Examination of Witnesses (Questions 8880
- 8899)
8880. I have been passed a note. I am not sure
if Mr Lewis minds, but it suggests to me that they have a 999-year
lease, not a 99-year lease.
(Mr Berryman) When it gets beyond 20 I kind
of lose interest!
8881. So the selection was made, therefore,
on the basis of a view about comparative impacts between the two
businesses.
(Mr Berryman) Yes. It is unfortunate, but one
of the businesses is going to suffer significant impact. The decision
was made on the grounds that I have just described: the length
of the lease and the number of people there.
8882. We have heard from Ferrotec about the
construction period. What is your understanding of the period
for disruption of the car park and access to Ferrotec?
(Mr Berryman) It would be about two-and-a-half
years. We cannot say, at this stage, exactly when because, obviously,
there will be issues about when the project starts, but it would
be about two-and-a-half years, as suggested by the Petitioner.
8883. Mr Elvin: Thank you, Mr Berryman.
Would you wait there, please?
Cross-examined by Mr Lewis
8884. Mr Lewis: Mr Berryman, beginning
with the last point first, the two-and-a-half year disruption,
can you confirm that effectively during those two-and-a-half years,
in your view, Ferrotec really would not be able to continue at
the premises simply because you need to take the whole of the
front of the car park right up to the front of their premises?
(Mr Berryman) They certainly would not be able
to use the car park in front of their premises. Whether it would
be possible to make deliveries by other routes, providing some
sort of walkway into the building, I am not sure, but certainly
a substantial part of the car park would need to be taken—the
overwhelming majority of it.
8885. Can I just bring back up on the screen,
please, page 12 from our exhibits, which is the extract from the
Promoter's response to the Petition.[33]
I will just read out again what it says, Mr Berryman. It says,
and you can confirm, that moving the shaft to the west of the
Arsenal Way would increase the distance to 1120 metres, and then
it says: "Such an increase would require the approval of
HMRI or the LFEPA. The review therefore concluded that repositioning
the shaft on the west side of Arsenal Way would not be advisable."
HMRI final approval to the whole Crossrail scheme is required
for all, or nearly all, parts of the railway at the design stage.
(Mr Berryman) If only it were
so. The HMRI is very reluctant to give positive approval to things.
What they do is they issue what they call letters of no objection,
which indicates that they are reasonably content with the design
work that they have seen. They do not actually positively approve
things.
8886. The HMRI guidance document, which we have
put up earlier, is merely that; it is guidance. You mentioned
the word "standards" for, I think, Crossrail's own documentation,
but the HMRI guidance is just that, is it not?
(Mr Berryman) When I say that HMRI do not approve
things, they do not approve things at the design stage. What they
do do is approve the railway before it is opened. In fact, you
cannot open a railway without HMRI approval. Failure to follow
their guidelines is something which would lead to extreme difficulty,
if not impossibility, in opening a railway, so we would not fail
to follow their guidelines unless we really negotiated with them
and made sure they were absolutely comfortable.
8887. So the guidance, therefore, assists the
Promoter in the initial outline design, which is in the plans
before this Committee.
(Mr Berryman) Yes, I think that is a fair comment.
It is not mandatory, as has been evidenced by the negotiations
we have had with them on Fisher Street, but you have to have a
very, very good reason for not complying with it.
8888. There would be no point in putting in
the Bill something which would never get the approval of HMRI.
Is that fair?
(Mr Berryman) I think that would be a fair
comment, yes.
8889. That does not preclude including provision
for matters which may be marginal.
(Mr Berryman) I think with anything which goes
against the guidelines issued by HMRI, one would have to be very
confident that they understood the reasons for that and they would
not be minded to disapprove it later. It is not something that
we would lightly do. The reason for the guidelines being issued
by HMRI is entirely to prevent that kind of thing happening.
8890. I would like to go back to the HMRI guidance,
if we can. It is on page 32 of our documents.[34]
I will just read again: "Note: Current practice indicates
that distances between access points should be in the order of
1 km where there are twin single-bore tunnels with adequate intermediate
cross-passages. In other circumstances this distance may need
to be reduced." First (this is an obvious point but can you
confirm), there are indeed twin single-bore tunnels at this location?
(Mr Berryman) There are.
8891. Help me on this because I am not sure:
are there adequate intermediate cross-passages as well?
(Mr Berryman) There are.
8892. Do you agree that this note does not say
that every single intervention tunnel must be exactly one kilometre
from the nearest access point?
(Mr Berryman) That does not say that exactly.
The indication to me, on reading that note, is that you can reduce
it if you like but one kilometre ought to be what you should be
aiming for.
8893. It does not say that you need to be exact,
and that is borne out by the location of the Fisher Street shaft.
(Mr Berryman) That is true, but of course,
as I have explained already, the agreement of the location of
the Fisher Street shaft was something which took a long time to
negotiate and agree with the Fire Brigade, in particular.
8894. I understand the property constraints
in that area but it is a different sort of area from where we
are discussing. Have LFEPA or the HMRI been asked at all about
the possibility of locating the shaft here to the west of Arsenal
Way?
(Mr Berryman) No, they have not been specifically
asked, but we have raised the same issue at a number of other
locations. There is another location on which evidence will be
given later to the Committee at Hanbury Street in the Whitechapel
area, where issues of shaft location were critical. We have had
many negotiations with the Fire Brigade and HMRI about this point
of distance and it is something that they are very strong on and
will only contemplate relaxation if there are very, very good
reasons for doing so.
8895. As we know, we are not claiming at all
to be engineering experts and, importantly, we are in no way trying
to lighten the importance of the safety of the railway, but we
are interested to know why one kilometre is the magic figure.
You mentioned it was because it is the distance that the firemen
have to walk to get to particular incidents, but it is a conveniently
round figure and I am just wondering if you knew if there had
been any investigation background. Where did that figure actually
come from? Is it from experience?
(Mr Berryman) It is an empirical figure that
has been used for many years. I think it was based on tests done
with breathing apparatus. It is a round figure, as you say, and
round figures are always suspicious in engineering terms, but
I guess it is one of those things on which it is difficult to
be absolutely scientific about. It is, to some extent, a judgment,
heavily influenced by the Fire Brigade. They often try and suggest
in schemes (and a good example is the Jubilee Line Extension)
that the shafts should be closer together—in fact on the
Jubilee Line they are I think their position since the events
of 7 July last year has hardened on the necessity to have shafts
no further apart than they would like.
8896. Chairman: So it is a standard rather
than just guidelines?
(Mr Berryman) It is treated as a standard.
There is another standard which is not quoted here which has not
actually come into play yet. There is a thing called the European
Interoperability Directive, which we have some knowledge of because
a member of my team is on the drafting committee for it. That,
also, has got the same requirement in it of one-kilometre spacing
for access tunnels.
8897. The reason I ask is I remember on the
Channel Tunnel Rail Link they adapted some kind of standard for
strengthening inside the tunnel. Is that correct?
(Mr Berryman) That is correct, yes. Of course,
that is a slightly different situation to this railway. The Fire
Brigade take the view, from the beginning of this project, that
that would not be appropriate for this scheme.
8898. Mr Lewis: Finally on the western
option, Mr Berryman, just taking you back to the Promoter's Response
(if we can put up page 12, please), you might understand why Ferrotec
saw that rather brief response as being an indication of Crossrail
saying: "Well, it is outside the guidance/standards, whichever
it is to be called; therefore we are just not going to bother
asking HMRI or LFEPA to look into this further."[35]
(Mr Berryman) Yes, I agree the
wording is a bit unfortunate but, as I say, this is almost our
number one issue with HMRI and the Fire Brigade—the location
and specific details of the shafts. Although I am not aware that
this has specifically been made an issue of, we know that very
well.
8899. Can I just remind you of an earlier case
which I was involved in, involving Maryland station? Newham's
case, you will remember, (and it was a very short statement because
most things were agreed satisfactorily) was that in effect Crossrail
agreed that at Maryland station, where the problem was that trains
were not intending to stop there at all because the platforms
were too short, both parties agreed that the platforms could not
be lengthened because of physical constraints in the area, and
an undertaken was given by Crossrail that, despite that, they
would take further the matter with HMRI, despite, I assume, guidance
being placed on selective door opening, which is the solution
to that problem. It is probably not something which, in principle,
you would expect HMRI necessarily to approve but maybe they could
be convinced to do so, which is effectively what we are asking
here.
(Mr Berryman) I think what happened there is
that in the period between doing the design work and getting to
the point we got to a couple of weeks ago, HMRI have actually
changed their minds on selective door opening because of some
experience on southern region's new trains project where a sophisticated
system of GIS satellite location and making sure the right door
was open at the right stations has been proved to be effective.
So HMRI, irrespective of any action by us, had already changed
their view on that point. That was why we were able to give that
undertaking that we would investigate and if possible carry that
option out.
33 Committee Ref: A102, Alternative positions considered
(GRCHLB-33105-012). Back
34
Committee Ref: A102, Guidance on the infrastructure, Access Points,
Para 51(a) (GRCHLB-33105-032). Back
35
Committee Ref: A102, Alternative positions considered (GRCHLB-33105-012). Back
|
