Examination of Witnesses (Questions 12640
- 12659)
12640. Mr Mould: We are always together.
12641. Mr Binley: I am delighted, Mr
Mould, that is excellent! Does it go underneath or are there arches
or whatever?
12642. Mr Mould: There are, indeed.
12643. Mr Binley: Secondly, does the
land extend down towards that side? You see there is a strip of
land on either side extending down by the railway line. You did
mention embankment, but I wondered if all of that is embankment?
12644. Mr Mould: I am told that the land
to the west is private land.
12645. Mr Binley: Okay, that is that.
12646. Mr Mould: Just allow me a minute.
12647. Sir Peter Soulsby: At this stage
all we need to say is that the Committee would clearly benefit
from having some further illustration of the ownership and topography
and possibilities of the alternative sites and then have a rather
better-informed discussion than is possible this evening.
12648. Mr Mould: When I get beyond here
I am beyond what I know but I will certainly make sure we write.
12649. Sir Peter Soulsby: Fortunately,
this is an issue that we will be able to return to when we return
to the other petition we are considering this evening.
12650. Mr Mould: I undertake that we
will certainly write to the Committee. I had intended to write
to the Petitioner anyway because we wanted to explain more of
our thinking on this issue, so I will do that.
12651. Sir Peter Soulsby: Thank you very
much. That is probably as far as we need take that petition this
evening unless you wish to come back.
12652. Mrs Fairbairn: No thank you.
12653. Sir Peter Soulsby: Thank you very
much indeed. In which case we can move on to the two remaining
petitions in front of us this evening and Ms Lieven I think you
are next.
12654. Ms Lieven: If it is Westbourne
Park Villa Residents it is me; if it is Joann Bainton, I do not
know if she is here—
12655. Sir Peter Soulsby: Is Joann Bainton
with us this evening? From that silence we can guess she is not,
in which case it is you Ms Lieven.
The Petition of Westbourne Park Villas Residents'
Association.
Lady Margot Bright appeared on behalf of the
Petitioner.
12656. Ms Lieven: Thank you very much.
Sir, as is our usual form I start with a short opening. Sir, the
issues that the Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association
have were touched on in some detail last week with Westminster
City Council, so I am going to try not to repeat myself too much,
although I am conscious that some members of the Committee were
not here last week.
12657. If I can have up our plan 001 relevant
to this petition and use that as a way of orientating the Committee.[98]
Westbourne Park Villas—and Lady Margot will tell me if I
am wrong—is this street here and we walked along it on the
site visit, some members of the Committee will remember. These
are the existing railway lines, including the mainlines going
to Paddington. Paddington is over here and obviously this is the
mainline going out west. So Westbourne Park Villas is a street
adjoining the existing railway line. There is a wall on the north
side of the road between the road and the tracks. As I understand
it—and obviously Lady Margot will tell you more—the
Residents' Association's primary concern is about the noise from
the project. There are two primary aspects of that, although I
am sure there are more that Lady Margot will go into in more detail.
As I understand it, the two primary issues are, first of all,
the noise from the Crossrail trains, which Mr Taylor will deal
with, and, secondly, the slightly more complicated issue of the
concrete batching plant at Paddington New Yard, which is here
which those Members who came on the site visit will remember we
went into New Yard and saw the batching plant.
12658. It is the batching plant I am just going
to focus on for a brief moment because there are quite complicated
issues around the batching plant which I did explain last week,
if I can give the Committee the reference. It was in my opening
on Westminster on 21 June at paragraph 11532. I do not intend
to repeat all of that because I set out there in some detail our
position on the batching plant.
12659. In essence, the existing concrete batching
plant is a rail-served facility leased to Tarmac who bring in
aggregates by train, unload them on the site and turn them into
concrete and then the concrete is taken, I cannot quite remember,
anyway the concrete is taken out by road to central London construction
sites. I made the same mistake last week and I promised myself
I would remember and then I have got confused again! Anyway, the
aggregates come in by train and go out by HGV on the road network
to construction sites in central London.
98 Crossrail Ref: P101, Westbourne Park-Existing Concrete
Batching Plant and Network Rail Title Boundary (WESTCC-32104B-001). Back
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