Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1640
- 1659)
1640. Stay with that point and, always making
the assumption that we may not in the event be entitled to make,
that the Committee will accept our evidence on demand, what is
it that needs to be done now rather than be left to another day?
(Mr Chapman) To the best of my knowledge there
are two options that are considered feasible in a station which
we have called option one and option six. In both official and
unofficial discussions with people working for the Promoters no-one
has seriously suggested another option as viable and solving the
key issues that need to be addressed. Therefore, the critical
thing, I believe, now is that a decision is reached, accepting
the point that SDG's figures are shown to be correct, or something
in that area, that if people accept that the current ticket hall
B is inadequate to cope with the possible increase in demand something
needs to be done. Both option one and option six are viable. Option
one becomes precluded if the current scheme is continued. Could
we go please to figure 1?[18]18
If the Promoters' scheme is built and someone decides to bolt
on a ticket hall on Eldon Street corner there are two problems.
First of all the point here before going north is too deep so
the ticket hall will actually end up right over in Broadgate and
discharging people not necessarily where they want to go. The
amount that the Eldon Street corner is discharging people where
they want to go in the area and the ticket hall that comes in
here from this depth is such that it would serve Broadgate and
points through Broadgate but would not serve the area quite so
well. The second point is that there are mandatory regulations
for how far you can have a new passage journey from an escalator
run-off. You can tell, if I go back into the point M type of argument
here to try and create a passageway going north, that there is
going to be conflict with passengers coming up the escalators
not quite sure where they want to go so that would be another
problem. The Promoters' current scheme precludes option one being
built.
1641. If the Promoters' current scheme is built
a decision could not later be made to incorporate option one even
if by then the view had been taken that that was far and away
the best scheme?
(Mr Chapman) You would have to come off the
passageway under this building in some strange way to come back
over here to avoid conflicting at the bottom of the escalators.
It is a very Heath Robinson-ish scheme that comes under the buildings
and under Broadgate Circus and heads over in that direction. It
would not work nearly as well as the current scheme or the proposed
option one.
1642. We have just learned, Mr Chapman, that
the Promoters' counsel is intending to give a series of undertakings
of which the second is, and I will read it out and maybe a copy
could be given to you to read as I am going along. The second
proposed undertaking is that the Secretary of State will also
require the nominated undertaker to construct the Crossrail works
at and around Liverpool Street Station so as not to preclude or
render impracticable the expansion of ticket hall capacity at
a later date without disruption to the completed Crossrail works.
What that means, if I can put it to you in my lay language, is
that what the Secretary of State is proposing to do is give an
undertaking to look at options other than your option one at some
future time should that prove to be desirable and it is implicit
in the paragraph two undertaking that the Secretary of State is
rejecting at this stage your option one and saying to the Committee
that what he will be prepared to do is look at other options in
the future if that becomes necessary. Is that something that would
be satisfactory to those whom you represent?
(Mr Chapman) I have spoken about this to British
Land quite a lot and to the Corporation and they are not fixated
on any particular scheme. They just want to have sufficient capacity
at Liverpool Street. If the current scheme is maintained I believe
the only option that could be built following from that is option
six. I cannot conceive of another option on any information that
is available to me apart from option six that would fit in with
that. There is one way round that. If they built option one escalator
here and the second set of escalators here to come under the Metropolitan
Line and then came shallow along here, then they could bolt on
a scheme that could be done up here later. If they followed the
option one escalator route that achieves the objective and then
the ticket hall could be done at a later stage but that would
involve massive disruption a second time to this part of the City
of London which I understand from the Corporation they would not
welcome.
1643. Is it something you would recommend as
an engineer?
(Mr Chapman) The reason why option one is relatively
cheap—and I know it is an awful lot of money—compared
to what is happening elsewhere in London for a similar level of
capacity is that it is done at the same time. All the street works
would be done at the same time, the box is open at the same time,
the cut and cover box is put in at the same time. There is extra
work involved in all this and it is going to cost more but if
you do it at the same time it will be substantially cheaper than
doing it later on as well as substantially less disruptive.
1644. Kelvin Hopkins: Could I just confirm
whether other possibilities were considered at the sketch stage
but were rejected as being impossible or were not sensible and
that option one is really the only one that is sensible in engineering
terms?
1645. Sir Peter Soulsby: Option one and
option six. We were told this morning that there were options
in between.
1646. Mr Laurence: Option six is not
yet at the stage where it can properly be appraised and it is
that which I am now going to ask Mr Chapman to deal with.
1647. Sir Peter Soulsby: That would be
very helpful because he did present it to us and did acknowledge
at the time that it was not well worked out but there are other
aspects of it that I hope you will explore with him now.
1648. Mr Laurence: This is particularly
one of the matters that you yourself indicated that you wanted
to address, sir. You are at paragraph 29. Would you remind yourself
of the text and tell the Committee what your conclusions are on
this issue?
(Mr Chapman) Given the need to substantially
increase capacity at this station, which I have had a chance of
working on with Mr Spencer for several months now, and I have
gone through his figures and I have a lot of confidence in them,
and given the need to expand the ticket hall to provide the extra
flows that Mr Spencer described, that has led to two options to
meet the design objectives. The option that we see as having the
best advantages overall is the one that reaches the surface at
the junction of Eldon Street and Blomfield Street, option one,
because it gets people from platform to street as quickly as possible.
There is another option which we acknowledge as entirely valid,
which is CLRL's preferred option, to massively expand ticket hall
B and so-called option six. I would caution slightly that although
it appears to be feasible from the preliminary work that we have
done, and I have seen no drawings they have produced, we have
a couple of options and we believe, as I said before, that we
can get the ticket hall to work well. Just to refresh memories
can I have figure 6 please?[19]19
As I said before, figure 6 is the Promoters' scheme; it is not
our scheme. We have seen no plans for this and so we wanted to
make sure that it would work. I do not know if the Promoters have
got figures showing what they would do. There are three elements.
The first one is expanding the entrance through here and the idea
for this was inspired by the Crossrail previous scheme which was
abandoned in 2004/2005 because it used some of the pavement space
here for the escalator stem. That avoids that problem and, as
I said before, we really believe it would work although, as I
said before, we have not modelled it to see if it works. The second
is that what we achieved was fairly straight lines like you get
on the modern Jubilee Line extension station or at the new King's
Cross. You achieve 27 gates going across in a way that works well
and gives you full run-off on either side around the pillars and
the third element of it is increasing vertical separation from
the ticket hall here to street where they want to go to, not just
pumping them into the already hard-worked Network Rail concourse.
1649. If the Committee take the view that the
demand capacity case that we have put forward is broadly correct
and it requires something to be done, you have already said that
your view is that it would be best to do it at the beginning as
part of the project. How do we get to the point where, in the
event that there is a disagreement between the Petitioners and
the Promoters as to what is the better of these two solutions,
something is done within a reasonable short timescale?
(Mr Chapman) Option one has been looked at
in quite a lot of detail by us and by Mott MacDonald on behalf
of the Promoters and I think there is a reasonably strong understanding
of the issues and I fully agree with the Promoters that it will
cost in the region of £80 million extra so there is extra
work required on that to give you slightly more reassurance on
that factor of 100 per cent on cost. In terms of option six, there
are quite a number of issues which need to be explored.
1650. Without going into those issues again,
because I think you have dealt with them, your evidence is that
if there is a will that could be done in how long?
(Mr Chapman) I believe that with proper resourcing
and a proper will two months would be reasonable although I acknowledge
that Crossrail are very busy on a number of other points so far.
This to me seems a fairly fundamental issue. There are five central
area stations and this appears from all the evidence that I have
heard to be the most critical one. Solving this station so that
people are happy and it works is critical to the scheme.
1651. I am not asking you something you have
written down an answer to and I may not get the answer I want.
I do not know if we can rely on the Promoters to co-operate fully
with us in trying to examine properly option six if the Committee
indicates to them that something has to be done about the capacity
problem at Liverpool Street Station. We have to hear from Mr Elvin
in due course what exactly the Promoters' attitude will be if
we are successful on what I call issue one. Could Ove Arup if
need arose and it was provided with proper information, do the
work necessary properly to appraise option six absent co-operation
from CLRL?
(Mr Chapman) It could do the work but we would
need co-operation from CLRL and the Post Office Railway and there
are a lot of issues that the Promoter of the scheme should be
in on. I think it would be very difficult to do it in isolation
if the Promoter was not willing to co-operate or help. Think that
is pretty fundamental. For instance, the Post Office Railway would
not necessarily talk to a third party, I would imagine. I would
have trouble conceiving of a situation where a third party would
have the level of authority to negotiate with Network Rail who
own the building above. This area here is actually under a Grade
II listed building owned by Network Rail and currently occupied
by McDonald's and it is, of course, Post Office Railway shafts,
so it would be difficult to find the right solution. That is where
the Committee's help and the Promoters' help would be necessary.
1652. If you look at your last page do you see
if there is anything else that you want to say before I sit down?
(Mr Chapman) I think I have made the point.
1653. Mr Laurence: In that case, fine.
(Mr Chapman) Thank you.
1654. Sir Peter Soulsby: Mr Chapman,
before I invite Mr Elvin to cross-examine, can I ask you about
this option 6. I think the Committee has understood it is one
that is not as well developed as option 1. To ask you what you
do know about the obstructions in that area and whether that is
part of the exploration you have been able to make so far, particularly
what you know about the obstructions that would be necessary to
enable the widening of the passage as it joins the existing ticket
hall and what you know about the obstructions of the large section
which would have to come out on the eastern side?
(Mr Chapman) Dealing with points first, the
flare of point M I believe is reasonably free of obstructions
in the macro sense, although every street in London is not completely
free of services. When we did the site investigation through the
middle of London for Crossrail, with the best will and doing our
utmost, we hit a number of buried services because it was incredibly
difficult to find streets that were not full of services. There
would be a few more service diversions but a lot of them run in
a north-south direction anyway. Changing this shape slightly will
probably affect a few more but not an awful lot more. In crude
terms, that is probably of the order of a million pounds' worth
of work, maybe, it might be less than that because you already
have a retaining wall coming along here. It is a little bit of
extra work required to do it. I know in the Environmental Statement
Crossrail are very concerned about reinstating bus access in the
north-south way as quickly as possible, and a bit of extra work
would not help that. In crude terms, that is probably quite a
small amount of money to address in the scheme of things. I understand
that the Promoters are considering that issue already as quite
an easy way of trying to resolve some of the problems at the top
of the escalators.
1655. Mr Elvin: If it helps the Committee
there is no dispute with Mr Chapman on that point.
(Mr Chapman) That is a relatively quick and
cheap win for the scheme overall. The second issue, which releases
the large amount of gates here, is being able to build over the
Post Office shafts here. Currently there is a ticket hall at the
northern end of this red lump. When you come off Liverpool Street
concourse, following the line of my pen, if you come here, this
is where you buy your tickets. My concern is between this line
here and this line here are the foundations of a listed building.
I was not sure how much space is there so without full access
and permission to go and talk to people, we have been buying tickets
there surreptitiously trying to see the ticket hall at the back.
We believe it is about three metres distance and then the door
at the far side of the ticket hall which leads me to believe this
space here under the listed building is probably free. One of
my biggest concerns is trying to undermine a listed building.
Like I say, from not having proper data but doing our best to
collect it in an objective way, we believe this space here can
be free. Coming south of the listed building, coming south of
the MacDonald's line into Liverpool Street itself, there are these
shafts which rise in the pavement and come out under the pavement
in front. In extremis, if there is a structure here which cannot
be sensibly excluded from the site, one could excavate the street
here directly and access them. Possibly the Promoters will have
better information on this than we do. Without getting access
to that zone, going into proper London Underground facilities,
we do not know that.
1656. Sir Peter Soulsby: I think we realise
you have not explored beyond the accessible in that area. We do
have, in A23, the gate point we were referred to earlier on. It
happens that also shows the outlines of some of the structures
you have been referring to, I think?
(Mr Chapman) That is correct, yes.
1657. Sir Peter Soulsby: Could you, if
you are able, give us an interpretation of those bits of the structure
there?
(Mr Chapman) Okay. Again, using the main screen
and my laser, these are shafts which connect down to the Post
Office Railway. I will show you in a few seconds how those inter-relate.
These structures here I infer are pavement vaults from the listed
Network Rail building which is to the north of where MacDonald's
is. I would infer, I do not know, that this space here is free
air at basement level, ticket hall level. I have walked along
here, I know this wall well, I am ashamed to say, rather too well
for comfort! This wall is an ordinary solid wall. Passengers have
free access—speaking as a passenger with my Oyster card—to
walk along this wall as much as they want to. Fortunately it is
one of the few bits of the station that is free, there are few
people loitering in this area. This is a wall at basement level;
this is an old vault wall at basement level and is probably the
front of the vaults that were from the building. This space here
I suspect might be soil or whatever else, I honestly do not know.
I suspect this is free, I expect this is free, I know this is
free, this must be free because it previously connected the Post
Office shafts to the old station level, this area here I believe
is the current LUL facilities. I believe most of this space could
be expanded to free up the 27 point gateline. I would hazard one
bit of caution which is that all of this work to create the long
gateline, there needs to be work for circulation now, there is
no point having enough capacity to get people through here, through
the gateline and then coming to a very constrained space. It is
vitally important we get people to street level and currently
I believe there are only two or three escalators to serve the
whole of Network Rail coming off the Network Rail concourse to
street, one up one down roughly here. I am not sure, I think there
are two on the very eastern side of the station, two and two,
I am not sure. Currently, if we discharge everybody to this zone,
there needs to be a means of getting them to street level.
1658. Sir Peter Soulsby: Right. Mr Elvin?
1659. Mr Elvin: Mr Chapman, I am not
going to ask you the names of other walls you have befriended
in the last few days. I am glad you are on good terms with this
wall. You have to laugh sometimes, Mr Chapman! Can I understand
this, Mr Chapman, I think there is a good deal of common ground
between us, particularly as to aspects of option 6. Your position
is quite straight forward, your clients, the petitioners whom
you represent, are not wedded to one option or another, what they
want is an appropriate increase in capacity?
(Mr Chapman) Absolutely correct.
18 Committee Ref: A20, Current Crossrail Proposals
(SCN-20060126-004). Back
19
Committee Ref: A20, Current Crossrail Layout/Upgrade Existing
Ticket Hall (LONDLB-EXH03-008). Back
|
