Examination of Witnesses (Questions 9980
- 9999)
9980. We can see it is clear that Hanbury Street
is much worse than Woodseer 2, which is the one that has been
developed in most detail, both in terms of its impact on residential
property—so far as we can assess it without the detailed
information—impact on listed buildings—and it is absolutely
clear from the drawings that it runs under a far greater number
of listed buildings that Woodseer 2—and also in terms of
the impact on local businesses from traffic disruption. We say
that if one looks at the Woodseer 2 option, and if one applies
even the mildest degree of optimisation to allow traffic to come
in and out of forward gear it is plainly going to be less disruptive
to traffic movements than having HGVs unloading—and potentially
loading of course—along Hanbury Street, which is very narrow
and not appropriate as a place for the lorries to be generally
positioned. We know that other HGVs, from the evidence we have
heard, already go up and down there and they would have to wait
or they would have to block the lane off completely to oncoming
traffic. The knock-on effects of that on traffic coming down from
the streets that run into Hanbury Street, run into Spital Street
can be readily imagined, and we have heard evidence that that
impact happens already, even without a major worksite at a very
sensitive point in that highway network.
9981. The second point is this. So far as those
important impacts are concerned we say that the objective should
be to minimise those so far as is possible and so far as is reasonably
consistent with engineering. It may well be that some engineering
costs may increase in order to decrease the sort of impacts that
I have been talking about, but that is just the sort of balancing
exercise that the Committee, we say, is well equipped to look
at. If it can be done—in other words, if those impacts can
be minimised, then plainly they should be. We ask the Committee
to consider this, that in so far as you are being asked to conclude
that options such as Woodseer 2 or the southern route are simply
not possible or feasible you have to be very sure in your own
minds that the evidence has demonstrated that to be the case,
not simply that it might incrementally increase the risk a little,
it might involve slightly more in the way of money, and you have
to be sure that those impacts and those obstacles have been demonstrated
in a thorough, objective, impartial way. We say that they plainly
have not. That is the third point.
9982. The assessment that has been made here
has consistently been partial and anything but thorough. In cross-examination
of Mr Berryman I gave the Committee some examples of where in
the most recent report, the June 2006 report, prepared for public
consumption at a time when the Promoters are defending the Bill
and therefore one would think subject to some scrutiny, the assessment
is anything but objective. Advantages for one site, which apply
to both, are not applied to Woodseer 2; disadvantages of Hanbury
Street are not mentioned as advantages of Woodseer 2. Similarly,
when one looks to supposedly critical issues, such as the one
kilometre distance is concerned, not only is something which is
designed as an indicative guideline of one kilometre up-rated
to what is said in the very beginning of the Executive Summary
as a mandatory requirement, not only is the language is exaggerated
but it has failed to mention that really there is no distinction
between the two in that respect. If this was a genuinely objective
and impartial document none of those criticisms would be available
to be made. Those obvious flaws are only in there because the
document is designed to prove a case; it is not designed to present
you with an objective and impartial view of a comparison you are
being asked to make. So we ask you to be very careful when you
look at those documents. That was made even clearer when I went
back to the document that was provided in the Promoter's Response—this
was the G3 document—where I ran through the reasons given
for choosing Hanbury Street, and without exception they could
equally be applied to Woodseer 2. The only difference now relied
upon from this great long list, produced at the beginning of this
month—and we are not two weeks into this month yet—that
is now seemingly relied upon is the need to go slightly deeper,
to go under Bishops Square, and that will involve additional engineering
complications. But as we have heard, nothing is impossible in
engineering terms. Arup gave evidence last week which demonstrated
that the difference between the two is nothing like as severe
as the Promoters are presenting. The difficulty now with the Promoters
giving an objective, impartial and realistic assessment in these
matters is that they recognise the implications that are being
shown, that actually there is a perfectly feasible alternative,
which there plainly is—Woodseer 2. There is a feasible alternative.
They are going to have to go back and look at it and that will
take them time, but that is only reasonable when you bear in mind
the magnitude and the scale of the impact associated with the
route they have chosen.
9983. We say, in short, that the Committee has
not been given a compelling case that the option chosen is the
best of those available in terms of balancing engineering costs
and constraints against environmental impacts. The evidence that
we have, so far as it is available—and of course it is not
all available at the moment—suggests strongly that Woodseer
2 is at least as good, if not better in many respects, and nor
is therefore one in a position to say with any confidence that
the earlier assessments, particularly the assessments in discounting
the southern route, can be relied upon. Even at this stage with
this degree of iteration we do not have reliable information,
we do not have a fair and objective assessment of the route that
has been promoted how fair and objective, how thorough were the
assessments discounting the southern route?
9984. In conclusion, on the basis of those three
points our basic plea today is the same as that which was put
before you last week by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. In
other words, we say, as they did, that the Committee should indicate
firmly, before any final decision is made on the choice of Hanbury
Street as opposed to Woodseer Street or, we say, the southern
route, that a fully fledged objective and impartial assessment
is made of their impacts because of the number of people affected,
the number of listed buildings affected, the number of small businesses
that are affected. That, we say, is the very least that we can
expect. Sir, those are my submissions.
The Petition of Mrs Fiona Atkins and others
The Petition of Roy Adams and Pascale Adams
The Petition of Melanie and Nicholas Symons
Mr Rupert Wheeler appeared as Agent
9985. Mr Lidddell-Grainger: Mr Philpott,
thank you very much indeed. Mr Wheeler, are you the Agent for
Mrs Atkins?
9986. Mr Wheeler: Yes, I am. I think
we have made the points on behalf of the next three Petitioners,
for which I am an Agent.
9987. Mr Lidddell-Grainger: That is the
Adamses and the Symonses?
9988. Mr Wheeler: Yes and our points
are very similar to the points made by the Spitalfields Society,
so we were not intending to repeat them again to you.
9989. Mr Lidddell-Grainger: Thank you
very much indeed and thank you for making that very clear. Mr
Da Silva? No. Mr Nesar Narunassar and others? No. Huguenot Court
Limited. Thank you, sir, would you please come forward?
The Petition of Huguenot Court Limited
The Petition of Mark Stephen Lancaster &
Suzanne Mary Lancaster
Mr Mark Lancaster appeared as Agent
9990. Mr Lidddell-Grainger: You are doing
Mark and Suzanne Lancaster and Huguenot Limited?
9991. Mr Lancaster: That is correct,
sir. If I can take the two together, a lot of the material has
been covered but I do have a duty to say some of these things
that I intended to say. My wife and I own a flat at 79B Brick
Lane and another at 6 Huguenot Court. I am the Chairman of Huguenot
Court Limited, which is a small company, a property management
company for the lessees of that building. On this plan—again
the colours are much easier when you are close to the screen—Huguenot
Court is the dark blue area which is directly opposite on Princelet
Street the planned shaft location. At that level it is the dark
blue one at the right middle of the map; it is on the corner of
Princelet Street and Spelman Street. The other property that I
am referring to is shaded light blue; it is on the corner of Brick
Lane, which runs north-south on the left side of that screen,
and Hanbury Street, which runs east-west, as we know. There is
the number 123 next to it, although that does not refer to my
petition. My wife and I have been connected with this area since
1989, which is when we bought the flat on Brick Lane that I have
just shown you. At that time it was a very rundown community and
it has changed enormously; it has become a very vibrant, multicultural
community with lots of artists, restaurants, fashion outlets,
designers and creative work going on and it has become something
of a tourist centre—it is mentioned now in lots of guidebooks.
There is a great deal of heritage and wonderful architecture and
it really is a very good community. Much has been going on and
being developed and it is our fear that some of the proposals—although
many of these now changed, and my Petition in that respect is
out of date—the tunnelling strategy itself is very important.
The work that is proposed could damage that community and its
prosperity and I would not like to see that happen.
9992. I want to turn briefly to consultation
and the jeopardy that we have been put in. We bought the flat
on Brick Lane in May 1989, and the flat in Huguenot Court in June
2002. On neither of those occasions when we had environmental
and local authority searches did any plans for Crossrail appear.
So we were not warned that this proposal was coming forward when
we made substantial property investments there. We have either
lived in these properties or had our mail forwarded from them
ever since 1989 and although the Promoters do say that there has
been widespread consultation we only got notice of this at a very
late stage, I think in January 2004. There is a list of meetings
that is given in the response to my Petition from the Promoters,
which is a long detailed list and it looks as though an awful
lot of consultation has happened, but I would be very surprised
if many of those meetings, apart from perhaps the Brady Art Centre
one, when the community had actually been awakened to what was
proposed were very well attended.[67]
I certainly challenge that the consultation was good enough; the
notice was good enough to alert everybody in the area who has
an interest to what was going on. I am still concerned about communications
between the Promoters and people of the area because, for instance,
I wrote in response to the response to my Petition, to Mr Mantey
on 23 May. I spent a weekend studying the response, which is quite
a task anyway, and I did not get a letter back until I prompted
on Thursday last, and my letter arrived on Saturday via email,
and I was due to appear here today on Tuesday. It is my opinion
that we cannot have much confidence in, for instance, having notices
of tunnel machines passing, of road closures and so on, unless
Crossrail step up their act quite a lot on those communications.
9993. Turning to the location of the vent shaft,
I am not going to say much about this because I think it has been
covered very well, but I would only say on behalf of the Petitioners
I represent, I put that it is very clear from the aerial photos
shown early that there is conclusively more residential development
and more people to be affected by the Hanbury Street site than
the Woodseer Street site, and I would reiterate that the Woodseer
Street site in our opinion is a much better site for that tunnel.
9994. I want to talk briefly about settlement.
I am not qualified and I am not able to afford expensive engineers
or expensive lawyers to make my case for me, but one of the residents
of our block of Huguenot Court is an architect and he is a past
President of the Royal Institution of British Architects, and
he drew up a scale drawing, of which I brought 20 copies. I did
send one in earlier.
9995. Mr Lidddell-Grainger: This evidence
will be A115.[68]
9996. Mr Lancaster: The tube is 31 metres
down below the ventilation building as drawn. Number 61 is the
building that has been referred to as now going to stay, it is
the flats that overlook the hole in the ground, which are supposed
to shield Huguenot Court Limited, which is called HCL on this,
from the noise effects, and that is the width of Princelet Street.
What my colleague in the block has done is to draw a line at 45
degrees from the tube 31 metres down to show that Huguenot Court
is likely, in our view, to have a settlement impact, and we wish
to make sure that we as Petitioners are protected from that settlement
by having condition surveys done in advance and regular checks
on our buildings to make sure that there is no settlement impact.
That drawing shows a building which I think is 25 metres from
the tube site.
9997. Turning briefly to the other property
I am representing with my wife, that is within five metres of
the running tunnel as it is currently proposed. I sent a letter
to Crossrail saying would I be affected by settlement and what
steps would be taken? I was told I was in the category nought,
there would be no settlement within five metres of this tunnel,
and this was a letter that I received on Saturday. So I am very
anxious about that and I want to make sure that I am considered
to be in a higher category than that and that that building too,
which is in a conservation area, is monitored before, during and
after the construction of this tube. Of course, moving the ventilation
site to Woodseer Street would take away a lot of this impact because
it would move north through industrial buildings, and we have
been through that.
9998. I want to talk about compensation. I suffer
from a mental illness called manic depression bi-polar affected
disorder and I am not able to work. My wife is pensionable age.
We have made provision for our old age and for our living by renting
out property—both these flats are rented out and we depend
on them to pay the mortgages and to cover our living expenses.
I am concerned that the noise and disruption of these works and
the long-term effects of the railway running will make it more
difficult to let our properties at appropriate levels of rent.
We need to rely on this money, as I say, to pay mortgages and
for ourselves, and I would like to ask the Committee to consider
providing compensation for us and other people who are affected
by the building of this railway in a financially negative way.
I have been referred continually to the National Compensation
Code and I am not very good at reading these things, but I am
trying to read it. All I can understand from it is that if you
are being compulsorily purchased there will be some compensation.
If you are not there will be none. Maybe that is not correct.
9999. Mr Lidddell-Grainger: Mr Lancaster,
I will stop you there. There is a very strict criteria to what
compensation can and cannot be paid, which is laid down by Parliament.
We are not, as a Committee, looking at that; we are not allowed
to. So if you would like to move on to your next point?
67 Committee Ref: A115, Crossrail consultation rounds
2003-2005 (SCN-20060613-012). Back
68
Committee Ref: A115, Position and size of ventilation building
and shaft estimated, relative to Huguenot Court Limited (SCN-20060613-013). Back
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