Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11740
- 11759)
11740. As the Borough agreed, there are important
reasons for the proposed station at Whitechapel, namely interchange
and regeneration, and it is supported by the Mayor's London Plan.
Mr Anderson explained them to you further on Day 41 at paragraphs
10974 to 10998 of the transcript. You have also been supplied
now, at Mr Hopkins' initial request, with the anticipated passenger
numbers for Whitechapel in the form of document P96. Mr Meale
joined the Committee, but did not take the Chair
11741. The interchange function is critical
since it allows easy interchange between those using Crossrail,
the ELL and the Tube at a station which currently does not have
easy or full accessibility. The LUL station improvement proposals
cannot create a satisfactory interchange since they cannot interchange
with Crossrail.
11742. The regeneration benefits of a station
are pressed not only by Tower Hamlets, but by the London Plan
which designates Whitechapel as an area of opportunity. Tower
Hamlets said that this was one of the reasons which made the station
fundamental to its support.
11743. Sir, we, therefore, wind up by saying
that we request the Committee to support the Bill scheme as proposed
to be amended by the revision of the tunnelling strategy, which
will be formally subject to an AP and a further Environmental
Statement, with a shaft at Hanbury Street and a new station at
Whitechapel. Thank you very much, sir.
11744. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Mr Elvin,
I have one question on the noise mitigation at 61 Princelet Street.
When are you going to report back?
11745. Mr Elvin: I had an email just
as I was leaving chambers, sir. As I said, there has been a preliminary
meeting. I imagine it will be over the next two or three weeks.
I cannot be absolutely certain, but we certainly hope that the
Committee will be informed well before the recess and we will
do it as soon as we possibly can.
11746. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Mr Elvin,
I think you can take it that it should be before the recess please.
11747. Mr Elvin: I have made that view
clear to those who are negotiating with the Petitioners.
11748. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Thank you
very much indeed, Mr Elvin. Now we go back to Westminster's case.
Mr Clarkson?
11749. Mr Clarkson: Sir, you have heard
our evidence. I do not think the Committee had any questions of
Mr Murchie, so that is our evidence, sir, and I hand over now
to the Promoters.
11750. Ms Lieven: Can I proceed directly
to recall Mr Berryman.
Mr Keith Berryman, recalled
Examined by Ms Lieven
11751. Ms Lieven: Mr Berryman, the first
thing I would like you to deal with is the Hammersmith and City
link proposal by Westminster. Perhaps we can start by your explaining
to the Committee what it is that we are proposing to do in respect
of interchange between Crossrail and the Hammersmith and City
Line.
(Mr Berryman) Yes. Could I have
slide 5 please and the pointer.[15]
Actually the pointer is probably superfluous here because this
slide sets out quite clearly what the route would be for passengers
from the Crossrail station to the Hammersmith and City Line, which
is basically to emerge from the Crossrail station at what will
be the new ground level, that is to say the level of the departures
road that we saw yesterday, go through the arch past the statue
of I K Brunel and then walk along platform one which is the southern-most
platform on that slide, which is a very wide route. It would then
be up the staircase or lift to the point which Ms Lieven is pointing
out now and there is already a lift there, then across the existing
bridge to the Hammersmith and City Line station which is at the
north end of the layout. One advantage of this route is that it
also provides linkage to the Great Western platforms which will
be used by the mainline, so anyone who is at the country end of
the train when it arrives in London will be able to actually use
that route to access Crossrail as well as people using the Hammersmith
and City Line.
11752. Without seeking to confuse the situation,
can you just explain briefly how that differs from the hybrid
Bill scheme which is on slide 1?[16]
(Mr Berryman) You can see that
the proposal was that passengers would use the escalators which
bring them to the surface in what is currently the Network Rail
ticket office or the First Great Western ticket office, which
I assume it actually is, and then they would walk again along
platform one and over the bridge, as in the current proposal.
There is a significantly longer walking distance in doing that
than there is in the current proposal.
11753. Westminster are keen for some underground
subway to be constructed to make this link. Can you just go through
the options which Crossrail has considered, starting with Option
A which I think relates back to the 1994 Crossrail Bill scheme?
That ought to be Exhibit 12, I hope.[17]
(Mr Berryman) Indeed it is. Exhibit
12 shows the scheme which was proposed in 1994 and you can see
that the station design was somewhat different then. Instead of
being an open box, it was boxes at the end and then what I can
only describe as an unusual form of construction between the boxes,
but that does not need to concern us on this point. The idea here
was to use an existing parcels tunnel which runs across from approximately
the west end of the Crossrail station underneath the tracks, underneath
more or less the ends of the platforms of the existing Great Western
station. As far as the position there is concerned which is the
end of that existing parcels tunnel, which I think is about platform
six or seven, though I am not exactly sure, from there you would
go in a lift up to the existing bridge, which is the bridge which
we are proposing to use in any event. There are two reasons for
not pursuing this scheme any further. The first is that the route
is not particularly any better than the route we are proposing.
It involves using a lift to go up quite a high rise and there
is no possibility of putting escalators in there and, generally
speaking, lifts are less attractive to passengers than escalators.
11754. Just so we are clear, would it have provided
PRM accessibility on to the platforms themselves?
(Mr Berryman) No, it would not. It would only
have provided PRM accessibility to the concourse level of the
Hammersmith and City Line, exactly as we are providing with our
proposal . The other reason for not using this route is that it
was built as a staff tunnel, it is a parcels distribution tunnel,
and it is rather small and lean. The staircases which are shown
there in orange do not actually exist at the moment and they would
have to be built and there are issues about revenue control divisional
staircases on that.
11755. Sorry, but that may be cryptic to those
of us who are not familiar with it. What are the issues about
revenue control?
(Mr Berryman) Checking that people have got
tickets. There are quite a number of railway services in there
which would have needed to have been moved. There is also the
issue of the tunnel which was constructed at the time when Heathrow
Express was built to allow for baggage to be delivered to the
country end of the trains going to Heathrow. In fact that is no
longer used as it was found not to be a useful adjunct to the
scheme and it is now disused, so it could be broken out, so that
is not an insuperable barrier, but it all adds to the cost and
so on.
11756. So that is that one. Then can we look
at Option B which I think should be Exhibit 17 which is a direct
tunnel link which the Promoters looked at.[18]
(Mr Berryman) Yes, this is the
option which I think Westminster City Council referred to as being
their preferred option. It is a direct low-level link from the
Crossrail concourse, from the paid side of the Crossrail concourse,
underneath the throat of Paddington Station, underneath all of
the tracks, and then up to the platform of the Hammersmith and
City Line. The Hammersmith and City Line, as I think has already
been given in Mr King's evidence, the existing platform is rather
narrow and, therefore, there would not be room for escalators
and so on. Indeed at the moment there would not even be room for
a staircase. London Underground do have plans to rebuild this
station and improve it, as I think was also given in evidence
this morning, but even then there still would not be enough width
for escalators at this point and it would still be staircases.
11757. Can I just stop you there, Mr Berryman,
because we have got a plan which shows that quite graphically,
just to make the point good, so perhaps we can put up number 29
which shows the island platform with escalators.[19]
(Mr Berryman) Yes, this is a plan
which shows the existing island platform there with the escalator
flights that would be needed, if they were to be provided. You
cannot read the dimensions very well on there, but I think you
can see just by inspection that the platform is too narrow on
either side of the escalators, so there is no question of putting
this underpass in with the station in its present arrangement.
It is intended by London Underground that they should improve
the station, and I think we saw yesterday on the site visit the
area where they want to improve it.
11758. Kelvin Hopkins: I notice that
the suggested escalators are three across.
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
11759. At the Gatwick Thameslink Station there
are two single escalators approaching from different sides and
they are easily accommodated on a relatively narrow platform.
Do they have to be three in line like that? I am just wondering
about the volume of passengers that come off the Hammersmith and
City Line as well.
(Mr Berryman) They would not need to be three
abreast for the volume of passengers at this station, but we have
a normal standard of three escalators in a flight where there
is no alternative so that, when one is being maintained, there
is always another one. There are issues about bringing an escalator
up in the other direction from the underpass, and there is not
really room to do that, well, it would be like that, and you would
still have to provide a staircase if you could not provide three
escalators because you would have to have something which was
able to operate when the escalators were being maintained. Therefore,
there would be problems with putting in escalators, but with the
present station, even with a future station, although there is
sufficient width for a staircase, there is not sufficient width
really for the escalators that would be required. It is roughly
a seven-metre rise from the level of any underpass up to the platform
level, so it is quite a good way up.
15 Crossrail Ref: P99, Paddington Station-Hammersmith
& City Line Interchange, Street Level Plan, Current Proposals
(WESTCC-32104A-005). Back
16
Crossrail Ref: P99, Paddington Station-Hammersmith & City
Line Interchange, Street Level Plan, Hybrid Bill Scheme (WESTCC-32104A-001). Back
17
Crossrail Ref: P99, Paddington Station-Ticket Hall Level, 1994
Bill Proposal (WESTCC-32104A-012). Back
18
Crossrail Ref: P99, Paddington Station-Hammersmith & City
Line Interchange, Ticket Hall Plan, Option B-Low Level Subway
(WESTCC-32104A-017). Back
19
Crossrail Ref: P99, Paddington Station-Hammersmith & City
Line Interchange, Proposed Escalator Access to Hammersmith &
City Line (WESTCC-32104A-029). Back
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