Examination of Witnesses (Questions 8100
- 8119)
8100. That was just part of it. Can you go to
the Mayor's map. If you are saving money, I want to ask a couple
of questions on that. First of all, the estimate of £260
million, can we have an analysis of that? It has just been said
that it is £260 million.
8101. Mr Evlin: Sir, I have to say, those
estimates are agreed with Greenwich, there is no dispute about
the £260 million.
8102. Chairman: There might not be a
dispute, but I am asking a question about how it worked out because
I want to look at whether or not we could create savings elsewhere
and take different decisions. I want to see the analysis of that,
whether or not Greenwich agreed with it. £260 million pounds,
as we have just seen in evidence, is that it is the equation of
a box which is already one of the options, which are homes. I
want to know how that analysis was done.
(Mr Anderson) The analysis has been done and
there is a detailed breakdown, but it does include the whole station
including ticket halls and so on. We have provided that to Greenwich.
I should say, we did look at the costs very hard because at the
time of the Buchanan Report the cost was significantly higher,
at £350 million, and we spent quite a lot of time seeing
if we could get it down.
8103. It does not seem to be an extraordinary
large amount of money to have to spend on a station. Can we get
a note about that? Can you beam in on this area around Woolwich
like you did before, in specific the costs and the savings. We
have the other line which is running along the side of this which
is going to go to the Woolwich Arsenal. We are talking about the
integration and co-ordination of railway interchanges and links.
It strikes me that there is an awful lot of similarity going on
there. You are about to drive a tunnel under the Thames for one,
could that tunnel not be enlarged to be used for both, and could
that then not have an impact on planning and how you could link
together a station?
(Mr Anderson) I will give you an initial answer
on that, but I maybe able to take more advice on the engineering
aspects. They are two quite different types of railways with different
sizes of trains. Crossrail is built on a gauge of a surface railway,
whereas the DLR is a much smaller gauge and a much different type
of railway. As you can see, it has many, many more stops on it.
I suspect the impact of driving that smaller tunnel under the
Thames would be significantly less than Crossrail.
8104. What I am saying is if you are digging
a hole, you could dig two holes together or make one slightly
larger. If we are talking about costs perhaps might be a consideration.
Do you think considerable savings could be made there?
(Mr Anderson) I think it is unlikely, but I
can take advice on that. Obviously they do have their powers and
they are getting on with it at the moment, but I can take advice
on it.
8105. Mr Binley: I am also concerned
about the social contribution, because Crossrail is going to create
a lot of social havoc. It is clearly aware of its social responsibilities
and therefore will clearly take into account the social contribution
it makes to the areas that it lives in. You have done some sort
of survey on its contribution to this area. I wonder how you judge
that because sometimes the contribution is positive and sometimes
it is negative. I know this area a little, and I know that from
my little knowledge—and I say that because it can be a dangerous
thing—the potential of regeneration in this area of Woolwich
could be quite sizeable. How have you analysed and come to conclusions
about social contribution in terms of regeneration?
(Mr Anderson) I think the methodology here
is reasonably common, and I think the approach we have adopted
is similar to that of Mr Chard. The changes in regeneration and
job freedom are generally related to changes in the accessibility
of an area, so we relied upon the relationship between improved
accessibility and the ability not only to attract into an area
but improve the opportunities for people to travel to other locations
where they might find work.
8106. As I understand it, Woolwich wins hands
down over Abbey Wood in this respect because of the types of areas
we are talking about. Is that so?
(Mr Anderson) On that particular aspect that
is certainly true. I should say, I do not think the issue here
is providing Woolwich Station or Abbey Wood Station, it is actually
providing a connection to the much wider Thames Gateway area.
8107. I understand that, however, we have done
this sort of work in Woolwich and, as I understand it, not in
any of the other stations of any consequence. Is that right or
am I misguided?
(Mr Anderson) Woolwich is the only station
obviously that must be subject as a station to this level of scrutiny.
We have looked at the social effects, ie the regeneration effects
across the whole scheme, not just on the Thames Gateway area but
the other regeneration area.
8108. Woolwich has had specific attention on
this, why is that?
(Mr Anderson) Simply because following the
decision not to include it in the scheme we were asked to look
at it again and we were willing to do that.
8109. Is that not a rather odd way of doing
it. Would you not rather look at it and say, "What can this
bring?" instead of saying, "We are not going to deal
with it but we need to know the figures so that we can argue against
it". That approach surprises me.
(Mr Anderson) We did know what it would bring
to Thames Gateway generally. If you look back at the information
that was assembled, when the project was appraised—Indeed,
Montague did cover this to a degree—we did have the information
on the effects of regeneration across the whole scheme.
8110. I still do not see why you do it after
you have decided not to have the station. I do not understand
that thinking, help me.
(Mr Anderson) All I can say is that at the
time the decision was taken the principal reason for not doing
this station was cost.
8111. With respect, that is not my questions.
My question is you did the sort of work on regeneration value
after you decided not to build a station. I do not understand
why you did that. Can you explain and help me to understand that?
(Mr Anderson) I think in broad terms the effect
on regeneration would have been understood by those taking the
decision at the time.
8112. You still have not answered my question.
Why did you decide to do this work after you decided not to build
a station? What was the purpose of doing the work when you said,
"We are not going to build a station anyway"?
(Mr Anderson) We did say we would look at the
building of Woolwich Station again, and indeed, Montague alluded
to that, so we agreed to do the analysis. At the time of the original
decision I do not think the analysis of an individual location
was done in detail for any point.
8113. Was it in order to possibly review the
decision about Woolwich that you did this work? Was that the reason
you did it after you made the decision not to go ahead with the
station?
(Mr Anderson) In a sense, it was to look at
the case again in more detail.
8114. But the evidence suggests that that would
add to a positive decision about Woolwich rather than a negative
decision, would it not?
(Mr Anderson) That is really a matter for the
Minister to judge.
8115. In terms of the figures you have given
me, that would suggest to be the case. I do not understand the
thinking of a body like yours spending money on a survey of some
kind of analysis after you have decided not to have a station
there. I am commercial man, I am a businessman, I do not understand
that thinking and you have not reassured me as to why.
(Mr Anderson) All I can say is
that I do not think we did a specific survey after the decision
was taken. What we did do was utilise the information we already
had to look at specific effects in terms of Woolwich itself.
8116. Mr Binley: I bet you wish your
position was stronger and you were more on the front foot, do
you not? I can say that, Mr Elvin. I know that, Mr Elvin; I can
say that and ask that. I have my answer.
8117. Kelvin Hopkins: As I understand
it the original plan was to at least have the possibility of a
station at Woolwich, that it was put in at the original design,
and it went through the centre of Woolwich, which suggests that
that was one of the faults. And at a later stage when costs looked
as though they were going to be high some bits had to be lopped
off and Woolwich was one of those bits that was taken out to save
money. Is that a fair summary?
(Mr Anderson) I do not think it was taken out
to save money per se. I should say that at the time I was
not part of the decision-making body, if you like, but I think
that the decision was taken because of the high capital cost of
providing a station in that location, not a desire in itself to
save money.
8118. Once a decision like that has been made
and it has to be justified is there not a temptation to build
up the costs as much as possible to make it a stronger case for
leaving it out?
(Mr Anderson) I do not believe so. The difficulties
we have here, we are very deep and as I understand it the ground
is not particularly good and the geography is really against us.
What I can say is that since the Buchanan Report that we commissioned
and published last year we did look to try and drive down the
costs and did succeed doing that from £350 million down to
the £270 million we have now. So I do not think it is the
case that we have tried to drive costs up; quite the opposite.
8119. Looking at the project overall it is pretty
clear that there are many more stations on the north eastern branch
of Crossrail than the south eastern branch of Crossrail. The stations
are much closer together and there are many more of them and the
populations served by some of those stations are rather smaller
than that which might be served by Woolwich station, is that fair?
(Mr Anderson) I think that is fair. Of course
on the Great Eastern Line we are going along an existing line
where stations already exist and Crossrail is a service that will
stop at those stations. So it is not quite comparable. Of course,
on the south eastern branch we have to run through the Docklands
area, which is still reasonably unpopulated at the moment, and
of course one has to bridge the river. So there is notably quite
a long gap there while we do that.
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