Examination of Witnesses (Questions 5349
- 5359)
5349. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Ms Lieven,
would you like to kick off?
5350. Ms Lieven: Sir, this morning we
are dealing with Petitioners from Shenfield and I do not know
whether it would be helpful to the Committee for me to make a
short opening just to explain what is happening at Shenfield because
this is the first time that the Committee has considered anything
outside the section of the route, so it would seem helpful just
to make a brief explanation.
5351. Perhaps I can start by putting up the
map of the line.[1]
Shenfield is at the north-east terminus of the line and the Committee
is familiar with the route up to Liverpool Street, and then east
of Liverpool Street it goes to Whitechapel, which we will return
to in a few weeks, and then splits north-east, coming out of tunnel
at the point west of Stratford. Then from that point onwards,
down the north-east section, the line is taking over the existing,
what are known as, `e-lines', which is what the electric lines
are known as, all the way up to Shenfield. As I say, the Petitioners
today are private Petitioners from Shenfield. Tomorrow we are
having the London Borough of Brentwood which covers both Brentwood
Station and Shenfield, but unfortunately the London Borough could
not come today, so there will be an element, I suspect, of repetition,
though certainly from our side we will try to keep it as minimal
as possible.
5352. At the present time, Shenfield is served
by both the stopping trains on the e-line and on fast services
coming from further to the east, both the Norwich line and the
Southend line, and those fast services, which run down the fast
lines to Liverpool Street, will continue to serve Shenfield, so
there will be no disruption, no effect on the existing fast services.
The advantage of Crossrail for the people of Shenfield is that
they will be able to get on a train at Shenfield and, instead
of going to Liverpool Street and having to change if they want
to go further west, they will be able to go straight through to
all the other Crossrail destinations.
5353. Before we leave the route map, a number
of the Petitioners from Shenfield have raised an argument in their
Petition that the line should not go as far as Shenfield and that
either it should stop at Stratford or at one of the other intermediate
stations, in particular the ones that are mentioned at Gidea Park
and Romford. The Committee may recall that that was a matter of
discussion at second reading and in the instruction. The position
from the Promoter's side is that an argument that seeks to move
the termini further to the west does go to the principle of the
Bill and, therefore, the Committee cannot amend the Bill to require
the line to stop short of Shenfield, but we have made it clear
in correspondence that we will not challenge the Petitioners who
seek to make that argument to the Committee today; it is a matter
for the Committee as to whether they hear the argument or not.
We will, either today or tomorrow, call evidence if Petitioners
do raise the point as to why stopping at any of the intermediate
stations would both be highly disruptive, highly expensive and
also very, very poor in transport terms.
5354. Perhaps I can then move on to the works
at Shenfield and put up the first plan for that.[2]
This is the plan which is in the Petition Response Document and
it is quite useful to show the various elements of the works.
In effect, there are three elements. Here we have the existing
Shenfield Station and it is just worth the Committee orientating
itself. There is Friars Avenue running off to the west where a
number of Petitioners live and then Hunter Avenue running to the
east, and on the other side of the railway lines is an area known
as Hutton Mount which is somewhat elevated, and there are a number
of Petitioners from that area.
5355. The Crossrail works fall into three parts.
On the western side, we are building a new platform, or it is
effectively the extension of an existing platform to the north
so that Crossrail trains can come in on both sides of that island
platform, whereas at the moment there is only a platform on one
side. To build the platform in that form involves extending an
embankment and then putting in a retaining wall. We are then creating
three stabling sidings where you can see the train siding modifications
to allow the trains to come into the new platforms, so on the
one side there are two sidings and on the other side there are
three stabling sidings, the east side. The other element of work
which happens on both the west and the east side is that there
is a considerable amount of remodelling of the tracks in order
to allow the Crossrail trains to be fully segregated from other
services, which is very important in terms of reliability.
5356. If we could look briefly at the aerial
photos so that the Committee can get an idea of Shenfield, this
first one is on the Friars Avenue side, the west side, so the
new platform is extended along to the west and the embankment
beside that.[3]
Just so that the Committee can orientate themselves, the Friars
Avenue car park, which is one of our worksites, is to the south,
and Hutton Road, which you will hear referred to and which is
the principal shopping street of Shenfield, is running down to
the station.
5357. If we can look at the next aerial photo,
this is still on the west side, but a different orientation, looking
along the tracks.[4]
You can see the platform area to be extended, track works, and
there is another aerial photo which we will come to a little later,
but it is this area to the north where there will be some tree
loss because of the works to the embankment.
5358. If we can then look at the east side of
the station on the aerial photo, this is the east side of the
station and here shown are the eastern sidings for Crossrail and
a loop line has to be relocated on the Chelmsford-Southend line
in order to give space for our sidings.[5]
This is the Hunter Avenue car park, which I will come back to
in a moment, and Hunter Avenue runs along the side car park to
the north.
5359. If I can then turn very briefly to the
impacts, there are two principal impacts which are raised, though
obviously Petitioners have raised a whole series of other impacts,
but there are two which are perhaps particularly focused on. The
first is noise and the second is car parking. There are a number
of properties which will be affected by noise at this location,
and perhaps we could put up the ES Impact Plan.[6]
The Committee may recall this from other parts of the route. One
can see the noise impacts coloured in, giving their different
levels of severity. There are people along this part of the route
who will be significantly affected and some who will be eligible
for temporary rehousing and some eligible for noise insulation.
Probably the most appropriate thing is to come back to those for
the individual sites, but unsurprisingly it is the properties
who are closest to the two areas of work on the west and east
side of the station.
1 Crossrail Ref: P70, The Crossrail Route, Non-technical
Summary of the Crossrail environmental statement (LINEWD-NTS62-002). Back
2
Crossrail Ref: P70, Crossrail proposals at Shenfield Station
and extent of existing car parks (BRWDBO-14903-001). Back
3
Crossrail Ref: P70, Friars Avenue Car Park and South Western
Station Approaches, aerial photograph (BRWDBO-14904-002). Back
4
Crossrail Ref: P70, Shenfield Station South Western Approaches
(BRWDBO-14904-003). Back
5
Crossrail Ref: P70, Hunter Avenue Car Park and North Eastern
Station Approaches (BRWDBO-14904-005). Back
6
Crossrail Ref: P70, Shenfield Station Project Works and Impacts
Map NE17 (ii) (LINEWD-ES117-102). Back
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