Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 10340 - 10359)

  10340. So far as the noise and vibration issue, which is another matter which has been raised, we can see there that two of the most likely noticeable effects, practical ways of managing them, identifying design and construction methods to reduce potential numbers of noise and vibration impact, the requirement for an environmental statement, mitigation measures, effects of noise and vibration depends on a number of factors and it lists them.[56] What are the likely effects and it refers to the use of the construction code which is what is proposed and the Committee is aware of that from the various Information Papers of the significance of that?

  (Mr Dean) That is right.

  10341. Mr Elvin: Unless the Committee want to see any further materials, I appreciate I have shown you quite a lot. It is the tip of the iceberg, but I hope that, at least, has given the Committee a flavour of the sort of information that has been disseminated further materials can be provided and if and when necessary.

  10342. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Thank you.

  10343. Mr Elvin: Can I ask you, Mr Dean, to deal with the issue of the Commission for Racial Equality?
  (Mr Dean) Yes.

  10344. We have got a complete, or as complete as we could put together over lunch, bundle of correspondence. Would the Committee like copies of that or simply have Mr Dean summarise it?

  10345. Mr Liddell-Grainger: We would like copies, please, if you could circulate that.[57]


  10346. Mr Elvin: I should have said that the consultation referee notice P91, I imagine this will be P92.

  10347. Chairman: We will let you know in a second.

  10348. Mr Elvin: I am afraid it is in reverse dated order in the way that files are often copied. The first letter is July 2004 which I think comes in just after the letter that was produced this morning which was a letter to local people rather than to CRL or the Department. Mr Dean, try to summarise this without going through it in detail. Is it fair to say the CRE raised initial concerns about engagement of the various community and ethnic groups and requested the issue of equality impact assessment, is that right?
  (Mr Dean) That is true. I think it was the first time there was formal notification or correspondence with the project but there had been correspondence to the project from outside parties and we then reacted to that by formulating a strategy for undertaking quality impact assessment work.

  10349. And can you summarise what then occurred?
  (Mr Dean) The correspondence took place between primarily the Chairman for the Commission for Racial Equality and senior management of Cross London Rail Links and it started off by notifying the project of its general duty. There was a certain amount of confusion and I think it was largely borne out of the fact that Crossrail had two stakeholders, one of which was the SRA, and whilst they both had their own equality schemes, Crossrail itself did not technically fall under the statutory duty. The project decided in any event that it was the right thing to do and forged ahead with this piece of work. The demise, if I can call it that, of the SRA then saw TfL become a major stakeholder. Then we had the issues of assimilating the DFT statutory duty under its race equality scheme with TfL's race equality scheme and coming up with a cohesive and robust way forward. More latterly then there has been continued correspondence from the CRE where they reminded us of their expectations under the duty and have expressed themselves content with progress and welcomed the fact it is an ongoing piece of work. I think it is possibly relevant they have not chosen to comment on the race equality impact assessment nor the comprehensive race equality impact assessment nor can I recall them commenting during any of the consultation rounds but perhaps that is all overtaken by the one-to-one correspondence.

  10350. Can I just get this clear, of course the CRE can serve notice if it considers that there are significant failures in terms of their area of interest, can they not?
  (Mr Dean) They can serve a compliance notice.

  10351. Has any such notice been served or threatened in this instance?
  (Mr Dean) No mention.

  10352. Mr Elvin: I do not know whether you require any further summary other than that.

  10353. Mr Liddell-Grainger: At the moment I do not think so.

  10354. Mr Elvin: I thought it was better you had the complete documentation so you can see it warts and all.

  10355. Mr Liddell-Grainger: I can assure you we will come back to you and if necessary call.

  10356. Mr Elvin: That concludes the information I was going to present to the Committee on consultation.

  10357. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Have you any questions to ask? Please come forward?

  10358. Mr Akker: I do, sir. Could I just indicate that a lot of the material just stated by counsel will come as a complete surprise to many people, constituents and Petitioners, certainly the breadth of it and the detail. I would like to give an initial comment, sir, but what I would like to seek with your permission is since this goes to the heart of so many Petitions, principally Tower Hamlets London Council and Spitalfields Society and to a number of others, that I would like to seek whether we could put in a written comment to you based on what has been said not because we want to lengthen the process but it would just be a fact sheet. I say that because the leaflets and information which have been stated here many of us have not had any sight of these before. There has been a view put forward that these were available at exhibition centres, but the issue which many people have found with the exhibition centres, sir, is that the exhibition centres have been staffed by people or staff who are unaware of many of the principal features of the scheme and they have not been put forward and accessible in a way that has been suggested. What I would like to do, sir, with your permission is to ask the witness from Crossrail—I will not go into great detail at this stage—a number of questions in relation to what he said. First, could I ask, since your responsibility is very large indeed, how did you go about assessing which of the principal areas of the Crossrail project that would be likely to cause maximum impact and maximum disruption?
  (Mr Dean) I am not sure whether that is my area of expertise. There was an environmental impact assessment conducted and the results of that exercise identified where the likely impacts arose and what the nature and extent of those impacts was likely to be.

  10359. Your job was communicating what were the principal issues to the public which would affect the project. It has been put in many Petitioners' evidence that the impact on Spitalfields was very severe, to have drilling machines going from Spitalfields in a very condensed area was clearly of major importance as far as the local community is concerned. I am asking you what level of special considerations of Spitalfields played, in your view, of how it should be communicated to the people in the area and to the public at large?

  (Mr Dean) I think as a general answer the response was to use all available media and extensive formats to invest heavily in the programme of consultation and to try and provide access to the project in best way we could. I mentioned earlier that we have had a special relationship with those directly affected. We have looked to introduce information exchange so there was a semi-permanent presence in the area during the second round of consultation and over and above that we hope that we have been accessible to consultees and I do think it has to be a two-way process rather than us trying to come out and give information to parties. There is also the ability for them to approach us via the website, the help desk, by members of the consultation team which, I think, was over a dozen strong at the time. We employed a professional company, Lime, whose expertise is in planning and staging consultation events. We widely advertised, we sent press releases to media in the area and I think very few, if any of them, choose to run stories at the time of the consultation and we were hopeful that they would; I stand corrected on that. I am not sure whether we were very successful in getting co-operation of local media. You heard we tried the radio. I could go through the list again. Perhaps one area where we were hoping that we would be able to filter information back to the community was via the schools programme, by students taking home their work, talking about a project or attending competitions as competition winners with their parents. These sorts of things were just supplementary ways—they were mainstream ways—of us trying to engage with the community.

  The consultation process itself, as I mentioned, was another avenue for the community to say: "Hang on, why don't you try A, B or C?" What we did have was some criticism of inadequacy but I cannot recall having any suggestions that we could have taken on board to improve the process.


56   Crossrail Ref: P91, Crossrail Information, Noise and Vibration, www.crossrail.co.uk (SCN-20060614-045 and -046). Back

57   Crossrail Ref: P92, Correspondence between CLRL and the Commission for Racial Equality. Back


 
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