indicated, we are certainly going to make available the reports that get us to that stage but as to whether any further work is required that is a matter that falls to be considered in relation to each individual building depending on the risk category that that building has been assessed as falling within. What we have said, of course, is that we anticipate that when Petitioners, if they choose to do so, ask for and receive the settlement report in relation to their building if a report has been prepared on that basis, they may wish, for example, to obtain their own advice and they may raise points which they say call for further consideration. We will, of course, consider any suggestions of that kind sympathetically and decide whether any further work is required. You have an example from earlier on today in relation, I think it was, to 19 Princelet Street where just such an approach has been undertaken. I hope that gives some comfort at least to the positive spirit in which we put forward the assurance that we did, but also the context in which it is offered. 10089. I say nothing more about the issues regarding the alignment. You have heard a lot about that today. You have also heard more than you need to perhaps about lorry movements, although it is important just to make one factual point. There is no proposal to route Crossrail construction noise along Wilkes Street. All the construction traffic goes well to the east of the Petitioners' property. 10090. I ought to say a sentence or two about noise just to remind the Committee that it has heard presentations and evidence from Mr Thornley-Taylor about the approach we take to design and to the design criteria for groundborne noise, both during the construction and operation phase. You will recall that the approach we take, which is to have a criterion of 40 dBA for residential properties generally, is one that is based on experience with the Jubilee Line extension and other projects and has been found to be a design standard which, if applied, has resulted in a favourable outcome in terms of noise and vibration and disturbances. We have explained that in earlier evidence. The prediction in relation to the Petitioners' property, located as it is just to the north of the eastbound-running tunnel at Wilkes Street, is that the groundborne noise will be less than 30 dBA LA max, and you will recall the relationship between predicted and design criterion which Mr Thornley-Taylor explained in his presentation to you. 10091. Finally, the Petitioners mentioned Christ Church, Spitalfields, where the prediction is that the groundborne noise from the scheme will meet the prescribed concert hall standard, which I think is 25 dBA LA max, so we are confident that an acceptable noise environment will be achieved in relation to that sensitive property. 10092. Sir, unless there is any other matter in relation to this petition that is all I wanted to say. 10093. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Yes, Mr Critchley? 10094. MR CRITCHLEY: Could I just say that I did not realise that a settlement assessment had been done on our house. I did not realise that we had to ask for it. We will obviously write. It just seems fairly typical of their communication policy. 10095. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you very much, Mr and Mrs Critchley. May I call Aulad Miah? The Petition of Shahjalal Community Group was read.
MR AULAD MIAH appeared on behalf of the Petitioners. 10096. MR MIAH: My name is Aulad Miah. I am a resident in Spitalfields and I am here representing an organisation called Shahjalal Community Group. I was born and brought up in Spitalfields and my family have lived there for over three generations from the seventies to now. I work locally in a community organisation and I have family businesses in the area. 10097. I would like first of all to describe what we have in that area so that the Committee have a good idea of what exists. Shahjalal Community Group is located in Fakruddin Street, which is a densely populated estate built in the late eighties. It is just off Vallance Road which is near to Whitechapel Road. The lower part of Vallance Road will be used for lorries to move spoil from the shaft site in Hanbury Street. In Fakruddin Street there is a total of 32 houses and over 160 people live there.
The Committee suspended from 6.41 pm to 6.54 pm for a division in the House 10098. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Please carry on. 10099. MR MIAH: People living in Shahjalal Estate, often known as Fakruddin Street, are of various different age groups. Over 50 per cent are below the age of 18 and over 20 people are over the age of 60. The majority of the residents are Bangladeshi and the elderly are the first generation from Bangladesh. There is a community centre within the estate and it holds classes, meetings, events. There is also a football pitch which runs alongside the houses and it is an important community resource since there are no other play areas available nearby. Next to the estate are Thomas Buxton Primary School and Osmani Primary School and the City Farm. Also local to the area is the Brick Lane mosque, the East London mosque, shops on Vallance Road and the nearby Whitechapel Market. The estate is actively engaged with its neighbours, the Universal Water Services, UK Food and Catering and Happy Nightmares Beds just off Vallance Road next to Fakruddin Street. The estate forms a strong part of the residential area around Whitechapel and Brick Lane. 10100. In May 2004 we found out about Crossrail but the information was not obvious to us. I understand at this point that the Pedley Street shaft tunnelling has been revised and there will not be a work site on Pedley Street. However, I do feel that we need a confirmation of that and it is not just a mere suggestion or a ploy before the election because we have a history of being told by Crossrail a lot of things which a lot of people were made to believe in the initial stages of the whole consultation process that this has been agreed by Parliament and is done and dusted so you could not challenge it. Unfortunately, a lot of people did believe that it could not be challenged so when we went to get people to agree to the petition they said, "It has already been agreed. How would you challenge it?", so we have a lot of mistrust between the local ----- 10101. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Aulad, can I just ask you to come to your points? I hear what you say. It has not been agreed; we accept that. You are here, we are here, we are listening to you. Can you come to the crux of what you and your Petitioners would like? 10102. MR MIAH: There are a lot of issues even without the Pedley Street shaft which would have taken the tunnel boring materials and equipment into Hanbury Street. There are still many concerns that have not been answered and dealt with by the responses from Crossrail. We feel that the lorries that will travel along Buxton Street into Vallance Road carrying spoil and materials from Hanbury Street will cause a lot of disruption to the local community. A lot of our young children go to Thomas Buxton School, they go to Osmani School. They will have to cross the path of the lorries to go to their schools. Mothers with children, elderly people going to the mosque will be affected by the lorries, the noise and the pollution that come from them. We feel that the shaft, whether it is a ventilation shaft or something more significant than that, in Hanbury Street will still cause major disruption to you are lives. We feel that local businesses will be affected in pretty much the same way. Lorries still will be travelling along the routes of people trying to go about their daily lives. Life is pretty hard in that part of London. People are living in overcrowded conditions. 10103. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Are you wanting the lorry route rerouted? 10104. MR MIAH: We would not like the lorries to be there in the first place because we feel that we should not have that in the first place. Life is pretty hard as it is. If it could be rerouted that would be great. When Crossrail was planning and doing their consultation they took little consideration of the local people. In fact, the estate that I have just described to you was referred to as having very few houses. There is a thriving and active community that lives there, so I feel that the voice of local people needs to be taken into consideration now. 10105. The Whitechapel station that we hear about and is planned for we feel will not be of much benefit to the local people. It will be a station that helps communities from Hayes, Essex, to come to Whitechapel then go to Canary Wharf. We hear about regeneration. We have heard about regeneration for many years. We heard it when Canary Wharf came into being. We heard it when Liverpool Street became a financial centre for businesses. It does not really do much for local people. Local people work locally, as we have heard from other Petitioners. Local people work in the community. They normally do not commute out to work. People will be coming into the borough and then going off to work in various financial centres. Unfortunately, when we talk about regeneration we talk about areas that are very deprived and we feel that maybe the regeneration will be of benefit to local people. We have seen in the past that that has not resulted in any changes in the lives of local people. It will just disrupt the community for many years. For six or seven years it will constantly be a work site in Whitechapel or Hanbury Street and in the lorry routes as well, and that is something that we could do without. The local community do not feel that a station is something they could benefit from. It is purely in the interests of financially based organisations, big corporations, having their workforces moved around easily. 10106. We feel that Crossrail needs to explain to us how Whitechapel Station is going to benefit local people. The community as a whole needs to benefit from an initiative like that and from what I have seen in terms of the response, as well as the paperwork that is available, there is nothing that says it will benefit local people, and we have had a history of regeneration initiatives in Tower Hamlets with very little changes in the lives of local people. 10107. I know this has been mentioned several times before but we feel that Crossrail is very much aware of the fact that the vast majority of the people other than the white community will be the Asian community that is affected by this Crossrail link. We feel that very little has happened in terms of engaging with the BME communities, particularly in Spitalfields. The choice for venues like a pub or a brewery is not ideal to attract Muslim men and women. We feel that when communication is one way it is not active engagement with the community. We feel that information was not made available to the community leaders, it was not made available to people who could not speak English, considering that they were very well aware that a lot of the people in that area would be of Bangladeshi origin, considering that throughout the route of Crossrail within one kilometre radius approximately 30-odd per cent would be Asian. We feel that it was not a two-way process. We felt that information was given to us so that we could say, "Okay, this is what has been agreed". This is how it came across to us. A lot of people until recently felt that it was already agreed and is going to go ahead as planned originally. It has made a lot of people feel that they could not be included in this whole process. 10108. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Aulad, I think we have gone through that. You have put your point very eloquently, may I say. Can we move on from the consultation and may I bring you back to your points that you wish to put forward to us specifically to do with what we can do to help and what you want to tell us? 10109. MR MIAH: We strongly feel that Whitechapel Station is an unnecessary burden. 10110. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: You have already done that bit. We accept that. You have said that to us. 10111. MR MIAH: What I would like to sum up with is that the local community is being affected by Crossrail having a ventilation shaft in Hanbury Street, Crossrail having lorries moving from one site to the next, Crossrail having a station in Whitechapel, and the Shahjalal Community Group and the Fakruddin Street area that I represent is very much an integral part of the Banglatown community as a whole. Having this major work site going on within the community will significantly disrupt our lives which are already quite difficult. 10112. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Miah, I believe I have been calling you by your forename, which I apologise for. I am so sorry. I have a double-barrelled name so I get terribly confused. Thank you very much. I think you have put your points very eloquently and I am sure Mr Elvin and the Promotes have taken well on board what you have said. Mr Elvin? 10113. MR ELVIN: I think it might be helpful for the Committee just to identify the Shahjalal Estate in Fakruddin Street. Can you just focus in please, just below where it says "Pedley Street work site"? Mr Miah, if we look at those double-headed arrows just under "excavated material", is that the estate, just north of the farm? 10114. MR MIAH: Yes. 10115. MR ELVIN: So the estate that you are concerned about in particular, although appreciate you are speaking for the wider Bangladeshi community and the other members of the community as well, is that area which is next to the Pedley Street site? 10116. MR MIAH: Yes. 10117. MR ELVIN: You will have to take it from me, but if you want documentation it is information paper G3, revised in April, which sets out in clear language that the Pedley Street site will no longer be required. That will be subject to an amendment to the Bill which will be brought forward in the next phase and you will see the amendment to the Bill when that comes forward. It is now on the record so you will have that level of reassurance. 10118. Sir, in terms of the other issues, lorry routing and the like, which you have heard about, it will be finally agreed in due course with the local authority. In terms of communications and social inclusion with the Bangladeshi community, you will get some more information about that because a number of contacts with the Bangladeshi Community in appropriate different language versions and local community journals and newspapers were included in the consultation exercise. We will include that in the note which we will provide to you and to Petitioners tomorrow. 10119. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Thank you, Mr Elvin. I would like to say that a very valid point has been put when you call meetings in breweries and pubs. Perhaps it is not ideal. The second part, obviously, is that there are a lot of languages spoken. It has been eloquently put two or three times today and I would ask the Promoters to be very careful in the way they bring this forward. I accept that it is not always easy because things do go wrong but I also would like to think that you are being as encompassing as possible. 10120. MR ELVIN: Sir, we seek to be inclusive of all communities. Can I make it absolutely clear we have been in consultation with the Commission for Racial Equality. The Commission for Racial Equality is content with the way in which matters have been advanced. If the Committee wishes to see correspondence with Mr Trevor Phillips, we can provide that. We are very conscious of these matters. I can give more information to the Committee in due course if it is needed but we are well aware and very sensitive to these issues and the importance of them. 10121. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: That certainly will not be necessary, Mr Elvin. I am glad to hear you say that. 10122. MR ELVIN: Can I finally just say there is an on-going equality impact assessment which is taking place and that will be part of the further consultation process. 10123. MR LIDDELL-GRAINGER: Mr Elvin, thank you very much indeed. I now call the Committee to order. We will meet tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock back in Committee Room 5 for those of you who are with us.
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