Examination of Witnesses (Questions 10300
- 10319)
10300. Then you say that following complaints,
the direct leafleting exercise in round one had not reached some
recipients, leaflets were posted by Royal Mail to more than 176,000
address in 100-metre corridor either side of the proposed route.
(Mr Dean) That is right. We widened the corridor
and used the Royal Mail service who were able to identify every
postcode within that corridor.
10301. You say on the foot of the page, land
and property referencing continued to refine details of interests
of those likely to be affected and as you learned of new directly
affected property interests, they were written to directly?
(Mr Dean) Yes, it is probably important just
to mention that we tried to develop a special relationship with
those directly affected. They were offered discussions with a
panel of property experts.
10302. If we go to the next page please, you
had the information round which accompanied the bill deposit and
you again note information centres were held in Spitalfields and
Whitechapel, where was the Spitalfields information centre?[32]
(Mr Dean) The Spitalfields information
centre?
10303. Yes, for the information round.
(Mr Dean) For these exact dates?
10304. No, where was it?
(Mr Dean) Sorry, it was moved to the Brady
Centre.
10305. The Brady Centre.
(Mr Dean) Yes, the Brady Centre, I think, would
have been our preferred venue earlier, but it was non-accessible
and being refurbished. By the time of the information round it
had been fully refurbished and made accessible and so it was used
then.
10306. As before, information was disseminated
and displayed in a number of languages including Bengali and Somali
and an interpreter was present?
(Mr Dean) That is right.
10307. You then sent out bill deposit, publicity
and additional provisions, I am not going to focus on those because
the complaints are focused on pre-bill deposit consultation and
the Committee is well aware of what has happened with the deposited
bill. Can I ask you about the equality workshops which are referred
to at the foot of the page, please?
(Mr Dean) Yes, we held three workshops, one
in the west, one in the central area and one in the east to which
we ought sought to invite priority group representatives, obviously
race, faith, part of the seven priority groups that are categorised
where we looked to present the proposals and understand perhaps
some of the more subtle concerns and interests and hopes of those
priority groups.
10308. If we can go to the next page, please,
you summarise the communication history of the Spitalfields area
to date, you set out the number of contacts in the database, over
25,000, and the total number of communications, nearly 340,000?[33]
(Mr Dean) That is right. I should
imagine it has gone up quite a bit since the report was first
drafted.
10309. And you have given some specific examples,
the Spitalfields area itself, just over 6,000 communications from
the Spitalfields area and you have given the details for stakeholders
in Spitalfields, the Small Business Association and the Woodseer
and Hanbury Residents Association?
(Mr Dean) Yes, I could have put some more in.
I hope those are representative.
10310. The next steps you set out at the bottom
of the page, continue to provide a 24-hour seven days a week help
desk and a regularly updated website. I do not know to what extent
members of the Committee have had an opportunity to look at the
website, Mr Dean, but how much information is available on the
website?
(Mr Dean) Everything you need to know about
Crossrail and probably an awful lot more. Everything is published
and then we obviously publish it in all the accessible formats.[34]
There are 20 micro-sites on there. The Young Crossrail microsite
is something you can get lost in, there was a virtual train on
there and results of all the competitions. There is a wealth of
information.
10311. One of the micro sites, this is a print-out
I did at the beginning of the year just as the Committee was starting
to sit but part of the site includes all the supporting documents
for the Bill. It includes the various environmental statements,
the supplementaries, of which there were two at the time, the
amendment to provisions of ES, of which there was one at the time,
all the specialist reports and the technical reports that form
the background to the environmental statement and the plans are
all available and can be viewed from the website?
(Mr Dean) That is correct.
10312. Can I then ask you to go to the next
page?
(Mr Dean) Are you at the appendices now?
10313. No, page 9.[35]
I want to ask because this is something that Tower Hamlets indicated
satisfaction with, community cohesion adviser has been appointed
to assist the project. Can you just explain that?
(Mr Dean) Yes, it has taken some
expert advice on how to improve community relations, to engage
with those who are more difficult to reach and really looking
just as always to improve our processes. I hope that at every
juncture we have tried to learn from what has happened behind
us and try out some new initiatives to freshen up what it is we
are doing and also to improve the overall process.
10314. The race equality impact assessment and
equality impact assessment have been completed. That is a continuing
process, is it not?
(Mr Dean) That is right, yes. We envisage that
the assessment exercise will continue right into operation of
the project so through the design phase, through construction
and then once the railway is operational.
10315. So we have got the ongoing work of the
Community Cohesion Adviser and the agreement to work with Tower
Hamlets on future consultation of community relations exercises,
continuing dialogue with the various affected communities and
then the equality impact assessment monitoring a development process?
(Mr Dean) That is right. We also have a community
relations team who are expert in major construction projects.
10316. The appendices, we have seen appendix
2, if we can briefly look at appendix 1.[36]
That summarises the consultation events at Spitalfields, consultation
round one which we have discussed consultation round 2, the information
round and the additional provision at Whitechapel Station which
also generate a centre. Appendix 2, we have seen, appendix 3 set
out the stakeholders registered now on the Crossrail data base.[37]
(Mr Dean) Stakeholders in Spitalfields.
10317. In Spitalfields, I imagine the complete
one is longer than that for the whole scheme?
(Mr Dean) Indeed. I possibly missed some off
myself from the overall list. Sometimes obviously groups outside
Spitalfields may have an interest in the area.
10318. In appendix 4, you summarise the meetings
with the community and stakeholder groups 2004 and 2006.[38]
(Mr Dean) That is right.
10319. Before I turn to the CRE, I would just
like to show the Committee briefly some of the materials provided
on the consultation round and the Committee has already seen some
of them. Can we just put up these. This is consultation round
1.[39]
Mr Dean, you will confirm which is showing the central London
stations and this is the 2003 to early 2004 early consultation
round and we can see that it shows clearly the route going from
Liverpool Street to Whitechapel not to Stratford directly or bypassing
Whitechapel?
(Mr Dean) That is right.
32 Crossrail Ref: P91, Consultation Activities in
the Spitalfields Area, Public Information Round (10 to 19 February
2005) (TOWHLB-GEN02-008). Back
33
Crossrail Ref: P91, Consultation Activities in the Spitalfields
Area, Spitalfields communication history summary (TOWHLB-GEN02-009). Back
34
Crossrail Ref: P91, Crossrail Website, www.crossrail.co.uk (SCN-20060614-025). Back
35
Crossrail Ref: P91, Consultation Activities in the Spitalfields
Area, Next Steps (TOWHLB-GEN02-010). Back
36
Crossrail Ref: P91, Consultation Activities in the Spitalfields
Area, Appendix 1- Spitalfields consultation events (TOWHLB-GEN02-011). Back
37
Crossrail Ref: P91, Consultation Activities in the Spitalfields
Area, Appendix 3-Stakeholder consultation in Spitalfields (TOWHLB-GEN02-014). Back
38
Crossrail Ref: P91, Consultation Activities in the Spitalfields
Area, Appendix 4-Meetings with Spitalfields community and stakeholder
groups (TOWHLB-GEN02-015). Back
39
Crossrail Ref: P91, Consultation Round 1, Location of Central
Stations (SCN-20060614-026). Back
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