Examination of Witnesses (Questions 10580
- 10599)
10580. Mr Elvin: I am not promising he
is going to have the figures at his fingertips but—
Mr Keith Berryman, recalled
Further examined by Mr Elvin
10581. Mr Elvin: The Committee knows
Mr Berryman; I do not introduce him further. Mr Berryman, can
I just ask you to explain briefly to the Committee the railway
reasons for having a Crossrail station at Whitechapel?
Mr Berryman: The primary reason
for a station at Whitechapel from our perspective is the inter-connectivity
it gives between the Crossrail route and other significant routes
in East London. The East London Line is a bit of a, what could
one call it, lost soul in terms of Underground lines in London
but after the modernisation which is currently taking place it
will be a long line running from Croydon in the south up to Dalston
in the north and will become quite a major important traffic artery
for London. The District Line, as you will all know of course,
is already very busy. As I say, the East London Line will become
a very important artery in the Underground network. The District
Line and Hammersmith and City Line already are. There will be
very significant passenger numbers interchanging between those
lines. I do not have the figures at my fingertips because, as
you know, we were not expecting to give evidence on this point
this evening. There will also be significant numbers of people
entering and leaving the station. The Royal London Hospital is
nearby and it is quite a busy generator of traffic. There are
a lot of local residents in the area which are good traffic generators.
It will be quite a busy station, both for interchange purposes
and also for people entering and leaving to the street. It is
also a good bus interchange particularly with all the traffic
going to the north towards Bethnal Green and that way.
10582. Chairman: One of the central planks
of Mr Galloway's argument is what Mr Hopkins indicated to you
as to whether or not there was a need for this enormous new station.
It seems extraordinary to me and other Committee members, that
everywhere else in London is saying they want a Crossrail station
and Whitechapel is the only one saying "we do not want a
station at all."
Mr Berryman: The local authority
of course is absolutely of the contrary view; they do want a station
and they have welcomed enthusiastically the proposal for a station
from the beginning.
10583. Your argument is that it is Mr Galloway
and some of the people he represents that do not want a Whitechapel
Station in the form that is being presented rather than the area
and the Council?
Mr Berryman: We can only go on
the feedback we get from various sources and we do know Mr Galloway
and people who feel the same way as he does do not want a station.
There are other places in London where people do not want things
to happen but this is the area where they are most vociferous.
10584. To be specific, can you tell us what
the sources were, the noises you are hearing in favour of a Crossrail
station?
Mr Berryman: We get it from the
Mayor of London and the GLA, we get it from the local authority
in the area, we get it from a significant proportion of the people
that we consult. We do not get it from everybody in this area,
there is strong opposition, it would be fair to say, but it is
by no means universal.
10585. Chairman: Mr Elvin?
10586. Mr Elvin: I have got nothing else
at the moment. I will try and produce the more specific figures
for the Committee tomorrow.
10587. Chairman: Mr Galloway?
Cross-examined by Mr Galloway
10588. Mr Galloway: Please, I am champing
at the bit! If you will allow me to say so, I think it is surprising
the paucity of facts and statistics and information that you have
just been given on this point. It is no surprise, I should have
thought, to Crossrail that this very point, to use your words
Chairman, is a central part of my argument. I should have thought
they would have come armed with the witnesses and evidence to
back up their case. I hope the witness will not take it as anything
personal when I say for a professional to come in front of a parliamentary
committee and use phrases like "a large number of people",
"a lot of people" is not very satisfactory.
Mr Berryman: I could not agree
more.
10589. Why is there not a cost-benefit analysis,
Mr Berryman, of having a station or not having a station? There
is on Woolwich Station a cost-benefit analysis? Why is there none
on the Whitechapel Station?
Mr Berryman: I could not agree
with you more that it is unsatisfactory to come to this Committee
and say things like "a lot of people" and "many
people", but I do not have the figures at my fingertips.
We will provide them in written form tomorrow but I just do not
have them with me.
10590. But, Mr Berryman, you knew I was the
witness at 6 o'clock this evening. You presumably read my statement
and my speech of 19 July?
Mr Berryman: I not only read it
I sat there and listened to it.
10591. I am sorry for that.
Mr Berryman: It was very entertaining.
10592. Is it not extraordinary that no-one came
armed with the arguments to the contrary? You agreed it was unsatisfactory.
Is it not more than unsatisfactory; is it not extraordinary?
Mr Berryman: I said it was unsatisfactory
to give that kind of response to a select committee. I would never
try to defend that.
10593. Can I put to you then what I think is
the truth, that the Whitechapel Station is the quid pro quo
for Tower Hamlet's support for the Whitechapel alignment. This
is my point, you see, Chairman, we would not be having this discussion,
I would not be here, you would not have to listen to me if there
was no Whitechapel alignment. The Whitechapel alignment is the
alignment the price for which was the Whitechapel Station. There
is no other case for a Whitechapel Station except as a quid
pro quo to get Tower Hamlet's support for the Whitechapel
alignment.
Mr Berryman: I am afraid you are
not quite correct in saying that because any route which goes
east-west across London and goes through Liverpool Street at one
of its points must go through your constituency, and irrespective
of whether there was to be a station at Whitechapel or not, there
would still have to be ventilation and intervention shafts at
various points through your constituency. It is really academic
as far as that goes whether there is a Whitechapel Station or
not.
10594. It could have gone along the River. It
could have been the southern alignment rather than the Whitechapel
alignment?
Mr Berryman: I personally do not
think the southern alignment is at all practical.
10595. You did not think it was at all practical
to dig the tunnel from both ends but it suddenly became practical.
Mr Berryman: That is not the case
at all. You may have been advised or not by your supporters that
we had been looking all the time at the possibility of eliminating
the tunnelling sites at Hanbury Street. The reasons for the change
in the policy were actually through change of circumstances which
occurred in connection with planning and funding issues. It was
not because we did not wish to change. We were forced into that
strategy by what we understood at the time to be the planning
issues. We have now revised the strategy based on development
of some ideas which have been floating around for some time. You
may be interested to know that the revised strategy will be cheaper
than the original strategy and that is what we were always aiming
to do.
10596. That is not what we were told at the
time of course. We were told we could not tunnel from both ends
because it would be a vastly more expensive scheme.
Mr Berryman: The reasons are quite
complex. I am very happy to explain them to you, if you wish,
but the previous assumption was that there would be a period of
advanced works before powers had been granted by this Bill that
is being considered which would include diversion of utilities
and sewers and things of that sort. And that would be followed
by a six-year construction period, in other words a total of an
eight-year construction period from the day the first shovel went
into the ground to the day when the railway opened. It subsequently
became clear that it would not be possible for us to start those
enabling works prior to having the consent which would be granted
by this Bill because of changes in environmental impact legislation,
and we therefore realised that we had eight years to build the
tunnel instead of six years as we previously thought. Once you
put that into the equation you can start looking at alternative
tunnelling strategies and that is what we did, and we came up
with a solution which involves starting at a site where there
are no utilities to divert, giving us the full eight years to
go at it, and that is why the strategy changed. It was because
of that change in understanding of the legislation that it became
practicable to tunnel from both ends rather than from three sides.
10597. Mr Berryman, why is there a cost-benefit
analysis on Woolwich Station but not on Whitechapel Station?
Mr Berryman: Each station was
considered as an adjunct to the scheme, and it is customary to
do cost-benefit analyses on those kind of elements.
10598. Is it not customary to do cost-benefit
analyses on most developments as significant as this?
Mr Berryman: A cost-benefit analysis
on the whole scheme has of course been done.
10599. I am talking about the building of a
station at Whitechapel. Is that not as significant as the Woolwich
proposal? Do we not deserve even a cost-benefit analysis in Tower
Hamlets?
Mr Berryman: We have done a cost-benefit
analysis of the station, but I have to say, irrespective of the
results of any such analysis, Whitechapel is a fundamental part
of the scheme because it provides that connectivity between the
Crossrail alignment and other routes in London which would not
exist if there was no Whitechapel Station.
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