Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1080
- 1099)
1080. It was the green guide and the implications
of the green guide that you were addressing.
(Mr Spencer) The green guide drives emergency
evacuation as the critical assessment, and no doubt in this case
there is another level above pedroute which is actually a statutory
appraisal of the emergency evacuation capacity of the station.
We have not got to that level of detail yet because the work Crossrail
has done to date has not taken them to sufficient detail to be
able to undertake that kind of work. It is something that will
be necessary further down the line.
1081. Sir Peter Soulsby: Can you explain
the status of the green guide and its origins?
(Mr Spencer) The green guide is a statutory
code which flowed from the Taylor report which flowed from the
Hillsborough disaster. It has been updated on a couple of occasions
through the years. The Taylor report was a superb piece of work
and underlying the Taylor report was some very detailed technical
analysis. What that leads you to is a guide that is pretty much
mandatory and the compliance with that guide leads to the issue
of a safety certificate for a building and once that certificate
is issued by the football licensing authority then it is a matter
for the local authority to continue to ensure that the building
satisfies the requirements. Just before I go into my evidence
can I touch on a couple of points to assist you as best I can?
First of all, I have no history of this project. I have had no
involvement personally with Crossrail although my company has
done significant work for Cross London Rail Links, and I have
never worked for British Land before and, other than Liverpool
Street station I have never had anything to do with these issues,
so I do come to this exercise with a clean slate. I have also
only been working on it for six months and if I am taken to the
history of it I have a good understanding of it but I am not going
to say anything about it. I am not going to say anything about
planning policy; I will rely on the evidence.
1082. Sir Peter Soulsby: I can hear sighs
of relief from members!
(Mr Spencer) I totally rely on the evidence
that has been given by Mr Penfold and Mr Peter Wynne Rees. I will
do my damnedest to avoid numbers but numbers are bread and butter
for me. Basically I am a planner-cum-economist-cum-technical appraiser
and as such all those require numerical analysis and I will have
to share some of that numerical analysis with you. The third point
in introduction is that I do adopt the evidence in cross-examination
of Mr Joe Weiss. He took the case to a certain point and I will
seek as best I can to launch from that point but clearly there
will be occasions when I will be touching on things that he has
already dealt with. I am certainly content with the cross-examination
answers that he gave. My fourth point, which is quite significant,
is that the Crossrail project is an extremely expensive undertaking.
I do not personally know what it is going to cost. I believe it
is somewhere in the realm of £12-13 billion. The Crossrail
project has a very positive cost benefit ratio, I am sure you
were told in introduction. It has a cost benefit ratio of 1.8
which is extremely good for a project of this nature. That means
that the benefits outweigh the costs by 80 per cent and 80 per
cent of £12-13 billion is a very significant sum of money.
A significant part of the benefit analysis relates to something
called agglomeration benefits. They are valued at in excess of
three billion pounds. A substantial part of that agglomeration
benefit relates to the employment growth within London and how
Crossrail will—and it will; I am a great supporter of Crossrail—will
make a step change in terms of how central London operates, partly
by the relief of the existing congested Tube systems but also
a major step change in terms of quality, which has only been seen
in terms of the Jubilee line in London. The agglomeration benefits
of three billion pounds flow to financial and business services,
the efficiency of financial and business services. I am not giving
policy evidence here. It is my interpretation of the case and
that significantly relates to Liverpool Street and the City of
London. It also significantly relates to Canary Wharf, the best
possible connection between the two most significant financial
services locations, not in London, not in the UK but in the whole
of Europe. Each of them judged individually is of enormous significance,
clearly a situation where we believe and I fundamentally believe
that there is an under-provision in terms of capacity at Liverpool
Street and its connection given the superb station they have had
put in at the Canary Wharf end of this link. I believe that that
should be an area of great concern but also it does mean that
we should seek to capture the three billion worth of benefits.
That is what Crossrail is seeking to do. When it comes to the
fact of the solution we have put forward being slightly more expensive
in the round at £12 billion of rail money then I think the
Committee should see that as a highly desirable investment. It
is not going to undermine the business case of Crossrail. It has
been tested by the Treasury, it has been scrutinised by the Montague
Committee and it has stood the test which led to the Secretary
of State to bring the hybrid Bill before Parliament.
1083. Mr Laurence: Mr Spencer, the other
preliminary point you wanted to say something about, so that the
Committee have a flavour of this, is what has been going on in
recent weeks in particular between you and those who are advising
the Promoter in an attempt to achieve what I think you refer to
as convergence of relevant numbers.
(Mr Spencer) Absolutely. Clearly, given the
process we are engaged in, there have been certain stages during
the last six months. There was a kind of purdah stage once the
petitions went in while the Promoter had to deal with the processing
of all the petitions which meant that for a period of time in
the autumn there was very little communication and access to Cross
London Rail Links. They were very busy doing other things. In
the last six or eight weeks there has been a re-engagement of
dialogue that took place during the summer and I do not at all
criticise any process that we have gone through with Cross London
Rail Links. They have always been willing to talk to us, they
have always been willing to openly reveal their analysis and share
their analysis with us. In the last two weeks or so we have made
substantial strides in terms of common agreement on a number of
significant issues relating to their case and these are areas
where Crossrail is broadly speaking accepting my case and feeding
it through into their analysis. This means that they have significantly
increased the demand forecast for access to Liverpool Street station
by way of Crossrail by some 60 per cent in the testing we have
done to date. They have also adopted within that assessment all
of the employment forecasts that my company has prepared so that
the reason that there is a big difference between what was driving
the initial appraisal and what they are currently using to do
those demand forecasts is that they have adopted my analysis.
They have gone through them over the last week which has then
led to the increased demand forecasts. They have also done a considerable
amount of work using the pedroute model which I am not presenting
in evidence to you because, one, I only received it last night
and, two, it is not my work; it is for them to put it before you.
I will have to comment on it but I would emphasise that it is
merely an aid to judgment in terms of a future situation. There
is a lot more work to be done in terms of City of London and British
Rail and associated developers and Cross London Rail Links continuing
to explore what is an extremely complex but incredibly important
issue with regard to the Crossrail project.
1084. Mr Laurence: Mr Spencer, I think
the way we should proceed in relation to this new pedroute analysis
which you only received last night is to see whether you are in
fact cross-examined on it. You ought to be. If you are not I shall
make an application to the Chairman to allow you to comment on
it under re-examination, of course, with the opportunity for the
Promoter to ask questions by way of cross-examination at that
stage. It is entirely right that it is not your work and on the
face of it you should therefore be asked to comment on it by the
Promoter which you no doubt will be. Before you go to your overview
of the function of Liverpool Street station, which is I think
your main first topic, is there something you want to say about
the debate that has gone on in front of this Committee hitherto
about what we might call gateline B and the value of an analysis
of the requirements of that gateline in aiding the Committee to
come to a conclusion on the matters that concern it?
(Mr Spencer) What I would say is that there
is a near-forensic calculation that is done following very specific
methodology equation. It is a mandatory obligation on the part
of LUL and anyone that does anything of significance to one of
their stations to achieve the gateline requirement that is thrown
up by the calculation and the pedroute analysis is not a substitute
for that calculation. It deals with a different time frame, it
is dealing with a totally different type of analysis, so the only
show in town basically is that forensic test. That forensic test
does not relate to other aspects of how stations will operate.
There is no forensic test that says you have to have 200 square
metres of space available to do X, Y and Z; that simply does not
exist. However, you can take it that where there is a requirement
to move from, say, 16 gates to 27 gates, which is the case that
I have put before you, implicitly that is saying we need 70 per
cent more space within the station. It is not just a question
of providing gates. If you cannot get to them and get away from
them you have got convergence of flows, not dispersal of flows.
You have got a very complicated scenario. It is not just a question
of putting on a belt to basically hold up the trousers. The trousers
have got to fit and the jacket has got to fit. We drive our analysis
in this annex very much on the basis of that forensic test but
whenever I am using it it is a direct proxy for an inadequacy
of space per se within an environment. In starting my evidence
I would just like to say a couple of things with regard to tables
and exhibits. First of all I would like to turn to table 16 in
my annex. I am sorry; I am not entirely following the script.[3]
1085. Mr Laurence: That is your technical
annex, page 7, table 16, "Arrivals at Liverpool Street and
Moorgate stations".
(Mr Spencer) I did this table effectively about
two days into the project, late June, early July, and this is
what got me going on this issue. If you look at column E of this
table you will see a combination of who turns up on the trains,
how many stay on the trains, how many get off the trains, how
many want to be in Liverpool Street going to Liverpool Street
buildings. If you look at National Rail—
1086. Mr Laurence: Before you go on,
we are talking about 2001 numbers based on CLRL's demand matrices;
is that right?
(Mr Spencer) Apart from the Crossrail forecast,
which is 2016, which is the last line. Sixty-five per cent of
people that turn up on trains at Liverpool Street station go to
the street. No other station in London operates in that fashion.
My station is Waterloo. I doubt very much if it is even 35 per
cent egress at Waterloo. At Victoria it is more commercial but
still substantially the majority of passengers, from my appreciation
of the statistics, make access to the Underground system. You
can work your way all the way round London. At King's Cross hardly
anyone gets out, nor at London Bridge. This is an exceptional
relationship between Liverpool Street station and the City of
London and the development around that area. The three of them
are so inexorably interlinked. You do not see that anywhere else
in London. The second point on working row by row is I have got
two figures in column E, 15,000 and 10,000. These are the number
of people who come to the Liverpool Street area using the Central
line and sub-surface lines at present. The Central line has benefited
from significant upgrade in recent years and is not quite the
misery line it used to be. It brings 15,000 people to the local
area, but those people are travelling on what is a very congested
railway. Sub-surface lines, which is by far the most antiquated
set of lines in London, very complicated lines, and I am sure
many of you have used them on a regular basis—the Circle
line, Hammersmith & City line and Metropolitan line—bring
10,000 people to Liverpool Street. When I saw the first demand
forecast for Crossrail and it basically said that it would bring
5,000 people to the Liverpool Street area, it just did not stack
up. That is the simplest way of putting it. If you look at the
percentages, 65 per cent of National Rail passengers go to street,
25 per cent of people in Central line trains go to street 29 per
cent of people on sub-surface lines go to street, so why on earth
do only seven per cent of people on Crossrail go to Liverpool
Street? Where are they going? I cannot answer that question but
that is what I am investigating through this proof of evidence.
I am trying to get to a higher level of understanding.
1087. So that this process has some structure
to it, what you have done, very helpfully, is to summarise for
me at all events the bits of your evidence that you want to concentrate
on and the Committee will be happy to hear as a result of that
attempt you believe you will be able to shorten it very considerably,
is that right, Mr Spencer?
(Mr Spencer) I will do my very best. Clearly
it will take me slightly longer to give you this evidence without
you having the proof than if you had the proof, which is what
my counsel has said. I have got a lot to get through here. I will
do it as quickly as I possibly can but there are certain things
that have not been presented to you previously in introduction,
which is probably why I am labouring it a little bit before I
get to the crux of it. I can go through the crux of it very quickly.
I would like to touch next on the very last page of my exhibits,
which is volume 8A.
1088. Just for the record, so that people reading
the transcript can follow, this is an extract from the Crossrail
Environmental Statement volume 8A and the very last page is the
extract from 8A you have just mentioned at paragraphs 2.30 onwards
on page ten.[4]
(Mr Spencer) First of all, I would
just like to touch on how Crossrail have done their appraisal
because I do not believe anyone has explained how they have generated
their numbers. I am not going to do it in any great detail. It
uses a model called Railplan and you have heard a bit about it
already and I am sure you will hear a little bit more and I am
sure there will be some cross-examination on it. Railplan is a
ginormous undertaking. It seeks to simulate every single rail
journey, public transport journey, in the South East of England.
There are millions of them. There are thousands of zones where
people begin their journeys, and a zone is a district in a city
centre or a suburb in Brentwood or wherever. There are thousands
of destinations. This model puts them altogether as well as having
what London has, an immensely comprehensive public transport system
in terms of the Underground and rail services that operate in
London. It is a Herculean task that Railplan is being asked to
perform. Quite clearly, in setting this explanation in place Cross
London Rail Links recognises that Railplan is a strategic model
and that it has to be used with a great deal of caution. What
they set out here is something called a post-model adjustment,
which is basically saying do not take the numbers on face value,
you have got to look at them and scrutinise them; the strategic
model cannot be expected to accurately predict the use of individual
stations, as an example. We are talking about an individual station
here; in fact, we are talking about half an individual station.
There is work that needs to be done. The opportunity to do that
work for some reason or another at certain points in time has
been clouded because the demand forecasts were only produced in
December 2004, the Bill was lodged in early 2005 and the Environmental
Statement had to be written. There is an awful lot of stuff that
has been going on. My fundamental case is that the level of scrutiny
you need to apply for the Liverpool Street area means that you
need to have a much more detailed understanding of the operation
of the station and the function of the station and what it is
there to achieve in the future. That is an area of work which
we have begun with Cross London Rail Links because we have got
convergence on the employment case and we have dealt with a major
component of Railplan but there is still an awful lot of work
that would be needed before you would have complete confidence
in the demand forecasts that are being used to justify the station
design.
1089. Without being at all, as it were, confrontational,
is it the position that you wrote a letter about this paragraph
that we see at the end of your exhibits, 2.37, asking questions
as to whether appropriate post-model adjustments had been done
at Liverpool Street, to which you have not had a formal reply
at any rate?
1090. (Mr Spencer) I have had no reply whatsoever.
We have had discussions on a regular basis but it was a formal
submission to Crossrail and I have not received anything from
them.
1091. Is their position that they have done,
and did do, the relevant post-model adjustments or not?
(Mr Spencer) It has not been stated one way
or the other. Just moving on from Railplan a little bit, clearly
it is the only show in town as far as assessing a project like
Crossrail is concerned. We have made significant progress with
Cross London Rail Links in the course of the last ten days in
using Railplan to improve the demand forecasting, but that is
not the end of the day. The demand forecasts that I am putting
to you today show substantial convergence in terms of my previous
view and the view that is now currently being expressed by Crossrail.
1092. Mr Spencer, I think you have just summarised
very effectively one reason why this has been a roller coaster
ride for me at any rate as well.
(Mr Spencer) And me!
1093. If you are happy to, let us now go to
your overview of the function of Liverpool Street station concentrating
just on two or three paragraphs in your proof.
(Mr Spencer) Sure.
1094. Is it convenient for the Committee to
have any statistics to hand, perhaps your exhibits three and four
while you give this evidence?
(Mr Spencer) I think I am more concerned with
numbers rather than the layout issue. Probably the most helpful
exhibits to get out would be exhibits 18 and 19.
1095. Mr Spencer, do you think it would be helpful
if you began by just telling the Committee how many visitors per
annum Liverpool Street station serves?
(Mr Spencer) Yes. It is 141 million visitors
per annum, of which 80 per cent, which is over 110 million, are
rail passengers. Actually it is a significant attraction for people
to come in and out, to buy their lunch and go to Boots. The City
is not well endowed with retail facilities and Liverpool Station
is probably the largest retail facility in the City of London,
certainly for convenience goods. It has got a huge number of coffee
outlets that is for sure, about 30 of them.
1096. It is the busiest station, is it the busiest
anything else?
(Mr Spencer) It is the busiest station in the
country and it is the busiest building in the country. Mr Weiss
talked about Heathrow Airport combining four terminals together
and coming up with a number significantly less. I have not done
that sum so I could not endorse it or otherwise. What you do in
the AM peak is you do the equivalent of filling Wembley Stadium
in three hours, 100,000 people go through the station, and these
are enormous numbers. An equivalent department store like Selfridges
would struggle to get more than about 15 or 20 million people,
and these are big buildings. Harrods is an example, or any other
major department store that you are familiar with. There would
be an order of magnitude probably a tenth below what is happening
in this building on an annual basis.
1097. You mentioned that figure of 141 million.
Does that represent growth over the last even very few years?
(Mr Spencer) Yes. It is 15 per cent higher
than at the Millennium. As I said previously, it is the best part
of 100 per cent up on the level of throughput through the late
1980s, early 1990s. I have photographic evidence in here which
you can see and that is very much reflective of the time that
you went to see the station, which was the AM peak hour. I have
done the AM peak hour because you can see what is happening. Mr
Weiss put in lots of photographic evidence from the PM peak hour
and you cannot see the wood for the trees. In the PM peak hour
the main concourse gets very congested because people are waiting
to find out where their trains are going to depart from. You can
see in the AM peak hour that large parts of the exit system are
clearly overloaded. The stairs and the escalators up to Bishop's
Bridge from the east end of the concourse is routinely congested.
The stairs to Liverpool Street and the escalators to Liverpool
Street on the south side of the station are routinely congested.
As you can see in the PM peak hour on the opposite route, which
is the retail arcade route up to the statue at Broadgate, is extremely
busy and regularly congested. What Liverpool Street is dealing
with is people who know what they are doing. These are experienced
commuters, they have all worked it out. They come through here
225 times a year in the morning and 225 times in the evening.
There are ruts in Liverpool Street. There are certain routes that
people follow. We have done a raft of research as you can see
from this exhibit and the following eight or nine exhibits. We
have tried to understand exactly what is going on here. We have
got data from a whole variety of different sources. London Underground
has very comprehensive data as to what its passengers are doing.
I have tried to put it altogether to take a view on where things
stand at the moment. My view is that the station is approaching
a point where routinely capacity would be insufficient to deal
with the routine demand. It has not quite reached that point at
this moment in time but it is basically on a knife edge. It is
a hotchpotch: there are three LUL ticket halls, two levels to
the railway station and the railway station is ten feet below
where you want to be, which is up on the street. There are all
sorts of compromises that have been built into Liverpool Street.
With work that was done 20 years ago we have added more complexity
to it and in moving forward no doubt even more complexity gets
put into the equation and at some point in time it will fall over
because it just becomes totally and utterly dysfunctional. At
the moment it is highly functional.
1098. Mr Spencer, I have to say when I looked
at this drawing my eyes glazed over. I thought the colours were
horrible for a start in that it was difficult to tell which the
AM peak number is and which the PM peak number is and, secondly,
I did not know which numbers to concentrate on. Are you going
to tell the Committee a number which perhaps they ought to look
at on exhibit 18 to illustrate as vividly as any can the complexity
of the station that you have been talking about?[5]
(Mr Spencer) I was using this
because there is some order of magnitude for the movements that
exist. I would like to just walk around Liverpool Street station
in two minutes just to run through how you get out of the station
because I believe you have got to understand how this building
operates so that you can then view how it is going to operate
in the future and per se how many people would come through
the eastern end of Crossrail through this interchange in future
years. The best way for me to start is dealing with the bits that
are in the Railplan model. On the right-hand side there is a figure
of 18,751 which is the number of people who go up these stairs
and escalators to go to Bishopsgate.
1099. That was Mr Weiss' exit two, I think.
(Mr Spencer) That is clearly a substantial
number of people. If you go to the bottom left-hand corner you
will see two figures of 8,000 and 7,000, just about 16,000, but
very substantial numbers again, those are the people who go to
Liverpool Street.
3 Committee Ref: A16, Arrivals at Liverpool Street
and Moorgate Stations (SCN-20060125-001). Back
4
Committee Ref: A16, Environmental Statement Volume 8, para 2.30
(SCN-20060125-002). Back
5
Committee Ref: A16, Liverpool Street Station Survey Data: Crossrail-Mezzanine
Level AM Peak (0700-1000) (SCN-20060125-004. Back
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