Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340
- 359)
340. That is existing?
(Mr Rees) That is correct.
341. What does permitted mean?
(Mr Rees) That indicates what is possible as
a result of the planning permissions that have been granted. These
are the schemes in the pipeline, waiting to be built or under
construction. Looking at the split of those extra jobs that would
be permitted by the desk space that is being created, 40% of those
would fall within the red section, the Moorgate section and 60%
would fall within the Liverpool Street portion.
342. If I went to your planning department,
knocked on the door and asked for details of discussions, would
there be a register of those? What is that?
(Mr Rees) These are the schemes that we know
about that are yet to come in as planning applications. Developers
frequently discuss with us the potential for developing individual
sites in the City prior to making decisions on whether to submit
a planning application. This is looking as far ahead as we can
in terms of knowing what is likely to come forward in planning
applications within the next 12 months to two years. Of those
speculative schemes that are yet to become hardened into planning
applications, the floorspace created by those would lead to jobs
which would distribute 31% in the Moorgate end of the diagram
and 69% in the Liverpool Street end. As we look further forward,
the proportion of expansion in the Liverpool Street part of the
diagram is greater than it is in the Moorgate area, which is not
surprising because that is where the potential is for the cluster
of tall buildings; whereas in Moorgate you are much closer to
residential accommodation and therefore buildings are more likely
to stay at their current scale.
343. What is the City fringe?
(Mr Rees) The City fringe is our understanding
of the growth proposed by the Mayor for the opportunity areas
either to the west or to the east of the City on that northern
fringe. The 11% on the left would probably be more easily accessible
from Farringdon Station than Moorgate but it is not accessible
from Liverpool Street. However, the 89% on the right is what is
accounted for by the Bishopsgate Goods Yard and the expansion
of the Spitalfields area through those opportunity areas on the
eastern boundary of the map which I indicated earlier. They would
of course need to be served from Liverpool Street rather than
Moorgate.
344. In terms of total floorspace growth, can
we turn back to tab eight? What does that show?
(Mr Rees) In the salmon coloured bar on the
left this shows the existing floorspace in the City, 7.54 million
square metres. We can see the planning permissions and those that
are under construction adding another 1.46 million square metres
to that, another 19%. In our discussions on further off applications,
we can see a total of 23% increase over the salmon colour on the
left, taking us up to a total of 9.28 million square metres if
all these schemes are realised.
345. Translating all those figures into what
it is going to look like on the ground, can you go to tab ten,
a view from Waterloo Bridge? Can you remind us what is there and
in particular what is contemplated that is not there at the moment?
(Mr Rees) We do so much in tables, graphs and
diagrams that I thought it would be useful to include a photograph
and a photo montage showing the tall buildings that are either
currently permitted or under discussion. All bar one of those
currently shown, which is the spiral shaped one in the middle,
enjoy planning permission and are ready to be built or have been
constructed. The spiral one will be coming forward within the
next couple of weeks to the planning committee. You can see those
buildings just to the right of the centre of that picture form
the new, high rise cluster in the eastern part of the City. St
Paul's Cathedral is very much to the left of that. The building
indicated alongside the arrow where Moorgate is shown is at the
very northern end of the Broadgate development close to Liverpool
Street Station. We must remember we are looking from the south
west so one must not assume that that one tall building is near
to Moorgate; it is not. Liverpool Street is closest to the area
of activity and growth in terms of tall buildings and this give
you a very graphic representation of how the City has grown in
the eastern area.
346. Can I go to tab 11? You might be able to
show us where that building is on the plan.
(Mr Rees) The one that appears in the photograph
is the most northerly pink area in the lobe on the right hand
side of the map. It is just at the top of Broadgate. You can see
all the other red, new buildings are clustered around this eastern
cluster lower down the map and that all of those are in the Liverpool
Street Station ambit rather than Moorgate, where you simply have
the two existing blue buildings shown as buildings over 100 metres
in height.
347. Looking at tab 11, of those existing tall
buildings, permitted or under construction or those where an application
is contemplated, in broad terms, those are closer to Liverpool
Street or Moorgate?
(Mr Rees) They are overwhelmingly closer to
Liverpool Street.
348. As the City planning officer, of those
93,000 extra jobs that are expected to be provided in the City
in the Mayor's plan, is the majority likely to be near Liverpool
Street or Moorgate?
(Mr Rees) Since the physical limitations of
the Moorgate area preclude major expansion, they will have to
fall within the ambit of the Liverpool Street Station entrance
to this new station.
349. Is there anything else you would like to
say about the eastern cluster of tall buildings or the potential
to accommodate further jobs in the City and on its fringes?
(Mr Rees) These are not simply pipe dreams
of developers. We are seeing these buildings under construction.
We had a developer come back to the planning committee only yesterday
to ask for a modest increase in the height of a project that he
is hoping to begin within the next couple of weeks, the Heron
Tower immediately adjacent to Liverpool Street Station. We see
construction activity in the final phases of Broadgate. We see
keen interest to go ahead as soon as vacant possession is obtained
on other high rise buildings in that cluster and the occupation
is coming in to fill those buildings as they are being constructed.
The best buildings being constructed are attracting the best tenants.
350. Having looked in broad terms at economics,
consequential demand for offices planning, policy response and
the developers' response to those planning policies, what role
do you anticipate Liverpool Street or Livergate Crossrail Station
is going to play in facilitating that expansion?
(Mr Rees) Livergate is a very complex station.
It has to play two important roles of improving passenger transport
interchange with Liverpool Street Station and the other modes
of transport at that point and to some extent at Moorgate Station.
From the City's point of view, the most important thing is that
it provides as efficient, and hopefully more efficient, a means
of getting to and from employment in the City. The bulk of the
people who are already working in the City using this combined
station will prefer to come out via Liverpool Street. This is
the entrance that is most easily accessible from their place of
work. Moorgate will not offer them the same convenience. If we
were to find that we had designed a station at Liverpool Street
that could not accommodate reliably current levels and certainly
not the area of growth that is anticipated, we would be having
to send people out of the wrong entrance to the station.
It would be the equivalent of asking Members
of Parliament not to exit at Westminster Station, purpose built
with growth potential underneath this very building, to come out
in Trafalgar Square and walk down Whitehall in the rain.
351. Turning to Liverpool Street, what are the
consequences for the City if the worst fears turn out to be right
and there is congestion at Liverpool Street Station and people
do not find it easy to exit or enter the new Crossrail facility?
What will the consequences be for the City and its planned growth?
(Mr Rees) The greatest problem that we face
in London in the financial sector is that the majority of the
firms working here are owned by companies based in other cities
around the world. They do not have to be in London unless we provide
what they need. We do provide the skills base. We are able to
provide the accommodation they need. We must also provide the
transport which they need to be able to utilise this business
centre efficiently. If they are unable to locate in the core,
which is where a large number of main international companies
appear to wish to be, they will not simply go to some other part
of London. Our experience has been that they then look to New
York, Chicago or Frankfurt or one of the other international centres
that can offer them a home that does have the facilities they
require.
The danger is not that it might drift from one
part of the metropolis to another but that we would lose it for
UK plc altogether and it would go to another place closer to the
home of the company operating the facility.
352. As the City planner seeking to make provision
for this growth and seeing these tall buildings appearing in the
eastern cluster closer to the Liverpool Street end, in terms of
not only congestion but of impression, what impression do you
consider is likely to be created if the passengers from this new
railway system are directed through the existing ticket hall?
(Mr Rees) I do not believe that they will find
it acceptable that in order to get out of the station after getting
off the train on Crossrail they have to be processed through the
existing transport infrastructure with people arriving from other
Underground lines in difficult collisions at corners in the booking
office and then have to fight their way through gates which are
currently near to capacity; then, even after they have done that,
to be thrown out into the station concourse of the busiest station
in the City and have to fight their way up escalators to get to
the street. I believe that people using a modern facility like
Crossrail will anticipate that when they arrive at one of its
principal stations in the City they will be able to get out efficiently
and quickly and start the final part of their journey to their
office.
353. If they cannot, what effect is that going
to have on the City's economic role?
(Mr Rees) A lot of those people who would be
fighting their way through the crowds have the positions in companies
to decide where they are located. It will not be too much frustration
on their part that will cause them to reconsider whether London
is the best place for their operation.
354. Is there anything else you wish to add
before cross-examination?
(Mr Rees) No.
355. Sir Peter Soulsby: You have drawn
a distinction between the Liverpool Street Station ambit and the
Moorgate ambit. I wondered whether you would like to elaborate
on that. Is it not the case that that distinction is more apparent
than real? As one gets further away from the two stations the
choice between the two is pretty much of a muchness. The lines
drawn on this map are certainly not as firm as they appear.
(Mr Rees) That is true. Some of the ambit from
Moorgate Station will be taken by Farringdon Station, the next
station down the line. If you can imagine another dot to the left
of Moorgate Station just outside the City boundary, more or less
in the angle you see to the left, that will create another circle
which will overlap Moorgate and that will take some of that catchment.
However, the point that we are making is that the bulk of the
growth in the City is much closer to the Liverpool Street Station
exit than the Moorgate exit. There will of course be an overlap.
It will depend whether you arrive from the east or the west which
station you get off at but nevertheless Liverpool Street remains
the closest entrance for the bulk of the growth in the City.
356. Is it not though fair to say that what
is described as much closer is in this case perhaps 400 metres,
the difference between the two stations, a walk of a few minutes?
(Mr Rees) You then have to balance that with
the numbers of people moving through the City, the congestion
of the streets inevitably, with large numbers of people arriving
during the rush hour. People literally do use every square foot
of the pavement in their walk to the office from the station.
If you make that journey more complex and require them to take
more redoubles, bearing in mind that they are not able to walk
in straight, diagonal lines and are going to have to go around
blocks to get there, you are making their journey that much more
difficult. Minutes do count, especially for people travelling
from meeting to meeting. We are not just talking about people
coming to work at nine o'clock in the morning and leaving at five
in the evening. We are talking about a lot of people who work
from numerous, different offices throughout London to whom a few
minutes count quite greatly.
357. Mr Binley: I hope you do not get
the impression that I think barristers might overstate a case.
That would be far from my mind but I am concerned about the difference
between permitted planning in tab nine and discussions. If we
take any trend from permitted planning it would suggest, only
very slightly, that the benefit is to Moorgate's favour, but when
I see you talk about discussions, which are slightly looser to
say the least, it swings heavily in Liverpool Street's favour.
Could you give me an idea of what you mean by discussions because
if we do not have an understanding that there is real meaning
in your discussions we might be led to believe that perhaps they
are presented for the purposes of making a case—forgive
me; I am not saying that you are misleading us in any sense at
all—rather than to mirror reality.
(Mr Rees) The Corporation of London is unique
in local authorities in this country in dealing with applications
through negotiation prior to the submission of planning applications.
We deal with development proposals with developers in discussing
with them whether they are or are not in accordance with our policies.
Because we know that we are a business area and therefore the
presumption is in terms of permission of business expansion, we
are able to guide them through to an application which will be
99% certain of approval. Of course it has to be put before the
elected members and the recommendation has to be placed before
them. They have to weigh the evidence but we approve over 99%
of all applications in the City following lengthy negotiation.
The discussions I am talking about are those
negotiations which take place before the application is made.
That will be a well developed scheme. This is not simply somebody
coming in off the street saying, "I have this idea of putting
up an office block." That we have discounted. These are people
with whom we are already deeply in negotiations, who have developed
the schemes and who are waiting to put in planning applications
when we tell them we believe they are in accordance with our policies.
358. On the strength of your professional standing,
you would back that 99% figure?
(Mr Rees) Yes.
359. Can I move to tab 11? It as said of the
Indian northern border that it was a very thick pencil line on
a very small map and that sometimes gave a rather odd impression.
This map could be misleading in terms of the placing of stations
because we are simply talking about Liverpool Street and Moorgate.
Are there any other stations that impact on this catchment area
either outside of the boundary you have drawn or to the south
of it which might have some import on the pedestrian traffic flow
that you talk about?
(Mr Rees) If I can turn you back to tab one
you will be able to see all the stations in the City, the underground
stations shown by the London Transport roundel and the old British
Rail symbol showing the above ground stations. Looking at the
line of Crossrail at the top of the map, you will see Moorgate
and Liverpool Street fall within the City serving the Crossrail
proposal and Farringdon Station is just to the left of the words
"Smithfield Market" to the left of the picture. That
stop on Crossrail will have some impact in terms of taking some
movements that are going to and from the western part of the City,
some people who might otherwise have chosen to use Moorgate, for
instance, but it is too far from the Liverpool Street exit to
have any impact on those movements.
The next station beyond on Crossrail is Whitechapel
which is off the edge of this map. It is very unlikely that the
new Whitechapel Station will have any impact in providing a service
to the eastern part of the City. In terms of Crossrail movements,
we really can focus our attention on the growth prospects, on
these two exits from this one station. Of course a lot of people
arrive by other routes into the City from the south who will not
be considering using Crossrail. Of course a lot of people are
on the Underground network and will remain on it. In terms of
the impact of Crossrail and its utility to the City, we are addressing
these two entrances to this new, combined station.
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