Examination of Witnesses (Questions 7340
- 7359)
7340. In the undertaking put forward, HAV26,
there is a reference to "reasonable engineering reasons".[37]
May I ask you this please: do you take that which is set out in
this letter as constituting "reasonable engineering reasons"?
(Mr Thomas) Not in itself because
we have not had the reasons explained to us in any detail.
7341. And as far as what has been said in the
letter of 18 April 2006, can you help the Committee as to when
that was first said by Crossrail? Have you had that detail before?
(Mr Thomas) We have not had this detail before,
no.
7342. Can you just help me on one further matter,
please. Could we have number 60 of the Promoter's diagrams, the
"Preferred Option Aerial View of Ticket Hall".[38]
What I would like you to help the Committee upon is this, please—and
it touches upon the access for the less mobile or for others who
might otherwise have used the present ramp which is proposed to
be closed—in this plan we can see the station entrance on
the right-hand side of the plan?
(Mr Thomas) We can, yes.
7343. And we cannot see identified by words
or pictures where the bus station is but it is plainly to the
left of where one can see the words on the plan "existing
rail bridge structure"?
(Mr Thomas) Very considerably off to the left,
yes.
7344. Now what happens, please, if someone has
travelled by bus, mobility impaired in a chair or other device,
who has then to come to the station entrance, the closure of the
present ramp having been effected?
(Mr Thomas) As I interpret this drawing, somebody
who arrived in that context would have to travel from the bus
interchange, round the front of the station, along the front of
the station in that relatively restricted area which was on my
photographs, pass under the railway bridges, the two sets of tracks,
and along to the right-hand side of the drawing to the station
entrance, before entering the station and then gaining access.
7345. Mr Straker: Thank you very much.
Sir, that is all that I would wish to ask by way of re-examination.
I am much obliged to you.
The witness withdrew
7346. Mr Mould: I would like to call
Mr Berryman, please. Whilst Mr Berryman is taking his seat, can
I clarify one thing, lest there be any doubt about it. We looked
at the draft undertakings which were set out in Havering's document
before the Committee. I should make it clear the draft undertakings
we were looking at are those which Havering themselves are suggesting
that we should enter into. We are not content to do that for reasons
I have explored in cross-examination and Mr Berryman will now
deal with in evidence.
Mr Keith Berryman, Sworn
Examined by Mr Mould
7347. Mr Mould: Mr Berryman, can we please
have up our document 61. Can you first of all, please, just explain
briefly to the Committee how the present facilities at Romford
railway station were developed?
(Mr Berryman) I am happy to do that but I would
prefer to have slide 59.[39]
I think slide 61 is useful in that it shows what a very sub-standard
station exists in Romford at the moment. This is the slide that
shows the structure of the station and the structure of the station
is a very important determinant in the design that we have taken
forward. The station was originally built in Victorian times when
the Great Eastern Railway was built as a two-track railway, and
you can see the two tracks on the south side there—could
someone point that out on that side—with the original two
tracks which formed the railway. The railway station at Romford
was further to the west, that is to say away from the bridge.
The platforms probably extended to the bridge but the station
buildings were well back so the bridge which carried the railway
over South Street was formed as an arch in those days. It is a
very solid construction. You can see the very heavy structure
there which says "existing Victorian structure" on it.
It is marked as that and that was the original abutments for the
bridge which carried the railway over South Street. In the 1930s
the additional tracks, what we call the `e' lines and the tracks
which would be used by Crossrail, were built, and the opportunity
was taken at that time to build a new station underneath those
lines to give much more direct access to South Street itself.
The existing Victorian structure which is marked there is a very
heavy brickwork structure. We understand that the thickness of
the walls will be in excess of one metre, based on the history
of the works. The material inside that brickwork structure will
be either compacted fill or more likely, given the age of the
structure and the technologies and techniques available at the
time, brick rubble, that is to say broken bricks and the like.
We do not know for sure but what we do know for sure is that it
is something solid in there.
7348. Chairman: It would not be just
impacted soft soil?
(Mr Berryman) No, it would not be. It is extremely
unlikely it would be that. The structure on the north side of
the station, that is to say the relatively new line built in the
1930s, is shown there, and it is much more amenable to modification
than on the south side, but you can see that the whole building
on both sides of the station is very heavy construction. It was
all built in brick, it is all substantial, and that has been a
major determinant in the design solution we have developed for
the station. The main lines at that time were not subject to rebuild.
There was just a mezzanine passageway put at the back of the existing
bridge abutment to allow circulation to the platforms. Perhaps
if we could have 61 now.[40]
There you can see some of the features. The bottom left-hand corner
shows the new structure which was erected during the 1930s. The
bottom right-hand corner shows the interior of that. To describe
Romford station as "congested and not fit for purpose"
would be a mild understatement. It is a diabolical mess and it
needs to be sorted out whether Crossrail is built or not, but
on the assumption that we are going to do it, the solution that
we have developed is to improve the circulation areas within that
space, to provide MIP access to all the platforms, but to do that
within the context of the structure that is there and within something
that can be reasonably and economically built but to modern standards.
7349. Mr Mould: And if we go back to
60 we see what we propose?[41]
(Mr Berryman) This is what we
are proposing, yes. One of the things that we need to do is to
improve the circulation down from the platforms to the concourse.
On Tuesday evening, after appearing in Committee here, by way
of relaxation I went down to have a look at Romford station and
to see how it works in the peak. I have been there many times
before, of course, but I thought it was worth refreshing my memory.
It is very, very congested. It takes several minutes to get off
the platform down through that very narrow area that I showed
you on the previous slide to the street. What we are proposing
is to provide escalators from the platforms down to street level,
but to fit in within the structure that we have got, to provide
the escalators and to provide the run-off for those escalators
in order to make them properly useable, we have to use the whole
of the space out as far as the South Street frontage. That means
that we need to provide a new ticket facility and gateline on
the north side of the station. That is shown on this plan. The
amount of space that is available at the station will be increased
by a factor of about four or five.
7350. Just in relation to MIP access, we show
the proposed lifts there?
(Mr Berryman) Indeed, and it might be worth
saying a word at this stage about the existing ramp on the south
side of the station. That has a gradient of approximately one
in ten.
7351. I got that wrong, I am sorry about that.
(Mr Berryman) The existing ramp is one in ten.
The current standard for MIP access is one in 20, with landings
every five metres, so from an MIP perspective that access is extremely
sub-standard. Although I accept it is useful for people with buggies
and luggage and so on, I think it is probably of less use for
anyone in a wheelchair, whereas the scheme that we are proposing
will provide full lift access to all platforms.
7352. So in that sense, as far as MIP access
is concerned, it is a clear policy of improvement?
(Mr Berryman) Very much so.
7353. Can we come to the issue between us today
of why the option of providing a station that was accessible from
not only the north site but also the south side was not adopted
by Crossrail?
(Mr Berryman) The original brief to consultants
was in fact to provide a station underneath the whole viaduct,
so there was a full entrance on the south side and a full entrance
on the north side as well. Obviously from a transport planning
point of view that would be a much better solution. It is common
ground between us and the borough on that point. The difficulty
was that when we started to get into the structural and construction
implications of how that could be built, bearing in mind the presence
of this very large almost block of brick, it became very difficult
to see how the construction and in particular the railway possessions
could be handled. This is a congested site. It is in the middle
of a busy town centre. Some of the options which are available
to us in the country are not available here, such as building
a bridge alongside and slotting it in. It is just not physically
practicable so it meant very long possessions of the railway—what
we call blockades where we have quite a long possession. Even
with that, we could not really make a satisfactory structural
solution work. That is why we turn to this proposal which fits
in with the existing brickwork structures and tries to make use
of them as far as possible but can be built with very much less
disruption to the railway.
7354. Can we just be clear, the extended period
of possessions and possibly blockades that you mentioned, would
that be in relation to the existing Great Eastern main line?
(Mr Berryman) Yes it would.
7355. That is where this engineering activity
would need to be focused?
(Mr Berryman) Yes and indeed on the `e' lines
as well because in order to achieve that kind of solution the
escalator location would have to move further west and that would
involve rearranging some of the structures on the `e' lines as
well as on the main lines.
7356. There was some discussion a few moments
ago about the number of passengers that might be affected by the
lack of a southern access to the station and the amount of journey
time that might cumulatively result from that. Is it possible
to get any sense in practical terms of what the implications of
the kind of extended possessions and possibly blockades you mentioned
might be in terms of impact on commuters and so on?
(Mr Berryman) There would obviously be a direct
impact on the commuters from Romford but the main impact would
be on the whole of the Eastern Region of the railway networks
because, as you know, these are lines that go to Norwich and Ipswich.
7357. Have you got any sense in terms of the
duration, for example, how many days or weeks it might be?
Mr Berryman) It is a very large
number. 30 or 40 substantial possessions would have been needed.
I do not have the figure at my fingertips but it was in that range.
7358. The Council say so be it, if those kinds
of problems arise from that proposal, what about then as a fall-back
simply maintaining an access through to the south which can give
ingress, if you will, on to the new station to the north of the
embankment? What do you say about that?
(Mr Berryman) There are two issues there. First
of all, that access comes directly into the paying side of the
station and brings supervision problems of course. The next issue
is that the ramp itself is sub-standard, it is too steep. The
third issue is we have identified that side where the ramp is
as a possible location where Network Rail might wish to provide
MIP access to the main line trains. We are providing it to Crossrail
trains of course. On all of those grounds keeping that existing
entrance open would not be a desirable thing to do.
7359. In evidence Mr Thomas suggested that one
might gain access via what he described as one of the arches.
We can see there what he was referring to, a series of four buttresses
on the south side of the Victorian structure. Is that a realistic
proposition?
(Mr Berryman) They are not arches of course,
they are buttresses. The way an arch works is that it supports
the load from above by the arch action. The way a buttress works
is it supports the load from the side by the arch action. In other
words, those buttresses are there to resist the pressure of the
soil or rubble or whatever it is that is inside that large box.
To knock through them is not a minor task. Nothing in engineering
is impossible but it is quite a big job and if you were to do
that, of course, you would only be breaking into the paying side
of the station in any event so you would still have the problem
of managing and dealing with that.
37 Committee Ref: A82, Draft Undertakings sought by
London Borough of Havering (HAVGLB-14705-078). Back
38
Crossrail Ref: P75, Crossrail Proposal-Preferred Option Aerial
View of Ticket Hall Architect Schematic Diagram of Romford Station
(HAVGLB-14704-060). Back
39
Crossrail Ref: P75, Schematic Diagram of Existing Structure of
Romford Station (HAVGLB-14704-059). Back
40
Committee Ref: A82, Romford Station Crossrail Proposals-Existing
Layout (HAVGLB-14705-061). Back
41
Crossrail Ref: P75, Crossrail Proposal-Preferred Option Aerial
View of Ticket Hall Architect Schematic Diagram of Romford Station
(HAVGLB-14704-060). Back
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