Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 12740 - 12759)

  12740. Ms Lieven: Okay. I think that deals with that and then the only other thing I wanted to ask you, so you can confirm the position, Lady Bright referred to us taking a playing field on the Westminster Academy site which the Members who were here last week—which I think is everyone now except for Sir Peter—heard about. The Westminster Academy site is shown on this plan.[103] It lies on the other side of the Westway, the A40, from the batching plant and it is a tiny slither of land along the edge of the railway which is being taken but are we taking a playing field off the Academy or making a playing field unusable for the Academy?

  (Mr Walters) Certainly from the discussions we have had with the Academy that is not the case. As is shown there under our additional provision, we are moving their retaining wall back over a length of some 140 metres, moving it back to take the triangular site and it really is a slither of land there, maximum of 20 metres wide, 140 metres long.

  12741. Ms Lieven: Thank you very much, Mr Walters. Those are all my questions. Lady Bright may well have questions for you. I am going to ask Mr Taylor questions about acoustic barriers and so on.

  12742. Sir Peter Soulsby: I noticed we still have that one to come.

  12743. Ms Lieven: Yes, I have that in hand but I will ask Mr Taylor.

  12744. Sir Peter Soulsby: Okay. Thank you. Lady Bright, would you like to cross-examine.

  Cross-examined by Lady Bright

  12745. Lady Bright: Yes. The turn back facility, let us just deal with the cost of that dive under first. Would you like to put a price on it?
  (Mr Walters) It would be very much an estimate at the moment. I would think it would be £50 million.

  12746. Lady Bright: Comfortably within the 80 so that is a good thing. I know nothing about the cost of these things. It is good to know there is some spare in the back pocket. It is interesting also about the width available to you at Westbourne Park. That is a very congested corner. Why would the bus garage have to be built on stilts like that if there was space for the concrete bund and the turn back facility? You did tell us that we were going to have an acoustic barrier which there now is not room for.
  (Mr Walters) I believe we have talked about the changed operations for the batching plant in that rather than having a moveable conveyor the new batching plant would have a fixed conveyor and a fixed hopper and the train would move over that. We have said that that hopper will have noise insulation. It is very abnormal, in fact I do not think it happens, to provide noise insulation to Network Rail sidings. We would never have talked about that.

  12747. Ms Lieven: Might it be helpful if I clarified this? I have plans which show an acoustic barrier for the temporary construction phase and that has always been proposed and continues to be proposed. It has never been part of the Crossrail project to have an acoustic barrier in relation to operational railway land. There is intended to be much more acoustic housing around the permanent batching plant. That is not the kind of acoustic barrier which I believe Lady Bright is referring to but it may be that there is confusion because there are these different things going on. So far as my instructions are concerned, the acoustic barrier along the side has always been related only to the temporary construction phase. Mr Taylor can explain the reasons for that when he gives evidence.

  12748. Lady Bright: That was not at all what we understood. It has to be our mistake but we did not understand it.

  12749. Sir Peter Soulsby: That is fine. It is certainly clear what is being proposed now.

  12750. Lady Bright: Yes. I would say Old Oak Common is not really half way to Heathrow, Mr Walters, would you?
  (Mr Walters) No. It is two kilometres down the line.

  12751. Lady Bright: On the playing field, we are talking about 2,800 square metres being temporarily taken and nearly 800 square metres permanently I think. It is a 65 metre strip, it is a lot. Other people's maths not mine.
  (Mr Walters) We are taking the same amount of land both temporarily and permanently. We will be building a revised retaining wall which is shown in red. That will go in as the permanent structure. We are taking a little bit more temporarily I guess for the works site and for safety in the Academy which will be the shaded bit above that but that is purely to enable the wall to be constructed and then we move back out and down to the lower level of the depot.

  12752. Lady Bright: This is different from what was proposed in AP2. It looks different to me, it must have changed.
  (Mr Walters) I think that will be the same with LLAUs and LADs as AP2.

  12753. Lady Bright: I beg your pardon.
  (Mr Walters) Sorry. I think the red line will be the limit of deviation for the permanent works and the shaded upper portion will be within limits of land to be acquired and used purely for construction purposes.

  12754. Lady Bright: Fine. I do not think I can go further on the detail of that because it does keep changing. Thank you.

  12755. Sir Peter Soulsby: Thank you. Ms Leiven, did you want to re-examine.

  Re-examined by Ms Lieven

  12756. Ms Lieven: Just one point to make clear, Mr Walters. The plan that is now before the Committee, is your understand that that is the AP amended provisions plan 2?
  (Mr Walters) That is my understanding.

  12757. Ms Lieven: I will leave it there, Sir.

  The witness withdraw

  12758. Ms Lieven: We will call Mr Taylor now and Mr Taylor is going to ask Mr Taylor the questions on the basis that I cannot be trusted with noise.

  Mr Rupert Thornely-Taylor, recalled

  Examined by Mr Taylor

  12759. Mr Taylor: Mr Thornely-Taylor is obviously well known to the Committee and is the noise consultant to the project. I think we are going to need to refer to the noise technical report in a number of places, Mr Thornely-Taylor.
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes, that would be helpful.


103   Crossrail Ref: P101, Westbourne Park-Additional Provision Plan (SCN-20060627-013). Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2007
Prepared 14 November 2007