Issues relating to Woolwich station
133. On 25 July 2006 we announced a series of interim
decisions to allow the Government to undertake work with a view
to amending the Crossrail Bill. These included a recommendation
that there should be a station at Woolwich. The Promoter's response
to these recommendations was published on 11 October 2006. The
Promoter rejected the Committee's request to bring forward an
additional provision for Woolwich Station. We regret that, in
response to these developments, the Government insisted that the
Committee had exceeded its powers in considering the new station.
134. During the subsequent debate the Committee pointed
out that during our consideration of the Bill, the Government
had the power to propose an instruction to the House of Commons
instructing the Committee not to consider any particular aspect
of the project. For example just as we were directed not to consider
Reading, we could also have been instructed not to consider a
station at Woolwich. The Government could also have challenged
the locus standi of the Woolwich Petitioners, but chose
to give their own evidence. We heard ten days of evidence for
and against a station at Woolwich and came to our decision based
on the information before us. We urged the Government 'in the
strongest possible terms, to reconsider its position on this matter
and to respect our views'. In a Parliamentary debate on 31 October
2006, the then Secretary of State maintained his position challenging
the financial viability and desirability of a station at Woolwich.[35]
135. Subsequently the Committee made a Special Report
to the House on 1 November 2006, to highlight our dissatisfaction
with proceedings, regarding Crossrail and Woolwich. We strongly
agreed with the arguments presented to us regarding the addition
of a station at Woolwich. We also visited the proposed site with
representatives from each party. We noted that the Petitioners'
calculations of cost for this station showed that it would provide
exceptional value for money and we called upon the Promoter to
bring forward the necessary additional provision to add this to
the Bill.
136. In March 2007 the Government announced that
the station would now go ahead on the basis that the cost could
be met by a private company, Berkeley Homes. The key to this has
been the London Borough of Greenwich's recent proposal
for a major revision to its spatial plan, to allow a significantly
higher density of development at Woolwich. This, in turn, had
prompted Berkeley Homes to offer a means of enabling a station
to be built at Woolwich but, crucially, without adding to the
current cost of Crossrail. In light of this, agreement had been
reached in principle with Berkeley Homes under which they would
build the basic box structure of a station at Woolwich and then
construct their own development overhead. All this would be done
at their own risk, using their own money, to the specification
laid down by CLRL, with a payment back to Berkeley Homes equivalent
to the saving CLRL would make through avoiding other works at
Woolwich, when it constructed the line there. In due course, Berkeley
Homes would then arrange for the completion of the station box
to full operational status. Both they and Greenwich Council recognise
that the completion of the station would be conditional on receiving
sufficient funding contributions from those developers and businesses
that stand to benefit from a Crossrail station at Woolwich. A
new Instruction to the Committee to allow for this development
was approved by the House on 25 April 2007.
137. The Promoter has told us that they recognised
that a strong case has been made for a station at Woolwich. In
the light of our decision, the Promoter has looked over the summer
at the design of a station to explore ways of reducing its very
high cost. A key reason why the station would be expensive to
build is the depth of the running tunnels. A shallower station
would be possible if the running tunnels in that area were nearer
to the surface. This appears, in principle, to be feasible although
much more detailed work would be needed to understand the wider
environmental consequences. The cost of a shallower station is
in the order of £200m.
138. We were pleased that the Secretary of State
followed the request of the Committee and brought forward the
necessary additional provisions to build a station at Woolwich.
However, we have been concerned about the cautionary language
used by the Promoter when bringing forward this additional provision.
This Committee has always been firmly of the view that there
must be a fully operational station at Woolwich. We have seen
the evidence that demonstrates it will provide exceptional value
for money and be a valuable transport link in an area of considerable
deprivation. Accordingly, we reiterate our view that the station
at this site is and must remain central to the project.
35 
