Examination of Witnesses (Questions 14420
- 14439)
14420. On the other issues with regard to timetabling
and the like, I simply repeat what I have already said in response
to Lord Berkeley and his particular group. I do not want to repeat
myself.
14421. Thank you very much.
14422. Mr Traill: I think, respectfully,
that given the various disputes over the issues relating to the
Timetable Group and their apparent conclusions, this demonstrates
that there is still an awful lot of work to be done here to clarify
what is going on, and, indeed, again I refer you to a witness
I believe who is appearing shortly who will also be able to shed
light on some of the forecasts we are looking at, and hence our
dispute on what the conclusions are thus far in the Working Timetable
Group.
14423. As far as the Shell haven port proposal
is concerned, people fully expect that that same principle will
be put in to any planning approval that may be granted, that they
will have to put in some contributions, or will be asked to put
in some contributions towards road and rail network enhancements
because that is the policy that is being pursued by the Government
at this time. To say it is perverse that Crossrail should do the
same—well, I would say what does that sound like? That it
is all right for everybody else to do it but not for the Promoters
of the Crossrail scheme. If this were a dedicated freight railway
line being put in you would expect, I am sure, to have seen that
scheme consider all the access, all the services that are running
on the network currently, and make sure that its plans, its design,
did not adversely affect those services. So all we are saying
is let's have a level playing field here. Just because this is
a passenger scheme does not mean you should not be considering
other users and other service providers, freight or passenger
for that matter, unequally.
14424. Chairman: Thank you very much.
We will now move on to our third petition today, Tarmac Limited,
represented by Martin Kingston QC.
The Petition of Tarmac Limited.
Mr Martin Kingston QC appeared on behalf of the Petitioner.
Bircham Dyson Bell appeared as Agent.
14425. Chairman: Before we start on this
particular section we have been dealing with timetabling today
quite considerably and one of the things we have outlined continuously
in the course of all of our hearings is that we do not want repetition.
As I understand it, you have three expert witnesses all dealing
with timetabling, and they want quite considerable periods of
time allocated to them singularly on the same subject.
14426. Mr Kingston: If you have been
told we have three witnesses dealing with timetabling, I am sorry.
At least two of them will be very surprised by that suggestion!
14427. The three witnesses are firstly, Mr David
Cole, employed by Tarmac, who will be seeking to explain to you
how important from Tarmac's point of view rail freight is, rail
access, and how important and in the public interest it is that
Tarmac should have the opportunity to get its essentially aggregate
freight into London. The second witness is our timetabling witness,
Mr Michael Garratt who is a specialist. He will tell you about
his experience and explain to you why he thinks he has some useful
information for the Committee. The third witness, Mr Peter Dixon,
is not a timetabling witness. He will be dealing with the consequences
of essentially environmental impact assessment following on from
what Mr Garratt has said, so our case seeks to move through a
company perspective, timetabling and the consequences of the timetabling
issues in environmental assessment.
14428. May I say that if at any stage in what
we are telling you you have heard it before and you want us to
move on we are not precious about it and will do so, but we have
read what has been said, we have done our best to keep up with
what you have heard by looking at transcripts, and are aiming
not to repeat ourselves.
14429. Chairman: You have given us some
assurance. Good. Could I ask Mr Elvin to summarise?
14430. Mr Elvin: You have heard what
Mr Kingston is going to say so I do not think I need to say anything
more! I do not know whether this will short cut things but certainly
it is no part of the Promoter's case to suggest that the proper
supply and aggregate into London by rail freight is not important.
Clearly it is so, I am not sure how much the Committee needs to
hear of it. Certainly I am not going to suggest that Mr Kingston
should not call his witness but certainly it is not going to be
in dispute.
14431. Chairman: Mr Kingston?
14432. Mr Kingston: Thank you. Can I
open shortly just to make really two points? First to explain
that Tarmac's petition raised a number of specific property issues.
We have got concerns in three locations, Hayes, Bow and Paddington,
and those matters, in a process which has been very helpfully
contributed to by the Promoter's attitude, we are resolving. We
are hoping we are not going to need to trouble the Committee at
all on that and all of that can be resolved.
14433. But that leaves us effectively with the
issues we want to deal with today and I can put those into two
types of issues. First, what I call the rail capacity issues;
that is the effect of Crossrail on the rail network and, in particular,
on freight interests. You have heard the generality of that already
this afternoon and we are not going to seek to repeat that.
14434. You have had it explained to you by the
Promoter from the aggregate's perspective how imperative it is
in policy terms that the aggregates transport by freight into
London should be preserved. Those are matters which are dealt
with in national policy, regional policy and local policy. You
have just heard it said there is going to be no issue about it:
that is very reassuring.
14435. Tarmac has a substantial business interest,
clearly one which it is anxious to protect, but it recognises,
as the Committee has been reminded this afternoon, that there
is here a substantial public interest in the promotion of a scheme
which has undoubted benefits. We are not here to tell you, as
far as Crossrail is concerned, that it does not have significant
public benefits. What we are going to suggest to you is that it
would be entirely inappropriate to effectively achieve those benefits
on the back of significant public disbenefit arising from a threat
to rail freight, and specifically to rail freight with regard
to aggregates, and that is the nub of what we want to say to you
about the impacts in rail freight terms. So we are not at issue
with the public benefits: we hear that there is no issue about
public benefit of aggregates and aggregates into London; it is
the balance of how that is achieved which is important here, and
one of the ways in which that balance can be properly achieved
is by ensuring that, where a scheme like this is promoted, it
effectively and in a reasonable way picks up its own costs, and
so does not seek to arrogate to itself all sorts of benefit at
somebody else's cost or some other cost in terms of the public
interest.
14436. Mr Garratt, as I said, will deal with
the timetabling issues as they arise in detail, and you heard
quite a lot of evidence about that on Tuesday. We are not aiming
to repeat that, we want rather to amplify some aspects of that
with the hope we might interest you to some degree not in the
finer detail of rail timetabling but in the consequences of that
and the way they have been approached in this instance.
14437. We are doing so here, of course, from
a customer perspective. If you like, in the way in which the Timetable
Working Group has been set up we are almost at the bottom of the
food chain there. Mr Elvin is keen to convince you that everybody
has been represented but the customer's interests we would suggest
have not been effectively represented there and that is something
we shall want to comment on.
14438. The second general issue is the consequence
of what has been assessed in terms of the impact on rail freight.
It will be our submission to you when you have heard the evidence
that it is absolutely clear that Crossrail comes at a cost in
terms of rail freight capacity which is thus far not effectively
acknowledged in the environmental assessment process. The consequences
of that, we say, are quite clear. If there is a significant impact
which has not been acknowledged in the environmental assessment
process, then the project which has been subject to environmental
assessment should not get its development consent. That is the
objective of the legislation. The objective in European legislation
and in domestic legislation is to ensure that projects only get
their development consent if we have been able to see that there
has been a proper assessment of environmental impact, those impacts
have been identified and, to the extent that they need mitigation,
the mitigation has been identified and secured. What we shall
attempt to persuade you of in these circumstances is that the
impact has not been properly identified, as a consequence there
is no effective mitigation, and without effective mitigation there
is not a project which ought to achieve what it seeks to by way
of this Bill, that is a development consent.
14439. I have identified who the three witnesses
are, and I would like to move to them straight away. First Mr
Cole.
Mr David Cole, Sworn
Examined by Mr Kingston
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