Examination of Witnesses (Questions 12660
- 12679)
12660. Crossrail, the project, needs to remove
the batching plant, for two reasons. If we can put up the next
plan so we can see properly the Crossrail proposal.[99]
The batching plant is being removed for two reasons. One is that
we need sidings here to turn around Crossrail trains that are
terminating at Paddington so that they can terminate at Paddington,
get the passengers off, come in here, turn back, and then go back
to the central section. So it is an essential part of the Crossrail
operational proposal.
12661. We also need the site of New Yard for
a construction site during the construction period because the
Committee will recall that the portal for the tunnel is down here,
it is a little to the east, and this is a major construction site
for the portal and what is going on there into the main central
tunnel. So we need to take the concrete batching plant out.
12662. However, there is a strong planning policy
imperative that I went through last week for replacing a rail-served
batching plant or similar facility at this location because the
Committee can see easily that if we take out a rail-served batching
plant then the central London construction sites will need to
get their concrete probably from further away and possibly from
a non rail-served facility, so the London Plan and also the regional
policy are very strongly in favour of not removing rail-served
facilities such as this. That policy imperative, as I understand
it and I asked Mr King from Westminster Council questions about
this last week, is accepted by the Council.
12663. In those circumstances, it is part of
the Bill scheme that a concrete batching plant is replaced at
Paddington New Yard. It needs to be slightly differently configured.
The Committee will remember from the first plan that effectively
the existing batching plant is squarer and is there and in order
to fit this one in next to the sidings it has to be longer and
thinner so it is a different shape and the power to do that is
contained in the Bill. There are quite technical complications
here because in the Additional Provisions 2 we have extended the
sidings so that the trains that Tarmac need to serve the facility
can get in. In the original Bill, according to Tarmac, the sidings
were too short so the sidings have been extended in AP2.
12664. It is also proposed by the Promoter that
planning permission for this facility will be granted by the Bill.
There will be a deemed planning permission in the Bill because
this is an integral part of the scheme and in AP3 we will seek
power to impose conditions on that planning permission so that
the entire planning process can be dealt with through the Bill
process. We went through that in a little detail at the last hearing
on this matter. As I told the Committee, and as I think Mr King
from Westminster agreed, we are very close to agreement on the
terms of those conditions. Obviously the intention is that the
conditions make the operation of the batching plant environmentally
acceptable. The batching plant that is there at the moment was
built under a 1982 planning permission and I understand—and
Mr Taylor will give evidence on this if the Committee wants to
know—that there is great scope to improve the environmental
impact of the batching plant by making it a more modern facility
with more closure around it rather than open hoppers and the noise
associated. Both noise levels from the batching plant and hours
of HGVs coming and going will be dealt with by conditions which
will be set by the Secretary of State but which Westminster and
the residents will be consulted upon.
12665. There is one final point I should just
outline in opening which is so far as the trains on sidings coming
into the batching plant are concerned—and if we need to
we can explain the movement of trains in more detail—that
will take place on what is largely existing railway operational
land and which under the Bill, the small part which is not existing,
will become railway operational land, and in those circumstances
the movements of the aggregates trains will not be limited by
conditions. The Committee may be aware that Network Rail train
operations on railway operational land are never constrained by
planning conditions. They are part of general development and
to do so would significantly constrain the railway industry. So
there is a distinction between the plant itself for these purposes
and the sidings. I hope that is all I need to say at this stage.
I appreciate that some members of the Committee are already completely
up to speed on this and others have not been through this once
before, so if there is anything more I can help the Committee
with at this stage, I am more than happy do so.
12666. Sir Peter Soulsby: I think we
can go straight on to Lady Margot.
12667. Lady Bright: Firstly, I should
introduce myself: Margot Bright, Lady Bright. I do not know how
I got to be Lady Margot, it somehow happened, if you know what
I mean, so I am here under false pretences on that score but I
represent the Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association and
we have letters of support from the rest of the Westbourne Conservation
Area, those streets that are behind us. We are the frontier against
the railway, as it were.
12668. We are not against this railway or the
principle of the Bill, far from it, however we do think that we
are going to bear the brunt of it in noise terms in particular,
and we do have grave concerns about the level of protection and
mitigation that Crossrail, the Promoters, are so far suggesting.
12669. We are speaking tonight rather than last
week because we were not given correct information from Crossrail
about this rather complicated series of issues that Ms Lieven
has been talking about. Chairman, your alternate, as it were,
was kind enough to say we could come back this week, having discussed
the matter with residents, who were pretty knocked back, frankly.
12670. Now I have heard this morning that the
acoustic barrier that Crossrail offered us alongside that brand
new 350-metre siding, is no longer on offer. They have not sent
me an alternative proposition. I do not know what they might be
offering instead but they did just talk to Network Rail, probably
last night, who said, "You can't do it. There is no room
for it. There are health and safety issues." So we are once
again in disarray and here I am once again representing residents
without being able to inform them first of what is actually proposed
for them. So I hope you will forgive me for doing this in a slightly
muddled fashion. It is not, I know, the first time you have heard
complaints about consultation and information and I am afraid
you will even hear a few more from me.
12671. If it is alright with you, because the
concrete batching plant and the various issues are fresh in everybody's
mind, I shall go straight to dealing with that and then, if I
may if there is time, revert to a bit more general noise context
and, as it were, noise talk. We are all noise experts in that
street but not in the technical sense, if you see what I mean,
not in the decibel sense.
12672. There were two ministerial statements,
one on the 14th and one on the 15th of June which we think—and
I will say it straightaway—mean that the turn-back facility,
far from being an essential part of Crossrail's operational proposal,
is a complete nonsense in that site. The first notice is that
the depot for the Crossrail trains, rather than being a very expensive
and contentious £80 million one from Romford, is going to
go one mile down the track to Old Oak Common. I do not think anybody
has ever met anybody in the railway business who could explain
a turn-back facility so close to the depot. It does not appear
to make any sense in railway terms. If the depot was at Romford,
yes, that is a different matter, but this does not seem to be
justified in operational terms.
12673. I am not setting myself up as an expert
here. Lord Berkeley, who was in here a bit earlier, has made it
public for years ever since this proposal was made that he thought
it was potty to have a turn-back facility right there. Now that
the Old Oak Common site is to be the depot, surely it must be
even pottier?
12674. I know that Crossrail has not discussed
or considered in any detail the possibility of going and turning
the trains round at the depot. I did last week have a brief conversation
with one of the Crossrail engineers who was trying something on
the back of an envelope and he did say that he could not prove
it was impossible, but that is rather Crossrail speak for, "Oh
dear, we had not thought of that, "is it not. We are glad
to hear that Crossrail and Network Rail have been having much
more dialogue recently. I think that is where this ministerial
statement came from and why the turnback facility could be moved
and why the depot could be moved down there. If it is a bit technically
tricky they do have an extra £80 million to play with.
12675. This is our proposition, if we take the
turn-back facility out of that very congested patch there. Congestion
is a very dangerous theme on the Great Western Railway. We had
congestion not much further down the line which did involve freight
and passenger trains and we all saw the level of road traffic.
So let us try and get it a bit less congested, shall we?
12676. What about that concrete batching plant
and its siding? Well, the siding was going to have this 3.6 metre
concrete barrier we were told (and there seems to be some confusion
about where exactly 3.6 metre barrier was going to be) and it
was going to be an acoustic barrier. When we had our meeting with
Crossrail they were desperately keen to persuade us to accept
without any specification that this would solve our problems of
the very, very noisy freight train delivery of aggregates which
went on, not only affecting everybody in Westbourne Park Villas
but people on the other side of the railway in Maida Vale and
immediately where the batching plant is, the little roads, because
they have to put up with the trucks as well. We were not actually
playing that game, which is just as well, and I would like to
put it on record that we would have been offered something supposedly
to protect us and we would have been very badly let down because
this morning I was rung to say they had finally discussed it with
Network Rail who said there was no room for it. There would not
be, with the turn-back facility and the batching plant and everything
else.
12677. You will not be surprised to hear that
we do not believe that there should be a concrete plant in this
location at all. We also believe that the Committee has been somewhat
misled about the need for having one as close to central London
as this. This is the closest one and much is always made of that
by the company that operates it, Tarmac. Tarmac have, as you will
recall from reading their petition, been trying to drive a very
hard bargain indeed with Crossrail. We do take the view that for
them it is a very good deal to have that batching plant but we
do not see why public money should be used to provide a giant
corporation with a 350-metre siding, at very considerable cost
in terms of the disturbance to people in a very densely populated
residential area, where, quite frankly, if that plant were not
there purely as a hangover from 1971 planning operations, there
is no chance that it would be built now.
12678. I say that despite what Ms Lieven said
about Westminster City Council's position on planning. Westminster
have, I understand, reserved their position on a lot of these
related issues for later. They are talking about "keeping
their powder dry". They are putting in a very difficult squeeze
by a kind of card game on planning imperatives. I believe the
London Plan trumps local plans basically, and the London Plan
says that we do not want to lose batching plants on a rail link
because we want to move freight by rail as much as possible. However,
this is where I think you have been a bit misled. It also says
that we want to move freight sustainable by rail, and the word
"sustainable" these days does not mean just going on
doing something, it does imply sustainable development; that is
allowing cohabitation between different species, humans and trains
in this case.
12679. The other factor which is very important
in terms of misleading is that I think you have been told that
concrete goes off in half an hour. That is the central London
plant business. It actually does not. Even the British Standard
says you have got two hours. I do not know quite why this half
an hour figure came into things but I notice that the petition
from Hanson, and I have not read the other manufacturers' petitions,
also claims it goes off within half an hour and therefore you
have got to be within five miles of your customers. Remember the
British Standard says you have two hours and if you add a retardant
that makes the concrete stronger and harder and it can be extended
to four hours.
99 Crossrail Ref: P101, Westbourne Park-Proposed Concrete
Batching Plant and Network Rail Title Boundary (WESTCC-32104B-002). Back
|
