Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 12760 - 12779)

  12760. Mr Taylor: Let us start with base line noise levels if we may. Lady Bright referred to various peak noise levels and the noise monitoring that has been carried out in the vicinity of the area of London we are concerned with here is set out in table 7.1 in volume 2 of the noise technical report.[104]

  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes, it is. There is a plan, I do not know whether we can have that on the screen, which shows the location of the noise monitoring points as well which might be helpful.

  12761. Mr Taylor: We will come to the plan after we look at the table first. Table 7.1 in volume 2. Mr Thornely-Taylor can I take the copy that you have there in front of you from you and we will put it on the overhead projector. We need to focus on the top row, the site is WE01 93 Westbourne Park Villas.
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes. This is the terrace of houses in Westbourne Park Villas that is very close to the railway. There are two rows of houses as we have seen on previous plans. WEO1 is very close indeed to the railway. Among that mass of numbers, I will try and simplify it a little bit, we are looking at the first line, the first five columns are giving us numbers in terms of the index which I explained on Day 8—a long time ago—called Leq, that is the energy average, the daytime and night time periods. It is quite noisy there, the daytime Leq is 74 to 75 and at night time, if you take the normal night time period, it is 68 to 69 for noise insulation eligibility purposes. There is a shorter night time period used which is why there is a midnight to 0600 column, and the figure there is 66. If we then move further across the page we get some additional information about what went on during the survey. We can ignore the next three columns. The interesting ones are towards the right, the wider columns, which are headed—it is quite hard to see—LA max F for fast. These are the highest values that occurred momentarily, they need only have occurred for one-eighth of a second during the whole of the measurement period concerned and the night time measurement period is there, eight hours. Indeed it got up for a moment to 100.8 during the night and 106.4 during the day. That is by no means unique to Westbourne Park Villas and I do not think I need trouble the Committee by looking at other pages for sites along the Great Western Railway, but that is quite a common thing to find. All sorts of things cause high LA max values in locations where noise is made but the thing which is very obvious about facades which immediately overlook the Great Western is the high noise levels from high speed trains and high speed diesels.

  12762. If we put up the plan, we can see the measurement location and that might assist the Committee.[105]

  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) The measurement location is, as I mentioned earlier, the façade very close indeed to the railway, WEO 1 there. I believe I am right in saying the Brights live about there but I am sure they will correct me if I am wrong.

  12763. So when we see those very high peak measurements which are indicated during the night time period, Lady Bright said those were caused by the batching plant. What is your view about that?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) A batching plant is certainly a noise source and I am sure, having met Lady Bright on more than one occasion and had it described to me, I am sure it is a significant noise source, but one does notice, as I mentioned a moment ago, further along this railway similar LA max levels remote from the batching plant.

  12764. Let us deal with the matter of the hoarding, and if we can use the particular plan we have on the overhead it is taken from the Noise Technical Report and indicates what is proposed during construction. It is quite difficult to see on the screen. What is your understanding about the position for hoarding the worksite during the construction period?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) It is intended there will be a 3.6 metre high hoarding starting there and running all the way along to the eastern end of the worksite.

  12765. Let us turn on and look at the operational impact of Crossrail. Is that a matter you considered in relation to the properties in Westbourne Park Villas?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes, indeed, in the process of preparing the environmental statement normal predictions of railway noise were made. Because the Crossrail lines are on the far side of the many operational lines of the existing railways, the effect of adding Crossrail noise to the existing railway noise environment is quite small. By day the increase is just a fraction less than 1 dBA and by night it is just a fraction more than 1 dBA increase using the LA increase scale.

  12766. What effect will that have on somebody in the vicinity of the turnaround for Crossrail in terms of their perception of the noise environment before and after Crossrail?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) It is too small an increase to be classified as, and certainly not, a significant increase and in pure noise terms it is a barely noticeable increase.

  12767. Bearing in mind that answer, we have had the suggestion that a curved wall should be provided as I understand it along the length of Westbourne Park Villas curving over the Great Western Railway in order to mitigate, I believe it was, existing ambient noise rather than the noise associated with Crossrail. What is your view of the necessity for that in the light of the answer you have just given?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) The question related I think to the existing noise climate and it is noisy, as we have seen from the figures, and if it were a practical proposition to do the variety of measures that Lady Bright and Sir Keith have referred to for all the railway lines running out of Paddington there may be some opportunity to reduce the total railway noise, but doing something to Crossrail on its own could only reduce noise by the very small amount I have mentioned that represents the contribution of Crossrail to the total noise environment at that location, even if it were practicable.

  12768. Mention was made of the use of a particular kind of rail manufactured by Corus, are you familiar with that particular product?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes, I am. The first thing to be clear about is that noise from electric trains comes in equal measure from the wheels and the rails, and going back again to my generic presentation on Day 8, taking one of two equal noise sources away only drops the noise level by 3, so however good the rail was it would not be possible to reduce the train noise by more than 3. Sitting here as a Crossrail witness and unable to speak for Network Rail, we can only discuss doing that to Crossrail track. The reduction again would be even less than that 3, it could never be more than 1 or so which Crossrail will contribute to the whole railway noise environment.

  12769. Let us turn to deal with the batching plant. You have heard mention of the proposal to bring forward planning conditions to control the operation of the batching plant, what can you say to the Committee about conditions that might control the noise impact of the batching plant operation?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) It is proposed to include a noise condition of the same kind that you would find on a planning permission through the conventional planning process. I understood from Mr King that the condition as he would expect to see it, in fact to recommend to the Committee, is based on the normal approach to limiting noise from a new industrial site which affects residential areas. Numbers have been proposed for the condition which would fully accord with the British Standard approach to predicting the acceptability of noise from industry affecting residential areas and accord with the advice in Planning Policy Guidance PPG 24 on noise. Although it would mean a substantial amount of noise reduction work to be included in the new batching plant, there would have to be an acoustic enclosure for the conveyor that is proposed, for the silos which are proposed, storing the materials, in order to achieve the noise levels required, and it would fully comply with normal modern practice in the control of noise from new industrial development in residential areas.

  12770. With those sort of conditions in place, what sort of impact would there be on local residents if the operation of the batching plant was reconfigured?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) Noise from the batching plant would not have an impact on them at all.

  12771. Those are all the questions I have.

  Cross-examined by Lady Bright

  12772. Lady Bright: Mr Thornely-Taylor, the peaks are the peaks of noise you referred to from the environmental statement. I know they are not being caused by Crossrail, but they are very disturbing, would you not accept?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) I have no doubt in accepting the railway noise along Westbourne Park Villas is currently disturbing.

  12773. I quite understand why you are preserving Crossrail's very, very, very narrow vision of this—it is not our decibel, it is somebody else's decibel—but do you not think having read the Ambient Noise Strategy which is specifically for London and also specifically mentions Crossrail as an opportunity to make positive adjustments to the noise climate in line with that policy, do you not think some of these possibilities like the barrier we are talking about are worth doing?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) The possibilities would be worth doing for all the railways affecting Westbourne Park Villas. If we were able to do things for all those lines—and they would have to be quite dramatic things because the main noise source is on top of the diesel locomotives pulling the high speed trains and it is a considerable height above the railway—if we could do something to all the railways coming out of Paddington to reduce noise, there would be less noise for Westbourne Park Villas.

  12774. Are you familiar with legal actions being prepared by Kensington & Chelsea under the Environmental Protection Act to get London Underground to put in noise mitigation for some of its tube lines? Do you think perhaps the Heathrow Express would be a good candidate for that sort of treatment?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) There have been a number of legal actions brought by local authorities, or sought to be brought—they have not always succeeded because of course underground railways operate under powers granted by an Act of Parliament—but there have been in many parts of London pressure put on London Underground to do things to reduce noise and where there has been something which could be done, such as grinding rails to reduce roughness, that has been done and it has been beneficial. Where there is something particularly of that nature and maintenance work can be done to reduce noise, then of course it should be brought about by whatever pressure can be put on the operators of the railway.

  12775. I wonder if it is possible to suggest or see if you could suggest a reliable mechanism, because we clearly do not have one now, and you have worked for a representative of all the railways in your time as a noise expert and the freight companies and everybody else, can you think of a suitable mechanism you could suggest to the Committee for ensuring that that maintenance is undertaken?

  12776. Sir Peter Soulsby: I think, Lady Bright, that is going beyond the matter in front of the Committee, which is of course the Crossrail Bill rather than the very real problem you clearly have with noise from railways more generally.

  12777. Lady Bright: Under the Ambient Noise Strategy in the EU Directive we thought perhaps—

  12778. Sir Peter Soulsby: I am afraid not.

  12779. Lady Bright: Just one final question about the hoardings. I know this is going to sound silly because you are going to specify, I am sure, it is a hoarding coated with the right kind of material to absorb and reflect noise, but we did have a problem in the street with advertising hoardings which were wooden and actually reflected noise and increased it very dramatically. Have you thought about the specifications for them?
  (Mr Thornely-Taylor) The essential thing not to lose sight of is that this will all be part of the process which on previous occasions I have explained applies to all worksites, which is to seek consent from Westminster which will cover everything including the design of the hoarding. They can require in that consent anything which is reasonably practicable to reduce noise and if that includes putting some sort of face on the railway side of the barrier, and they can demonstrate it is practicable to do that, they have the power to require it through the procedures of section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act.


104   Crossrail specialist technical reports- Assessment of noise & vibration impacts, Table 7.1: Noise survey results summary for 7-day monitoring sites-Central Route Section, billdocuments.crossrail.co.uk Back

105   Crossrail Ref: P101, Crossrail Noise Technical Report-Plan Noise Monitoring/ Royal Oak Worksite West & East (SCN-20060627-015). Back


 
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