Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11800
- 11819)
11800. They are anxious to have the subterranean
link and we are anxious to understand why it has been rejected.
(Mr Berryman) I have already explained the
engineering—
11801. I understand that. You have not explained
it to Westminster, have you?
(Mr Berryman) No, because this is not part
of our proposal.
11802. It may not be. How can anybody—the
Committee or anybody—understand whether or not you are right?
(Mr Berryman) What, in my engineering decisions?
11803. How can we test it?
(Mr Berryman) I go back to what I said: it
is not part of our proposal. We are just not intending to do this.
11804. It may not be part of your proposal.
Is it money?
(Mr Berryman) It is a combination of money
and engineering difficulty.
11805. So you are not saying it is, in engineering
terms, impossible, are you?
(Mr Berryman) Nothing is impossible, as I have
mentioned many times to the Committee; if you can chuck enough
money at it and obstruct enough railway lines and disrupt enough
passengers nothing is impossible.
11806. How do we understand whether or not,
for example, you are right about the money?
(Mr Berryman) I have not told you what the
money is.
11807. You said it was £10-12 million.
(Mr Berryman) We certainly have not shared
it with the local authority.
11808. No, you have not. If the Committee was
persuaded that it would be a right thing to have this shortest,
flattest route to a new Hammersmith and City Line platform, we
have no way of testing whether what you say, that it is too expensive,
is right or not, do we?
(Mr Berryman) Although you are correct in saying
it is the shortest route, it would not be the flattest route because
there is a seven-metre rise at the north end of this from the
subway to the platform. Just as a reference, the maximum that
is permitted anywhere on the London Underground network, without
providing an escalator is normally five metres, and a seven-metre
staircase is quite a climb.
11809. Flattest inasmuch as it does not require
wandering along platform one, wandering across the convoluted
bridge that exists now and then down again.
(Mr Berryman) We could get into a debate about
the desirability of wandering, as you put it, along a box this
length with a very narrow tunnel.
11810. It is not your case, is it, that it is
impossible to have some form of subway under the existing rail
track?
(Mr Berryman) It is not impossible, no.
11811. It is not impossible, is it, to link
in with a new LUL Hammersmith and City platform arrangement?
(Mr Berryman) It would be impossible at the
moment because it is not there.
11812. That was not the question. A new one.
(Mr Berryman) If it was built, yes.
11813. Would you give the details of your work
to the engineers at Westminster?
(Mr Berryman) It seems to me that we are charged
with designing this and coming up with a scheme which we think
can be built in the most sensible way. It is up to us to make
engineering decisions, and this is the decision that we made.
I am explaining it to you now. Of course, if the Committee tell
me to do that I will do so. It does not seem to me to be very
helpful to share this kind of matter with local authorities. There
are hundreds, probably thousands, of engineering decisions which
have been made about the design of the railway. They are not made
by a committee or by a democratic process; they are made by experienced
engineers using their best judgment to decide what is and is not
feasible, practical or possible.
11814. I will put the key point to you: if we
asked the Committee to require you to undertake, in due course,
to provide a subterranean link in the event that the Hammersmith
and City station is upgraded, you are not laying evidence before
the Committee to say that it is impossible, are you?
(Mr Berryman) No, I am not. What I think I
am saying is that the difficulties, from an engineering and from
a station operation point of view, are not worth the benefits
which would accrue from it.
11815. Those difficulties are not overt and
are untested. Correct?
(Mr Berryman) The engineering difficulties
are certainly not untested.
11816. They are untested by any validation by,
for example, Westminster who have an interest in it. You are not
prepared to reveal it to them.
(Mr Berryman) As I said, I do not think you
can do engineering design by committee.
11817. I am not asking for it to be designed
by committee, we are just asking for the material to justify the
conclusion which you have reached. Will you reveal it?
(Mr Berryman) We can certainly reveal it, yes.
11818. When will you reveal it?
(Mr Berryman) As soon as you like, but I do
not think it is going to change our position.
11819. It will not change your position but
it may even change the Westminster position. Can we accept from
you that you will give Westminster the material?
(Mr Berryman) We will get something to them,
certainly. I am not sure how full it is.
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