Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
220. "We ask that Cross London Rail Links
firstly confirm that CLRL has applied the post-model adjustment
methodology as described in paragraph 2.37; secondly, if such
adjustments have been made in relation to Liverpool Street Station,
provide an itemised list of model adjustments for Liverpool Street
Station and what passenger flow adjustments have been made and
when exactly to reflect those model adjustments; and, thirdly,
confirm that paragraph 2.37 is, in itself, complete or, if not,
provide what appears to be the missing final text."
221. He is referring to the fact that, as you
see, the last sentence I have quoted from the italicised section
seems to say, "Changes to the 2016 Baseline resulting from
the introduction of Crossrail" and then it just stops. Mr
Spencer is asking whether that is a misprint or what it is. His
letter goes on:
222. "We look forward to hearing from you
on this matter. If you have any questions please do not hesitate
to contact me." Crossrail normally answer jolly quickly,
in my experience. There has been no response from them to this
particular letter. Not only that. The ES itself is very misleading,
we again respectfully say, at paragraph 8.9.90 of volume two.
It is there correctly stated that (i) "A substantial reduction
in passengers entering and exiting at Liverpool Street is forecast
which will relieve peak hour congestion."
223. CLRL do indeed forecast that in 2016 without
Crossrail 77,700 passengers will exit Liverpool Street Station
in total. With Crossrail, the figure reduces to 73,300. The passage
from the Environmental Statement just quoted however is immediately
followed by a reference to the new station proposed at the western
end of the Crossrail tunnels at Moorgate. The clear implication
is that no such facility is required at the eastern Liverpool
Street end. That is indeed made explicit at paragraph 8.9.130:
"(i) Forecasts of passenger demand do not justify a separate
Crossrail ticket hall and the London Underground ticket halls
are sufficient to accommodate passenger numbers."
224. One of those ticket halls—here I
am getting to why we respectfully say at paragraph 22 that the
Environmental Statement is misleading—the most important
by far for present purposes, since that is where the Crossrail
tunnels and escalators directly lead at point M on your sketch
plan, is ticket hall B. CLRL anticipates significant growth in
passenger numbers between 2001 and 2016 but much less than the
employment growth which the Petitioners anticipate in the local
area. Hence matters could be a lot worse than as assessed by Crossrail
prior to the opening. Ticket hall B is a most important location
for us because it is the point of arrival and is already a very
multifunctional space. There, as I have already stated, the prediction
is for a 2,500 increase in the gateline numbers exiting the ticket
hall and no change in the total numbers entering and leaving those
gates: 33,100 without Crossrail; 33,300 with Crossrail.
225. CLRL's predicted passenger numbers mean
that UTH B will be at capacity in 2016 with Crossrail. Ticket
hall B will not, as stated in the Environmental Statement, be
"sufficient to accommodate passenger numbers", we say,
since ticket hall B will require four extra gates to reflect the
requirement to plan for a 60 year design life, even assuming that
CLRL have the Moorgate/Liverpool Street split right and even assuming
that CLRL has its overall passenger number prediction right.
226. Mr Cameron helpfully tells me that at table
six, column B, row five, you will find the figure of 77,700 I
mentioned earlier. At table 11, column B, line six, the number
73,300 appears that I mentioned at the beginning of paragraph
23. It may have occurred to Members of the Committee that if there
are 16 gates at the moment could you squash some more in, so we
turn to that issue. In a very recent test carried out for the
Promoter, it is suggested that the number of gates could be increased
to 20.
227. Without quarrelling with the suggestion
that with new gateline technology that might be possible, we would
say that the question is whether those additional four gates would
deliver any real increase in capacity. Messrs Weiss and Spencer
will be talking to you about what happens when you have a staggered
deadline such as is shown on this appendix A document and you
try and put in further gates where there are columns holding up
the ceiling and the deadline is not unconstrained in both directions
et cetera.
228. This very recent suggestion that you could
increase the number of gates to 20 looks to us very much like
an afterthought. Certainly the Environmental Statement says nothing
about it. That was published without prior consultation with the
Corporation in February 2005 in the particular respect we are
here complaining about, simply dumping the longstanding previous
proposal for a proper eastern ticket hall. Just to get the context
of this, I wonder if I could refer to two short paragraphs from
a Corporation of London Planning and Transportation Committee
Report of 26 October 2004. That is some five months before the
Environmental Statement and deposit of the Bill. Paragraphs 14
and 15 of that Report under the heading, "Liverpool Street
Station" say this.
229. "Proposals for the east end of Liverpool
Street Station have also been modified since consultation round
one. At the Liverpool Street end of the Crossrail Station, new
escalators from the Crossrail platform would link directly into
the existing London Underground ticket hall giving access to the
mainline concourse", so far a fair and accurate description
of what I have already shown you is proposed. Paragraph 15 however
goes on:
230. "At the eastern end a new ticket hall
would be built over the London Underground Circle Line platforms
replacing the Liverpool Street arcade at street level. This new
ticket hall would replace the London Underground ticket hall currently
on the corner of Old Broad Street and Liverpool Street. Limited
access would be provided to the Metropolitan westbound platform.
A commercial development could be built over the new ticket hall."
231. The first intimation that the proposal
was to be ditched came in the form of a poster at Liverpool Street
Station which remained in situ, as far as we can gather, for a
single day. It appeared a week before the Environmental Statement
was published. It appears that the change of mind came so late
in the day that there was insufficient time to make all the necessary
changes to the Environmental Statement. I will not ask you to
turn it up now but if you have leisure time to consult C7(i) in
volume 4A of the Environmental Statement you will find that, as
we interpret it, it still includes reference to that kind of eastern
ticket hall as described in paragraph 15 of the October 2004 report
of the Corporation.
232. The Corporation and British Land are very
unhappy about the way in which this was done. We know that for
many weeks the Promoter has been looking closely at our cases
on Liverpool Street but in his responses has simply and shortly
brushed them aside. The Promoter says that we have overestimated
the passenger demand arising from Crossrail. The Promoter accordingly
rejects our contention that there should be an enhanced eastern
ticket hall at Liverpool Street Station. The Corporation's case
and that of British Land is not however dependent on demonstrating
higher passenger demand at Liverpool Street Station than is predicted
by CLRL, as I have already shown. Moreover, the Corporation strongly
contests the accuracy of the split for Crossrail passengers in
2016 predicted by CLRL as between Liverpool Street and Moorgate:
the figures of 3,600 plus 1,700—5,300—for passengers
exiting to the street via ticket hall B and A respectively at
Liverpool Street Station and 9,200 at Moorgate, the two figures
which I drew your attention to earlier on and which you find in
your tables.
233. As I foreshadowed earlier, there is more
to this case than the technical matter of forecasting actual passenger
numbers. What I would now like to do with your leave, before coming
back to some other matters that I need to deal with at the end,
is to ask Mr Cameron to address you in relation to those other,
broader matters.
234. Mr Cameron: I am going to address
you on what Mr Laurence described as the broader matters, less
technical but nonetheless important. They also provide some explanation
as to why the Corporation and British Land say that Crossrail
have the split between Moorgate and Liverpool Street wrong.
235. The Crossrail project has three key objectives:
to support the development of London as a world city and its role
as the financial centre of Europe and the UK; to support the economic
growth of London and its regeneration areas by tackling congestion
and lack of capacity on the existing rail network and to improve
rail access into and within London.
236. An important aspect of London's world city
status is its leading role in financial and business services.
London enjoys a role at the moment as the world's leading international
financial and business centre.
237. As recognised by, amongst others, the Mayor
of London, that role and status as a world city cannot be taken
for granted. Globalisation makes international business increasingly
footloose. International companies will choose other world cities
if London does not complete effectively. London's continued dominance
is not merely of interest to Londoners; it is of vital importance
to the whole of the UK. Furthermore, London's international financial
services sector offers a significant opportunity to the UK as
it has the potential to grow at a faster rate than both the average
world output and the UK average output.
238. In due course you will probably be taken
to the socio and economic reports produced on behalf of the Promoter
but those reports indicate that the dominant sector behind future
employment growth will be the financial and business services
sector. Crossrail's role, as you heard yesterday from Mr Elvin,
is said to be to support and enable that growth.
239. That support that Crossrail can bring to
the sector is seen to be vital for the UK economy as a whole.
It is acknowledged that if the growth does not come to London
and to the existing clusters of financial and business services
it is unlikely to go elsewhere in the UK. The Crossrail project
will fail to achieve its objectives if it does not provide the
enhanced public transport access required to facilitate growth
in that sector. At Liverpool Street the approach taken by Cross
London Rail Link is not to enhance public transport access but
merely to provide access to an existing heavily used ticket hall.
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