Examination of Witnesses (Questions 7120
- 7139)
7120. Yes, and you are saying it is insignificant
if it is +5. Can you help the Committee, please? What is the purpose
of 2.12 if it is a matter of insignificance if one is +5?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Because the approach that
the consulting engineers working for Crossrail have taken has
been to apply to all the vent shaft sites a standard amount of
noise attenuation that can be accommodated within the space available.
That, as we heard from Mr Methold in quite a number of cases,
produces a noise level which is lower than the assessment criteron.
In discussions with the local authorities, of which there have
been many, it has been agreed on both sides that it is desirable
to capture that through a mechanism which ensures that where a
lower noise level can be achieved, it is achieve. We do not have
a problem, which I think was alluded to by Mr Methold, of contractors
designing right up to the assessment criteron in every case.
7121. What is the point of it? If the situation
is the assessment criteron produces a situation of no significance,
what is the point of going below that?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) The point is to meet the
requirements of the local authorities. There has been a long sequence
of meetings and forums in which their concerns have been raised.
Of course, we listened to them and, of course, we do what we can
to accommodate what they require and what they seek can be done
and this a mechanism for doing it.
7122. Why do you think they are pressing for
this matter?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I think it has been explained
quite clearly and I do understand it, but where there are explicit
numerical objectives in either the UDPs or in supplementary planning
guidance or designs standards it would be a matter of difficulty
for local authorities to explain how they accepted one standard
for Crossrail, which appeared to conflict—it does not always
conflict—with their own adopted standards. I quite see why
we are here and it would be very difficult for a local authority
to change their position given what appears to be a conflict.
I do not think there is as much conflict as has been suggested.
7123. Very well. That answer refers to, and
we can take out the sheet which shows it, LBH29 and 30.[81]
There we have the local authority standards and guidance and it
is that to which you are making reference in the answer you have
given me in respect of 2.12.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Not entirely,
one of the things that worries me about LBH29 and 30 is that it
does not include the text which goes with these numbers. In many
cases, the local plans, through caveat and restrictions, sometimes
explicitly talk about air-conditioning plants and things like
that. It is regrettable that we have a distillation here which
is misleading in its apparent blunt confrontation of Crossrail
when if you read each of the documents concerned, you would see
there is a lot of text that goes with the boxes in column 2 which
would be a lot more informative.
7124. When you were taking about point 2.12,
the pointers you have given us is that the point is to seek to
make a nod towards those planning policies which find expression,
albeit in tabulated form, in 29 and 30.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I think it is more than
a nod, I think the local authorities feel bound to take the stance
they have given the high level of apparent conflict that I have
mentioned.
7125. It is right, is it not, as you point out,
that there is not merely a high level of conflict, there is complete
conflict between your criterion in 2.4 that we have been looking
at and the policies as listed in 29 and 30?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I did not say a high level
of conflict, I said a high level, meaning that when you look at
this sort of level there appears to be conflict. When you drill
down into the words of the policies, there is not always as much
conflict as there was. In fact, as I have pointed out, in connection
with the Camden town station experience, that there is little
conflict and there are circumstances where the Crossrail type
approach brings about less noise than the local authority type
approach. On a large station site, if you assessed dozens of different
noise sources sequentially you would get the creeping ambient
that they worry about. You will get higher noise levels that will
result from the Crossrail policy when you take the noise from
the entire station site in one hit, as Mr Rueben Taylor put it,
and you deal with any danger of creeping background by assessing
it all at once against the standard and you get a better result.
7126. Can we take it in stages, please, Mr Taylor.
As far as 2.4, your criterion in your draft information paper
document, there is no local authority standard which reflects
that criteron, is there?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) There is no local authority
standard that does what Crossrail proposes to do, which is to
take all the noise from all the different sources on the site
and assess them together, they do not do that.
7127. Just tell me the answer to the question,
please. Is there a local authority policy in the same terms as
the Crossrail assessment?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) As I say, they do not
do that.
7128. It is right, is it not, that as a matter
of fact if a developer comes forward with a variety of sources
within that development the whole thing is always considered as
a development?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Regrettably that is not
always the case. In fact, I think it has been said that it is
seldom the case. Most sites the size of Bond Street Station, for
example, would have several separate developers, each making separate
planning applications giving rise to the quite legitimate concern
about creeping background.
7129. It is perfectly open to the planning authority
to require that they will be dealt with together, is it not?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) No, I think it would be
open to challenge. I think the individual applicants for planning
permission would quite justifiably claim that the policy was being
misapplied if their noise was logged in with the noise of other
applicants. I am sure their lawyers would say that was a perfectly
justified objection.
7130. Confirm for me this, please, the bulk
of the plans, the UDPs and the local plans, itemised in LBH29
and LBH30 will have been prepared, will they not, after a PPG24?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I do not know.
7131. UDPs necessarily must have been because
they only came into existence comparatively recently?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) PPG24 was actually structured
around the preparation of UDPs. I cannot answer that question.
7132. Can we look at the document upon which
you place heavy reliance, BS4142, which is contained in the document
P75, and begins at page 99 of 125.[82]
If we can go forward at 101 of 125. First of all, I am right in
supposing, am I not, in respect of this document that this is
the document upon which you have based your approach?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
7133. If we look at the forward, do you see
what is in fact the second paragraph: "This British standard
describes a method of determining the level of the noise of an
industrial nature—", do you see that paragraph?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
7134. "—together with procedures
for assessing whether the noise in question is likely to give
rise to complaints from persons living in the vicinity".
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
7135. So the document is based upon the proposition
that we are concerned with, the likelihood of giving rise to complaints.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes
7136. You appreciate, because it is a matter
that has been canvassed before, of course, that not everybody
who might be annoyed or disturbed about something is going to
make a complaint about it.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Not everybody, no. We
have seen Mr Methold's helpful quotation from the Wilson report
in 1963. I think that may well have been very true in 1963, but,
certainly speaking from my own experience of holding public office,
and I think honourable members may find it as well, people have
become very much more ready to complain in recent years than they
used to be. I do not worry a lot about the fact that absence of
complaints nowadays means absence of a noise. People are very
good at complaining now.
7137. But they still have to take the positive
step to complain rather than simply live with some particular
problem.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) It is much easier now.
With call centres and the approach to telephone handling of public
response, you only have to pick up the phone and register a complaint.
In 1963, you would have had to have written a letter to register
a complaint.
7138. Look on, please, if we may, in the Foreword.
"The standard is intended to be used for assessing the measured
or calculated noise levels from both existing premises and new
or modified premises. The standard may be helpful in certain aspects
of environmental planning and may be used in conjunction with
recommendations on noise levels and methods of measurement published
elsewhere." As far as the information paper is concerned,
do we see reference by way of the use of anything other than BS4142?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) No.
7139. Then we can note in the next paragraph
that the standard is "...necessarily general in character
and may not cover all situations."
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes
81 Committee Ref: A81, Local Authority Standards and
Guidance-Part 1 (HAVGLB-14705-029 and -030). Back
82
Crossrail Ref: P75, British Standard 4142:1997 Method for rating
industrial noise affecting mixed residential and industrial areas,
Foreword (HAVGLB-14704-101). Back
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