Examination of Witnesses (Questions 15660
- 15679)
15660. And you will have seen, will you not,
that substantial work took place at those inquiries and before
those inquiries into railway capacity?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, I am
aware of that.
15661. It is right, is it not, that that position
which was adopted at the inquiries finds expression in the decisions
of the Secretary of State?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, that
is correct.
15662. It is right, is it not, that those decisions
and the work which was done led to the conclusion that there was
capacity for that which was proposed at Bathside Bay, Harwich
and Felixstowe?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, I would
not disagree with that. Our contention would be that that capacity
still exists and we are not affecting it.
15663. Am I right in supposing that that statement
of common ground which was made at the inquiry was not, and has
not, been taken into account by Crossrail in its work so far?
(Mr Berryman) No, you are
completely wrong in saying that. As I have said several times
already, our intention is to maintain the existing capacity on
the Great Eastern for trains coming down from the Harwich direction.
The whole design of the scheme is based on doing that.
15664. Am I right in supposing that, having
recognised that work and taken account of that work, the position
was adopted that if Hutchison Ports impact upon the capacity of
the railway, they were going to pay for that?
(Mr Berryman) No, I do not
quite see what that has got to do with this at all. We are suggesting
to you, in fact I am telling you, that the design of the scheme
is such that it will not have any impact on the trains coming
from that direction.
15665. My question was directed towards your
understanding of the position that Hutchison, Bathside Bay and
Felixstowe, that if they had impacted upon the capacity of the
railway network, Hutchison Ports were being made to pay for that
impact on capacity. That is right, is it not?
(Mr Berryman) I assume that
is through the planning process, through a Section 106 agreement.
15666. Yes. You have studied the material, have
you, Mr Berryman?
(Mr Berryman) I regret to
say, I have not studied the actual Section 106, but I am aware
of its existence.
15667. Why, can you tell the Committee please,
should Crossrail stand in a different position from Hutchison?
If Crossrail cause a loss of capacity, why should they not meet
the burden which they have created?
(Mr Berryman) It is an academic
question because Crossrail will not cause a loss of capacity on
this route, as I keep saying.
15668. And that is going to be established,
is it not, at least in part, by timetabling work to come?
(Mr Berryman) I think that
has been established as far as this route is concerned. There
are a whole range of other issues about what happens on the North
London Line, what happens on other parts of the network which
affect the pathing of trains from your clients' ports to their
destinations. All we are saying is that the works which are being
done for Crossrail will not affect those paths and those paths
will be provided just as if Crossrail had never happened. All
the other issues about what happens on the North London Line and
all that sort of thing are completely irrelevant to this scheme
and that has to be sorted out separately as part of that scheme.
All we are doing is providing infrastructure which would allow
your clients' trains to run exactly as they do now.
15669. Mr Berryman, can we just get this right
please: that the position so far as far as Crossrail is concerned
is that some timetabling work has taken place?
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
15670. And further timetable work is going to
take place?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, of course.
15671. One does not need to explore before this
Committee why that is so.
(Mr Berryman) Well, I can
tell you that the timetable work will probably be a continuous
piece of work which goes on until the railway opens because that
is the nature of railway planning.
15672. Well, the timetable work, at least in
part, is going to reveal, is it not, what the situation is as
far as capacity is concerned?
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
15673. So it is impossible for you to say, is
it not, that you do not bear upon the potential capacity of the
railway to take freight traffic from the Haven?
(Mr Berryman) No, it is
perfectly possible for us to say that because we are providing
exactly the same capacity as is there now. We are taking nothing
away from those routes coming in from the Haven. If you were arguing
for another client about Tilbury and those lines, then that would
be a different argument, but for the purposes of what your clients
want to do, we are not having any impact at all.
15674. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Mr Straker,
it is 11.30 and coffee time, so I suspend the sitting for 15 minutes.
After a short break
15675. Mr Straker: Mr Berryman, I wonder
whether you could look at, and we could have put on the screen,
slide 13 from Mr Garratt's evidence just given.[56]
This is in the context of your consideration of rail freight volumes.
There we see the third bullet point which cross-refers to an information
paper produced by Crossrail—do you see that—E6?
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
15676. "Crossrail accommodates merely existing
rail freight volumes", and then there is a quotation from
the Crossrail information paper, is there not? You see that?
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
15677. How it refers to, " . . . on the
basis that freight services will continue to operate at broadly
existing levels". Yes?
(Mr Berryman) It says that
train paths are being compared on that basis. That was the initial
stab at a train plan. Of course you have to start with something
which exists. As you know from the Timetable Working Group, a
lot of work is done beyond that.
15678. And there is a lot of work still to be
done.
(Mr Berryman) I would not
deny that for a second.
15679. So we see there that it is right, is
it not, that you have not thought about what is going to happen
as per the decisions which have been made for Bathside Bay, Harwich
International Container Terminal and Felixstowe?
(Mr Berryman) No, it is
wrong to say that. We have actually, as I think you will know
already, looked at freight growth which will happen over the period
for which we have information available and we have worked out
the standard hours for those flows. For the reasons that I gave
earlier, it is impossible to do a detailed timetable at this stage
and we can only do something which is fairly generic for looking
10 years ahead.
56 Committee Ref: A173, Crossrail Scheme (LINEWD-11705A-027). Back
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