Examination of Witnesses (Questions 5840
- 5859)
5840. You have helpfully confirmed to my learned
friend Mr Mould the position of Brentwood Borough Council under
section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act, and that will be of
assistance to residents, although there may be issues—I
do not know—that the borough council itself may wish to
pursue in relation to that. What it amounts to though is that
the borough council is in the position, as you said, to secure
best practicable means from the contractor in the way that the
construction is carried out. That is in summary the position,
is it not?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) That is the summary position.
It is slightly elaborated in Crossrail's construction code, which
goes further than the statutory requirements, which do not call
for noise limits, but the construction code says that the section
61 application will include noise limits.
5841. But the fact is, again, from the point
of view of ordinary residents, that best practicable means clearly
accepts that the works have to go ahead; what is being talked
about is the best way in which they can be mitigated in the circumstances
that they go ahead with what is proposed, without there being
the argument the other way round: are these works at a level,
should they take place, that will be acceptable to the people
in the immediate area.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
5842. You referred to document D9, the noise
and vibration mitigation scheme. You explained the purpose of
secondary glazing as essentially being to enable an occupant to
continue to occupy in a reasonable manner without unacceptable
interference.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
5843. Put simply, what happens when it gets
very hot? There is ventilation, is there not, provided as part
of the idea of secondary glazing, but anyone who lives anywhere
near any source of noise understands that while they might install
double or secondary glazing, they have to accept the intrusion
of noise during hotter weather?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I am afraid I did not
hear your last words.
5844. I am sorry. They have to accept that in
hotter weather, if they wish to open their windows, noise intrusion
will occur?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) If the ventilator is found
to be inadequate and they choose to open the windows, the noise
level will increase.
5845. Without expecting you to comment in detail
on ventilation, it must surely be the case that requiring people
to live with ventilators—fans, basically—in their
house, running off the electricity at all times is no real substitute
for being able to open one's windows and enjoy properly the weather
that is around one without excessive noise interference.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Indeed, and mention is
made of that in the Environmental Statement.
5846. You described the process in response
to Mr Mould of the decision-making in relation to secondary glazing
and insulation, and perhaps I could at this point put to you the
question, because I think it is implicit in the answer that you
have given to Mr Mould, to clarify it, that I put to Mr Smith,
that is to say that it is the Promoter and the contractor as appointed
who take the decisions as to assessment and who qualifies for
insulation or for re-housing, subject, as you said, to a process
of appeal to an Independent Commissioner.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) It is the Secretary of
State.
5847. I am sorry. It was put forward to the
Secretary of State by the contractor.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes. The buck stops at
the Secretary of State.
5848. Then there is the independent process
of appeal.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
5849. All I am seeking to establish is that
the borough council's remit does not run in that direction.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) The borough council will
be very closely involved because, as set out in, for example,
information paper F3, there is a community relations programme
on consultation provision, which will include all stakeholders,
including the borough council.[10]
They will have a major input to the administration of all these
schemes.
5850. Yes. The borough council is consulted
at that stage, but it is not involved in the individual decision-making
nor in the assessment of individual cases. That is right, is it
not?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) That is right.
5851. So what it amounts to, again from the
point of view of a resident, is that if they are unhappy with
the decision that comes back, they as an individual have to go
to the Independent Commissioner.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Their first course is
to make a further application to the Secretary of State. Only
if they consider the Secretary of State has acted in error or
unreasonably would they find it necessary to go to the Independent
Complaints Commissioner.
5852. That is a helpful clarification. The point
I am making is simply that it is down to the individual resident
to act on their own instance. They cannot rely on the borough
council or any other agency to act on their behalf or to try to
ensure a commonality of treatment if there is a feeling that it
has not occurred.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) The interesting situation
that arises is that when the borough council has to determine
what is best practicable means, practicability is a balancing
process and if the Secretary of State through the contractor is
in the borough council's view not carrying out as much mitigation
as the borough council thinks they should, then their view as
to what is practicable is different from the case if they took
the view that the Secretary of State was fully administering the
scheme and all eligible cases were being properly addressed.
5853. That is obviously helpful from the point
of view of the individual resident in terms of the impact of best
practicable means on this regime. In terms of intensification
of use, more trains up and down the track, more trains at later
hours—this is paper C11—just to confirm, there is,
as the paper makes clear in relation to the terms of national
standards, no compensation from that scheme.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) There is a compensation
scheme to the extent that if the triggers set out in the noise
insulation regulations for railways should be exceeded, then grant
is payable for noise insulation. From the noise point of view,
that is the only what one could call compensation scheme. Subject
to part 1 of the Land Compensation Act, which Mr Colin Smith referred
to, which does provide a completely separate route for compensation
where property value is diminished through the operation or the
use of public works.
5854. Mr Mould asked you about community impact,
and whether that was taken into account in assessing noise impact,
and you drew attention to the temporary re-housing, for example,
were that to be applied to a particular house or group of houses
having an effect in relation to the community. Would you not accept
that that process through the Environmental Statement in recognising
the consequence for the community of decisions in relation to
individual houses was not the same as looking at whether there
is an impact on the community as a whole, which affects the community
as a whole?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I would draw the Committee's
attention to the relevant passage of the Environmental Statement,
where it does specifically comment on the consequences of that
number of people living elsewhere for a length of time.
5855. My point is, granted there is obviously
that consequence, that is not the same as saying increased noise
in Shenfield will affect the character of Shenfield as an area
and all that flows from that and that there are interests of residents
that are affected which do not come down necessarily to the individual
decisions as to whether an individual resident needs to be re-housed.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I understand the question.
I am not sure there is any procedure for putting noise effects
all together and drawing some different conclusion other than
the very clear explanation in the ES of the numbers of people
significantly affected and eligible for the various forms of mitigation,
which I think in themselves are eloquent enough.
5856. Just to conclude that point, if one takes
from that that were Shenfield as a whole to be significantly affected
by the increased noise both during the construction and particularly
thereafter from the operation, you have already said that some
people are outside the area of significant effect; nonetheless,
they may well suffer increased noise and expect to do. The effect
on the whole area and, to put it bluntly, the character of the
area and people's house values, for example, as well as the nature
of the quality of life that they have, those consequences can
arise from increased noise outside the scheme we have been talking
about in relation to coping with the worst effects in individual
properties. That is right, is it not?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) It is right. There is
a large number of effects of differing magnitudes and if you list
them all on the same page, you can see that extent is in Shenfield's
case relatively large.
5857. Chairman: Are there any of the
other listed petitioners from Brentwood that would like to ask
this witness a question? No.
Questioned by The Committee
5858. Kelvin Hopkins: I have some acquaintance
with noise mitigation because the M1 passes through my constituency
and I helped to secure noise barriers, so I am familiar with the
problems. It strikes me that the major noise at Shenfield will
be fast trains passing through stations rather than slow-moving
trains going n and out of platforms.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
5859. So the major noise exists already.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
10 Crossrail Information Paper F3, Community Relations
(LINEWD-IPF3-001). Back
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