Examination of Witnesses (Questions 9060
- 9079)
9060. I would like to move on to lorry movements
and we know that the bulk of the lorry movements will go along
Durward Street from east to west. Lorries with supplies will leave
Sainsbury's car park, then will then turn right into Brady Street
and then left into Durward Street, that is two turns within a
very short distance. It will be very noisy outside flats at the
turn in Brady Street which is a narrow street. Those outside staircase
11, the entrances are internal but the bedrooms are on the outside.
9061. I am not clear whether the lorries at
Essex Wharf will return via the school and right into Durward
Street or whether they will go through the back of the school
and down into Durward Street, I am not sure whether that has been
totally decided.
9062. There is a great danger of turning right
and turning into Durward Street, turning left. It is a very narrow
pavement there. The beginning of the staircases are only 46
from the road so we will need some traffic management there of
build-outs to make sure that lorries do not turn too tightly.
9063. I just feel leaving the end of Durward
Street on the west side has not really been mentioned in any way.
I think the houses that are down that end, as lorries turn left
into Vallance Road might also have quite a lot of problems if
over 70 lorries a day drive down to that corner and have to wait
for traffic to move into Vallance Road. That could be a very noisy
scenario. I know that Crossrail said that in fact it will not
be any worse than buses but those of you who have been there will
see the buses at the moment turn down Fulbourne Street, they come
in Vallance Road but they do not exit from Vallance Road. I think
lorries could be a far noisier vehicle than buses.
9064. There will be the kitchen deliveries from
the school coming in and out, perhaps that is not many but it
is just added noise in Durward Street.
9065. Many of the lorry movements which stop
on the west side and the Durward Street worksite would be dropping
off and picking up lorries because all the demolished buildings
and everything have to go out. I would expect that there would
be a lot of noise while that is done.
9066. Now there are varying extrapolations as
to the amount of noise and it is quite difficult to trawl through
everything with the additional provisions but I understand that
at the peak time it would be 80 lorries per day going along Durward
Street and there could be 140 lorry movements in Sainsbury's.
Some of those would be turn round lorries going back out of the
Sainsbury's site and some of those would be out of hours. All
these lorry movements will require management of staff to ensure
that there are safe pedestrian movements and access for residents
of Kempton Court and the West Durward Street site and Trinity
Hall. We expect that all this traffic will produce dirt, dust
and a degradation of the landscape and, therefore, we would ask
for regular checking and, if necessary, wall washing and window
washing of buildings in Durward Street to keep them reasonably
cared for during this long period of work. There are some trees
in Durward Street. They struggle greatly to grow but it would
be nice if they were protected.
9067. The other really important thing about
Durward Street is it is the only street which runs between Vallance
Road and Brady Street for a long period because of the East London
Line cut-through. We know the minute the bollards are removed
in Durward Street it will become a rat-run and it will be a place
for boy racers. We are very concerned about this. If it is not
being used for deliveries at night you need to look at a way of
having it closed off so that we do not get the nightly rat-runs,
and hopefully monitored during the daytime so people do not use
it as a cut-through. The reason it would be so popular is if you
go down Brady Street to Whitechapel Road you can only turn left,
you cannot turn right, so it would make it very attractive to
nip through Durward Street instead.
9068. On the question of noise, this is certainly
our biggest concern. It is just the all-round effect of noise
all the time. There will always be some noise going on. When one
looks at the machines, ground-breaking machines, particularly
when the shafts are first being dug and the utilities, there will
be piling, cranes, tracked excavators, front-end loaders, compressors,
generators, excavation going on, large concrete pours, the tunnel
ventilation in Sainsbury's car park, the demolition and rebuilding,
and spoil unloading and loading on lorries, and these are all
things that will create a noise. It is not predictable, as with
so many sites, where that noise will move to and create problems
for people in Durward Street.
9069. I will look at a couple of examples of
unexpected noise which have made me realise this. At the corner
of Brady Street and Whitechapel Road there is the new Idea store
built by Tower Hamlets. It was opened in September last year and
we suddenly heard an enormous noise around Kempton Court and it
was very variable at which point it was heard. It sounded like
birds fighting, I suppose. It was very loud and very perturbing.
Eventually I spent some time tracking it down to the Idea store
and I went into the Idea store where you could not hear it at
all. I asked to see the manager who was really surprised that
we had this terrific noise. It was a new bird scarer. It certainly
scared the daylights out of us! Now it has been modified and turned
down and it is okay. That is just an example of noise that travels
in strange and unexpected directions. At the moment there is another
worksite going on, which will be a long, ongoing process, and
that is the demolition and rebuilding of the Royal London Hospital.
From my flat I can hear very clearly the sound of drilling and
demolition and yet I live four streets from where it has just
started but it is so clear and it has to pass through the wall
of a great post office as well. It is very obvious to me when
they are doing jack work or whatever. That is another example.
I would not have supposed that noise could come so far so clearly.
That is what makes me realise how difficult it might be to look
at the amount of noise that will affect all the residents of Durward
Street.
9070. The mitigation is that at the moment certain
dwellings have been designated as needing noise insulation but
the whole of Durward Street should be treated the same. Everybody
will need noise insulation. It is very difficult to say where
that will be at any one time. Most of us, because we are in modern
buildings, do have double glazing so noise insulation might be
difficult to install because I understand if you are going to
put another lot of insulation in it needs mechanical ventilation
otherwise how will you get any air. It might be reasonable to
provide compensation for residents so that they might be able
to get out of the area occasionally instead, they might think,
"We have to put up with the noise, however hideous, but we
would like to be able to go down to Brighton for the day"
as a sort of quid pro quo.
9071. We would like to be considered as a special
area in terms of noise where everyone is equally affected. There
are also some people who are designated as requiring temporary
re-housing. This has caused a problem because we do not have any
certainty as to who these people are in the same way that we do
not have any certainty about who the people are at the moment
who have been designated as needing noise insulation. This comes
about partly because of the way the numbering has been written.
On the list of properties likely to qualify for noise insulation
only, it has various properties but it is not specific enough
to know which they are, which leaves a degree of uncertainty.
For instance, it states "the property addresses one to four
Kempton Court" but what I think they are really saying is
staircases one to four but on staircases one to four there are
28 flats and eight of those would qualify but we do not know which
eight flats or why those were chosen. It goes on to 6 Winthrop
Street, which is Trinity Hall, the school building, and it just
says one flat will qualify. Which one of the 18 flats will qualify?
This is the area I would ask Crossrail to work on specifically
to make sure we do have some definite information. This is particularly
important because this is leading up to blight.
9072. I just want to turn to the Albion Health
Centre because they have concerns about noise.[5]
This is a big health centre with six doctors and they are planning
to expand. It backs on to the Sainsbury's car park site. I do
have a letter from them. What they are saying is that it might
be a problem if there is noise during consultations when they
need a calm atmosphere and yet just over the wall there is an
enormous building site. They need Crossrail to look at mitigation
measures for that. The GPs are going to take on more procedures,
which is the standard thing now that much work should be done
in GPs' surgeries rather than hospitals, so that is going to put
some pressure on their delivery of that. They already do minor
surgery and they need a very clean atmosphere for that, so that
may need special insulation provided by Crossrail. They would
like close consultations throughout the site works. They do feel
that they might need to call for the cessation of work sometimes
if they cannot fulfil what they are doing with the patients. That
is a very big concern. They are also losing some car parking space
permanently but this is essential for doctors who might need to
get out quickly. That needs good replacement at a convenient place.
9073. I want to look at pedestrian movements
in Durward Street. The route goes to the school, the leisure centre
and Sainsbury's. As I said, for drivers it is the only one that
goes through to Vallance Road. It is also the only one that people
from Spitalfields can use as a street to come through to those
facilities. It is a busy street. I did a few brief pedestrian
counts looking out of my window.[6]
Between 8.35 and 8.45 in the morning walking along Durward Street
there were 170 people, that is 170 people in 10 minutes. They
were not all school children because there were also people going
to and from work. On Saturday, walking along Brady Street at the
corner of Durward Street, in 10 minutes there were 136 people.
You might think they were all going to Sainsbury's but they were
walking up and down the street and it is very busy. Brady Street
has flats further up and access to Bethnal Green overground station.
On Wednesday between 8.30 to 8.45 between Durward Street and Whitechapel
Road along Brady Street there were 331 people all going along
that very narrow road, either to the school, to Sainsbury's or
to and from Bethnal Green station. The other one was Durward Street
going towards Brady Street on Thursday at 12.45 to 12.55 when
there were 64. That was not the peak time, that was not the school
children coming out. That was a steady flow of people going to
and from that street to businesses or shopping. It is narrow in
places and can be hazardous now. I think those who came on the
visit today saw the most extraordinary sight of the GCSE pupils
coming out and taking up the whole road. That is not only today,
the pupils do come out of school—there are over 1,000 pupils—and
they are very exuberant. That road is busy but still people choose
to belt along it occasionally. Over the East London Line bridge
it is very narrow, just two people wide. There is a picture of
that.[7]
That is of particular concern because on the other side of that
facing on to it is Trinity Hall and it has no pavement whatsoever
so people must walk along the East London Line bridge. Normally
people spill out on to the street because it is not that busy
with traffic. If that was being used for lorry movements all day
then we would need build-out of that pavement and some means of
ensuring safety, but not at the cost of the pedestrians who are
already squashed along there.
9074. I would suggest that it would be helpful
to have no lorries in the street at school arrival and departure
times to account for the fact that if there are 170 children coming
along Durward Street in 10 minutes why not stop lorry movements
from 8.30am to 8.50am so that people can get there safely.
9075. Ms Lieven: Can I just say, Sir,
we have agreed that with the school. We will not be using Durward
Street for lorries during those hours. That one is an easy tick.
9076. Chairman: Thank you.
9077. Ms Singleton: We would like a person
to manage lorry movements, for instance from Essex Wharf to Durward
Street, so that we can get access to Kempton Court as well.
9078. The next point I want to raise is purchase
of property in case of hardship. This is a very difficult one
for us. There was a date of December 2003 at which people were
deemed to have known about Crossrail so that effectively means
all property which was bought after that, people should know that
Crossrail was going to be in the area. Effectively it puts a blight
on everybody's property. I appreciate that it is hoped that the
Bill will go through and construction will start fairly speedily
but nothing is guaranteed. All the time that is happening we will
have a blight on the sale of our properties. Kempton Court, originally,
the properties were fairly reasonably priced, there are no lifts
there. It was first-time buyers and people who wanted to work
locally, say in the hospital, who would buy there. People are
mobile, if they are first-time buyers they want to move on, they
marry, whatever. There is a steady sale of property. Very often
it is done internally, people put a notice up on the notice board,
they have rented there, they like it, they would like to move
in. We do know there are some people who are aware of what might
happen and have bought properties but others who are putting their
house on the market have had severe difficulties in selling their
property.
9079. I would just like to look at two instances.[8]
Melanie Goodfellow bought her flat in 1996, so she was the first
owner. In May 2000 she says she found she was pregnant and wanted
to sell her house to buy a family property. She spruced up the
flat, put it on the market with agents Carrington, who are well
known local agents, at a price of £243,000 when a recent
property had gone for £240,000. This is about the standard
price. She received a first offer very quickly but then, in fact,
those people could not get a mortgage. The flat went back on the
market and she received a second offer just two weeks later for
£237,500 but the buyer pulled out abruptly on 11 August after
doing some personal research into the impact Crossrail would have
on Kempton Court and the surrounding area. Melanie says that the
information did not come up in the local search. The buyer had
rung up the local planning office and was told that Durward Street
would be one of the worst hit roads in the area. She had read
the Environmental Impact on the internet and thought that was
pretty grim reading.
5 Committee Ref: A103, Photograph of the Albion Health
Centre (TOWNHLB-7005-006). Back
6
Committee Ref: A103, Pedestrian Count, Durward Street area (SCN20060523-001). Back
7
Committee Ref: A103, Photograph of the East London Line Bridge
(TOWNHLB-7005-010). Back
8
Committee Ref: A103, Correspondence concerning property selling
in Kempton Court (TOWNHLB-7005-014 and -015). Back
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