Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1840
- 1859)
1840. What the second part of the proposition
at 5.3 is talking about is the assumption that the need for the
new entrance will be rejected by the Committee. If that happens
then, of course, the main case that we have been putting before
you is not accepted by the Committee and that will be that. What
the second proposition in 5.3 means is that the Promoter simply
does not agree that we need a new station at all. That is the
question for the Committee to resolve. However, the first part
of the proposition in 5.3 is a comment to which we take exception.
If the Committee rejects the present solution what are these "significantly
lower cost and less disruptive options"? Option Six, the
EDF option Ms Lieven's suggestions, at Day Four, 859 to 862, which
amount to saying "increase the number of gates, live with
congestion, make people on the Central line use ticket hall C",
as set out in paragraph 6 of the paper? There is no evidence as
to how these alternatives would work. Obviously, the Promoter
would have been cross-examined uphill and down dale about them
if he had turned up to try and explain how it is that he thought
they properly addressed the problem.
1841. Sir, my third example involves very brief
reference to the LUL document at A23,[7]
the operation of the Liverpool Street station and use of the pedroute
model. That is, likewise, full of statements of fact, many of
which could be criticised; in particular the value and limitations
of pedroute have only been able to be examined through Mr Spencer.
Sir, my fourth and final example, is the one that would involve
me putting in a paper of our own to deal with the revised paper
on walk times. Perhaps I could just ask if that could now be circulated,
sir, which is the answer that we make to that revised paper under
the heading: "British Land Petition No. 205. Walk Time Isochrones
for Liverpool Street Crossrail".[8]
1842. While that is being done, let me just
say this: that under cross-examination Mr Weiss gave what you
may think were four particularly powerful examples of why you
do not just measure distances from the platform. That is, his
examples were of how people actually choose their destinations.
For the record, sir, please look at Day Four, 717 and following,
on that subject.
1843. I now refer you, if I may, to the document
that I referred to a moment ago, and just read it on to the record
as follows: "CLRL tabled, on 26 January, a note entitled
`Amended Moorgate and Liverpool Street Walk Times' with an attached
plan showing the areas that could be reached on foot within five
and 10 minutes' walk via the Moorgate and Liverpool Street exits
to Crossrail.
1844. The walk isochrones are based on times
from the end of the Crossrail platforms closest to Moorgate and
Liverpool Street respectively. The calculations referred to in
the note indicated that the platform to street exit time at Moorgate
would be 1.5 minutes and at Liverpool Street would be 4.5 minutes—a
difference of 3 minutes. CLRL has since issued, on 31 January,
a correction to the effect that these walk times should be 2 and
4 minutes respectively—a difference of 2 minutes.
1845. The corrected walk times to street have
been used to re-plot the CLRL isochrones. However, two critical
changes have been made: firstly, CLRL assumed a single exit point
at Liverpool Street onto Liverpool Street whereas the revised
plan incorporates walk routes via all possible exits (that is
to say, Liverpool Street, Octagon Arcade, Sun Street Passage and
Bishopsgate) and, secondly, walk time isochrones are plotted using
actual walk times at street level and not simply crow-fly distances
as used by CLRL.
1846. Then Mr Sarlby (I think it is his paper)
says of the first attached plan, that that shows the five and
10 minute walk isochrones for Moorgate and Liverpool Street exits.
Then it says, under the heading "Eldon Street Exit: The Eldon
Street exit proposed by British Land would create a shorter walk
route to street level at Liverpool Street. The exit time has been
calculated as 2.25 minutes, or just 15 seconds longer than the
Moorgate exit. The second attached plan compares the Moorgate
and Eldon Street walk time isochrones." Sir, I am not going
to take time on plans, they are there for you to look at at such
leisure as you may have to examine them.
1847. May I now just turn back to the beginning
of what I was saying, with this comment on the document that I
have just handed in, that it is a classic example of the sort
of problem that you get when evidence is not led by the party
putting in the original document. This is an answer to it—the
paper I have just read from—and the Committee is simply
going to have to do the best it can without the benefit of having
cross-examination.
1848. Sir, with that very brief run through
some of the main points that separate the parties, we want to
express the hope that you will therefore decide that the Petitioners
have discharged the onus which is on them and demonstrated convincingly
that there will be a substantial capacity problem in 2016 and
beyond, about which something must be done. What that something
is is the second issue. It is important in this connection for
the Committee to remind themselves that there has been no evidence
from the Promoter on this issue either. What there has been is
cross-examination of Mr Chapman based merely on matters put to
him by Mr Elvin.
1849. Sir, there is nothing actually improper
about proceeding in that way, so long as the tribunal remains
alert to the fact that the matters put in cross-examination are
not themselves evidence. Of course, the witness may accept the
point put to him in cross-examination, in which case the cross-examiner
has achieved by cross-examination what he would otherwise have
needed evidence of his own to achieve. It also follows, however,
that if the witness contradicts the cross-examiner, the cross-examiner
is stuck with what the witness says in answer, having chosen to
call no evidence of his own to support the questions asked. All
this is commonplace, and the Committee showed itself very well
aware of the deficiencies of Mr Elvin's method.
1850. The implications of this chosen method
of proceeding do not require any very detailed analysis, but there
is one point relevant to Mr Chapman's evidence on which, with
your leave, I will spend a moment or two. The point is this: Mr
Chapman was called on a hypothesis (which I hope he and I have
both made clear), the hypothesis being that the Committee would
accept in due course that there would be a capacity problem at
Liverpool Street station in the future. Your Petitioners could
not know and, of course, still do not know, whether the Committee
will decide that there will be such a problem. We have taken a
view that you will not be assisted if we spend more time in the
course of these closing remarks reviewing the evidence of Messrs
Rees, Penfold, Weiss and Spencer in order to persuade you to regard
that evidence as showing that there is a problem at Liverpool
Street about which something must be done. If the evidence was
insufficient to persuade you of that, as I mentioned earlier,
my advocacy is hardly likely to swing the thing in our favour.
If, on the other hand, the evidence has been sufficient to convince
you, you need no more from me on that issue now.
1851. However, as we cannot know whether the
committee has been convinced or not until you announce your decision,
you will forgive me, sir, if I now address you on the supposition
that we have. I refer to that supposition for ease of reference
as the Petitioner's First Proposition (or the PFP, for short).
Let me say a little bit more about what the Petitioner's First
Proposition actually involves, because it is absolutely central
to hat we are going to ask you to do.
1852. The Promoter's solution, described in
the Environmental Statement at page 241 as option two, is to make
"a connection into the existing London Underground ticket
halls (in the plural)". In fact, as you know, the proposal
is to make a connection only into ticket hall B, but that is not
here my point. My point is to elaborate on the Petitioner's first
proposition. It can be divided into three parts, and it is this:
firstly, that the Promoter's solution for the Crossrail station
at Liverpool Street will not do and must be rejected. Secondly,
the Promoter's scheme must be rejected in favour of something
much more radical. That is to say, no cheap and cheerful tinkering
of the kind proposed by Ms Lieven in the course of her cross-examination
of Mr Weiss.
1853. Sir, the third element of the Petitioner's
first proposition is this: the radical solution, once determined,
must be incorporated at the outset in the provisions of the Bill
itself. That brings me to a further point I wish to make about
Mr Elvin's chosen method of cross-examining Mr Chapman. As I believe
I have made quite clear, his evidence is relevant and material
to your deliberations if, and only if, you accept that something
radical must be done at Liverpool Street in place of the Promoter's
scheme. Yet Mr Elvin's cross-examination, to some considerable
extent, ignored that. So, for example, he tried to get Mr Chapman
to agree that the Promoter could "wait and see" if there
turned out to be a problem, and if so to do something about it.
He put forward, on Day Six, three suggested undertakings which
are all premised on the Petitioner's first proposition not being
correct.
1854. Sir, obviously, if the Committee reject
the PFP then we are happy to have the Secretary of State's undertaking,
nevertheless, to keep the situation under review and to establish
a monitoring scheme and so on, but none of that was relevant to
what Mr Chapman was trying to help you with. What he was trying
to help you with was the question how to determine what was the
best alternative option to incorporate into the Bill in place
of the Promoter's hole-in-the-wall scheme. This must have been
a frustrating task for Mr Chapman because, try as he might, he
has been unable to help you with the detail of any scheme to provide
an adequate ticket hall for Crossrail at Liverpool Street station
other than his own scheme, variously referred to as option one
or the Ove Arup scheme or the Eldon Street scheme.
1855. The letter from Mr Wilson, to which I
previously referred (if we have copies I would like to circulate,
sir, now but otherwise I can just read it on to the record—I
see Mr Walker does have copies for the Committee).[9]
It is very short, you will be glad to hear. It is a letter dated
22 December 2005, addressed to Mr Chapman. It is from Mr Ben Wilson
of Cross London Rail Links Limited and it says this, under the
heading "Liverpool Street station": Further to our meeting
on 9 December 2005 regarding the British Land Company Petition
against the Crossrail Bill and your proposals for an additional
ticket hall, please find enclosed the initial draft review of
your proposal undertaken by our consultants. As discussed the
draft report is provided to you for information only and is to
be seen as `work in progress'. Moreover, the draft report is not
to be construed as a response in any way to the British Land Petition
and is provided without prejudice to any negotiations with British
Land regarding their petition."
1856. Then this: "As we advised at the
meeting, this is the first element of the work we are undertaking
on this issue, we hope to update the report with an assessment
of other options for providing additional ticket hall provision
early in January."
1857. You see that he refers in that last paragraph
to "other options for providing an additional ticket hall
provision". For reasons we really cannot understand, somebody
must have told Mr Wilson to stop considering alternatives because
the promised evaluation has not been forthcoming in early January
or at all. Perhaps the Promoter feared that, if he continued to
operate with us in appraising other alternative options, he would
give the impression to the Committee that he thought we had a
case. Perhaps those who have been assisting with this aspect of
the case have just been too busy, but common courtesy suggests
that a letter explaining what was going on would not have been
out of place and, sir, I have to say that, for all I know, work
has still been going on on other options, perhaps without telling
us, and, at all events, Mr Chapman has been unable to give you
anything but the sketchiest information about Option 6 for he
has not even seen any plans.
1858. If the Committee accept the Petitioners'
first proposition, however, we respectfully say that there are
only two choices: either the Secretary of State must volunteer
to get on with producing a proper appraisal for Option 6; or,
absent such a promise, we respectfully say that the Committee
must order him to do so. I remind the Committee that Option 6
involves what I called in opening a `massively enhanced ticket
hall', a description adopted by our witnesses. There are only
three bodies we have been able to discover with whom liaison will
be necessary in relation to Option 6, that is to say, London Underground
Limited, Network Rail and the Post Office. There should be no
problem at all for the Promoter to secure their co-operation so
that the necessary investigations can be carried out in order
properly to appraise that option. Once those investigations have
been carried out, further work will be necessary to bring the
two options to the stage where they can be properly compared.
I digress to say, sir, that I am referring to the `two options'
because, on the evidence you have heard, those are the only two
options realistically on the table.
1859. Now, sir, there is of course no doubt
that, if the Committee accept the Petitioners' first proposition
and direct the Promoter promptly to carry out the necessary appraisal
of Option 6, we can expect the co-operation of the Secretary of
State on this issue. Mr Ben Wilson evidently thought, when he
wrote his letter on 22 December 2005, that by early January it
would be possible to provide proper information about Option 6.
It was the Promoter's apparent decision to go back on that. The
Committee, therefore, lack even a preliminary appraisal to permit
an initial comparison of the schemes to be carried out. We say
this without any rancour, but that is entirely the fault of the
Promoter who could, and should, have continued to appraise Option
6 in just the way he has been willing to consider our figures.
7 Committee Ref: A23, The Operation of Liverpool Street
Station and the use of the pedroute model. Back
8
Committee Ref: A29, British Land Company-Walk time isochrones
for Liverpool Street Crossrail. Back
9
Committee Ref: A30, Corporation of London letter to Crossrail
re: Liverpool Street Station, 22 December 2005 (SCN-20060131-004). Back
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