Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11060
- 11079)
11060. Chairman: Sir, just before you
leave, thank you very much, it is very refreshing to have a witness
that is from the community.
(Mr Uddin) Thank you.
The witness withdrew
11061. Chairman: We will move on to our
next petitioner who is Patricia Jones. There was another one but
they came in after you so I am dealing with you first. Mr Mould,
are you dealing with this?
11062. Mr Mould: Yes I am. Forgive me,
I seem to have momentarily lost my piece of paper but what I can
tell you is that—
11063. Mr Binley: It is getting late.
11064. Mr Mould: I always feel that from
the moment I get up. Ms Jones is the owner of number 21 Wilkes
Street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, that is approximately
located above the proposed Crossrail Eastbound running tunnel
about 200 metres to the proposed Hanbury Street shaft at which
point the track level below the ground would be about 36 metres
below ground level. I think it is fair to say she also shares
the concerns which have been explained to the Committee but the
Petitioners in relation to this aspect of the works.
The Petition of Patricia Jones.
Ms Jones appeared in person.
11065. Ms Jones: My name is Patricia
Jones and I live in Spitalfields. I have had the promoter's response
to my petition and I do not consider that any of my concerns have
been properly addressed and I therefore reserve my position on
all of these points. I do not have any slides and I do not have
any papers and I will take about five minutes of your time. You
have already heard from many people from Tower Hamlets last week
and during the course of this week and you will hear from many
more, I think it goes on for Spitalfields next Tuesday. We are
a very disparate bunch of people in Spitalfields but it is a unique
area. The common theme from everyone is that the shaft in Hanbury
Street and the current route alignment is a very bad idea, not
just for the community but for the promoter as well. Even Tower
Hamlets have been saying for two years that the shaft in Hanbury
Street is a bad idea.
11066. You will know from the case last Wednesday
it was only one of two issues which they were still outstanding
at their petition stage. The Committee will already perceive that
Hanbury Street site is tiny, it is an extraordinarily difficult
site on which to carry out what is still a large mining operation.
Tower Hamlets said to me after their case last week and I met
them on Friday, that if the promoter were to offload lorries in
that street and you will remember that report which was were produced
in the pack had very detailed different options for the Hanbury
Street layout and almost all of them at all times had the lorries
offloading in the street or they would not be able to get on.
Tower Hamlets told me if that were the case, the roads would have
to be closed or the deliveries would have to come in at night.
That would be complete chaos.
11067. There are a couple of points that I want
to take up that council and the promoter have made today. The
histogram of the lorry movements that was in that evidence showed
four years of lorry movements. They will be different at different
times, I accept that but it was two year peaks but four years
overall and that does not include the after over site development.
There will be much more than two years, four years overall and
then there will be other peaks for the over site development.
It was also said today that there would be 15 lorries per day,
15 lorries per day means 30 movements because the lorries come
in and they go out. That is 30 journeys a day at peak times. If
you take that over a usual working day which Mr Berryman has said
the works will take place during, I make that more than three
every hour and that is more than one every 20 minutes. There is
no site storage on that, that is almost impossible.
11068. What I am saying is that I do not believe
that the Hanbury Street shaft has been properly been assessed
by the promoter, it is also getting much more expensive. All the
evidence so far shows that the promoter has not looked at the
Hanbury Street shaft properly, it has not looked at the alternatives
properly or objectively and it has not looked at that southern
route properly that we looked at earlier on. I understand that
counsel and the promoter have said that there are not going to
look at that again. I want to explain in 30 seconds why it has
to be looked at again. It was dismissed in 2004. You will have
seen a letter up on the screen during Spitalfields Society's case
that Crossrail said they were doing no more work on the southern
route. The main objection to the southern route, and I accept
they were others but in my opinion the engineer's opinion is the
one that counts, that is irrelevant now because Pedley Street
is no longer needed.
11069. The main plank of the objection to the
southern route is gone and my view is that it needs to be and
must be reassessed. It seems to me that the Committee has to ensure,
and I know from what I have listened to today I know that you
will, you need to ensure that the assessment upon which you make
your decision has been carried out and by that I mean it as to
be carried out on the correct criteria. You must ensure that it
has been carried our professionally, competently and in an un-bias
way and that the Committee has properly considered the assessment.
The evidence that has already been presented leads you to the
clear conclusion that you are being asked to consider an apparently
inaccurate and bias assessment that ignores vital comparators
and it has not been prepared on the correct criteria. It is bit
like asking the English football team to play cricket. The assessment
of the route for Hanbury Street and all the southern routes must
be assessed on the correct criteria and be seen to be properly
assessed for two reasons. The promoters and its funders need to
be sure that it has the most viable scope and it must protect
the local community as best it can.
11070. There is also another point and I think
in all of these discussions we are missing the main point. Tower
Hamlets says that the promoters are missing a trick. The biggest
trick of them all is why is there that station at Whitechapel.
The gentleman explained to the promoter, and I appreciate that
you asked him to do it very quickly, in five minutes he gave three
headline reasons. You could apply those headline reasons to absolutely
anything. I think what you need to do is look at all the evidence
behind that, where are the hard facts that prove that it is more
viable with Whitechapel. Very briefly I want to explain to you
why I think the community thinks there is a station at Whitechapel.
When the Bill came through, it was first presented in 1991, Tower
Hamlets stopped it because of the devastation it would cause.
This time the promoter also wanted to take out everything through
Tower Hamlets so it needed to offer something to the council and
that was Whitechapel station. If you do not have a station at
Whitechapel who is happy? The community is ecstatic, the council
takes its position because it is an elected body from the community.
The champion of Whitechapel was de-selected, or however you would
like to express it, in the last May elections because of his position
on Crossrail, it was the main plan for the campaign. The promoter
will be happy because it avoids all these problems of none consultation,
no race impacts done at the right time and the problem which a
lot of people have been expressing of these very sensitive buildings
goes away. Most importantly, funding will be easier, the cost
of Whitechapel station runs into hundreds of millions and you
will have seen from the promoters evidence from a number of the
discussions on the line, if you take out Whitechapel and go straight
down to Canary Wharf, it takes five, six or seven minutes, it
is a much more efficient project. The flaw in what the Committee
is being asked to do is that you have a proposal for a shaft and
route selected on criteria which no longer apply with no supplemental
Environmental Statement on reports which are seemingly inaccurate,
bias and misleading which ignored the crucial option at the southern
alignment and which do not take into account the single biggest
issue which is Whitechapel. In fact, it is more like a football
team sent out to play cricket on a tennis court.
11071. I do not understand why the Promoter
has got a complete blind spot to moving the route. The many, many
man-years which Mr Berryman referred to in looking at alignments
was not spent in looking at alignments, it was spent looking at
the tunnelling strategy. Tower Hamlets and Arup will confirm that.
To my knowledge, for two years Mr Berryman insisted that to change
the tunnelling criteria and strategy it would cost between five
hundred million and billions and would take an extra two years,
yet, when they were put to proof by Arup, acting for Tower Hamlets,
they found after the many man-years that was not the case. I am
going to quote to you from Secretary of State's announcement:
"Crossrail's assessment is that constructing a central Crossrail
tunnel in this new way will not increase the project's programme
or budget", quite, but only after Tower Hamlets and Arup
have gone through it in detail with them. If they had done that
with a tunnelling strategy is there not a very good chance that
if they look properly at the tunnel alignment that will happen
again.
11072. Please do not accept Mr Berryman's preliminary
stab, that he called it, at the route, please ask them to do a
proper job. My plea to the Committee as a sense of what is professional,
decent and fair play but also what is the most efficient and commercially
viable solution is to ask the Promoter to carry out a further
assessment of the alternatives, including a southern route and
a proper assessment so that we can see it at Whitechapel Station.
11073. Please do it with an open mind objectively,
professionally and openly. I would ask the Committee not to make
any decision until that assessment has been done, consulted on
and agreed.
11074. My view is that when you see that evidence
you will say that there is a better shaft site and alignment.
I will keep an open mind. I have not made my mind up and that
is what I am asking the Committee to do
11075. Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. Can I comment on one or two things? First of all, for
someone who is not very good at mathematics your 15 hours a day
by 9 hours equals 3 plus lawyers is very good mathematics and
it is not something which I have looked at in that particular
way. Can I ask Mr Mould when he responds to this question of CPO
on flats overlooking the Hanbury Street site, I do not know whether
it is infinite but we might advise you, but the application of
that would normally be entrusted to the town council.
11076. Mr Mould: Sir, this is an example
of how things grow and acquire routes in people's mind even over
a relatively short period of time. I think what the Petitioner
was referring to there was the fact that yesterday this Committee
heard the Petitions of three of the occupiers and owners of 61
Princelet Street which is a mixed block and lies to the south
side of the Hanbury Street work site. Having heard the presentation
of that Petition, the Committee straightaway invited me to comment
on the Petitioner's proposals, but that the promoter should undertake
to acquire those flats permanently as part of the scheme, thus
to relieve those Petitioners of what the Committee clearly felt
were the unacceptable impacts of the noise of operation of the
work site. What I indicated was that the Promoter's position was
that he did not feel that was an appropriate undertaking to give,
he would operate his noise and vibration policy which, as you
know, involves noise insulation, but particularly that there should
be temporary re-housing offered in accordance with that policy.
What I did say—because Mr Binley is keen that I should say
this and I am bound to do so—was that I would certainly
go away and take instructions from the Secretary of State and
come back to the Committee once I had those instructions as to
whether the Secretary of State was prepared to change his position
on that.
11077. If that were the case, and if the Secretary
of State was to change his position in line with the Committee's
clear expression of view, it would be necessary to make arrangements
for the acquisition of the properties in question.
11078. I think it is right to say that it might
be necessary as a matter of principle to make provision for compulsory
acquisition in relation to those properties. I think that is the
context in which that point is made. We do not promote that at
the moment, but Mr Binley is right, we are being asked to consider
whether we should, yes.
11079. Chairman: The other thing is to
re-emphasise that this Bill is a good Bill, we have not made our
minds up on that, but we attempt to. Parliament has debated this
and has decided that Crossrail is worth pursuing and has ordered
us to come back with a report on how to do it. Within that statement
there has been a debate on the floor of the House where certain
things have been discussed, but certainly Whitechapel has been
discussed and it is laid down in the course of the Bill that there
should be a Whitechapel Station. I do not want you to go away
with any thought that they are not building one, there is one
and it has been reported on. We can tweak things, we can move
the ends and put things on but we cannot get an eraser and that
is the simple reality. As long as you do not think that is an
option, whether it should be slightly different than what is being
proposed, that is an option, but we will take on your position.
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