Examination of Witnesses (Questions 10880
- 10899)
10880. Mrs Cove: I would think at least
another half an hour.
10881. Chairman: Then what I am proceeding
to do is to rise the Committee now and come back at 2.30. I think
that is the most sensible.
After a short adjournment
10882. Chairman: Mr Elvin?
10883. Mr Elvin: Sir, I wonder if Mrs
Cove would forgive me just for two minutes. This is nothing to
do with her Petition. Sir, there is something which I thought
I ought to correct and I have been waiting for the transcript
for last night just to check what was actually said, and I received
that about five minutes ago or I would have raised it earlier.
Sir, there was a discussion last night, and I appreciate everyone
was getting rather tired after a very long day in committee yesterday,
and Mr Berryman, I think, suggested at one point that there was
a benefits:costs analysis for Whitechapel. There is not and indeed
I checked and of course what I told the Committee during the Woolwich
issue, and indeed it is accurate, is that there were no BCAs done
for individual stations and that they would take a great deal
of time. What we can do, however, is to deal with Mr Hopkins'
request of last night directly which is to provide passenger forecasts
and to compare those with the total number of passengers using
Whitechapel Station, what percentage Crossrail passengers will
be. I think we are hoping to have that information this afternoon
which of course we will also supply to Mr Galloway, but I wanted
to correct that misapprehension and forgive me for not doing it
earlier, but I thought I had better check the transcript.
10884. Chairman: I was quite surprised
when he said it and that is why I referred to it.
10885. Kelvin Hopkins: My purpose in
raising it was because Mr Galloway clearly had made a big point
about it and it seemed to be something which needed to be examined
and to be shown one way or the other.
10886. Mr Elvin: Indeed.
10887. Kelvin Hopkins: The other point
of course is whether or not Crossrail could be perfectly viable
without Whitechapel, not just that Whitechapel itself is used
as a station.
10888. Mr Elvin: Mr Mould is going to
call Mr Anderson to explain the benefits of the station, as we
indicated. Can I also just remind the Committee, and it did not
occur to me last night and it ought to have done and I am afraid
I put it down to a couple of very long days in committee, that
Whitechapel of course is part of the principle of the Bill. It
is a station which is within the deposited plans and was specifically
the subject of debate at second reading. I will be saying this
in my closing submissions, but I would just remind the Committee
that it is not an issue which really is open to debate.
10889. Chairman: As such, whether or
not there will be a station, I agree with that. There is no difficulty
with that concept, but, as it was a major plank of the Petitioner's
argument, we allowed it and that was why I put the question back
about whether or not the Petitioner thought that the proposals
for 2009 would be sufficient to meet the needs at Whitechapel.
That was the plank of his argument which he confirmed.
10890. Mr Elvin: Yes, although in a sense
it is nothing to the point because the principle of Whitechapel
Station is part of the principle of the Bill. Nonetheless, we
will give you the information and of course that information will
be made available to Mr Galloway as well.
10891. Sir Peter Soulsby: When we were
discussing the Woolwich Station, we understood then why the costs:benefits
analysis was appropriate for that particular station, because
it was in addition to the rest of the scheme, and I am sure we
understood that the Whitechapel Station is an integral part of
the proposal which has been accepted by the House on its second
reading.
10892. Chairman: The reason why we put
it was because the Petitioner actually said that this was one
of the main points.
10893. Mr Elvin: It did strike me that,
once I checked that that was what had been said, I ought to correct
it as soon as possible.
10894. Sir Peter Soulsby: Chairman, Mr
Elvin has confirmed our recollection and our understanding. Thank
you.
10895. Chairman: Mrs Cove?
10896. Mrs Cove: I will just actually
come back to what Mr Elvin has said in a minute when talking about
planning matters, but I would like to come back to the issue about
the noise of the lorries and the lorry routes. I would reiterate
what I said just before lunch, which was that we are told that
the lorries will be actually sheeted to prevent dust from being
spread as the lorries move the spoil out of the area, but we know
very often that lorry drivers are actually on bonuses and, therefore,
are not always very keen on bothering to take the time to sheet
up their lorries, and we certainly have had experience of that
when the demolition of Spitalfields Market was going on with the
amount of dust and dirt around Commercial Street.
10897. Crossrail also tell us that the lorry
wheels will be washed and the site will be hosed down, so again
one of the questions I have to ask is for some sort of explanation
because supposing we have another drought order, so I would like
to have some explanation from Crossrail on how they intend to
make sure that the site is clean and that the lorries are kept
clean.
10898. Also in relation to other issues regarding
health, the Health Impact Assessment recognises that there is
an increased risk of accidents from extra vehicular movements,
but what they do not do in any of the documents that I have seen
so far is provide any information on how that risk can possibly
be substantially reduced in an area like Spitalfields with very
narrow and congested streets and high pedestrian use. We can confidently
say that the increase in lorry movements will increase the level
of pollution, but I will come back to that later when I deal with
the pollution issues.
10899. If I can move on to planning matters,
I am very concerned to hear what Mr Elvin has just said, that
there is no cost:benefit analysis of the Whitechapel Station site.
I do appreciate from what you have said that it is integral to
the Bill, but, nevertheless, they are pushing Whitechapel, as
is the Council, on a very, very clear regenerative basis and there
should surely be then some cost:benefit analysis to local people,
not to the city, not to Crossrail, but to local people on what
we may get out of the regeneration from Whitechapel Station, and
I would be very pleased not only if you get a copy of whatever
it is that needs to be sent to Mr Galloway, but to have a copy
also sent to me of the explanation for that.
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