Examination of Witnesses (Questions 16640
- 16659)
16640. Did you have consultations?
(Mr Winbourne) Mr Schabas
showed how the GB Rail Group river route was set aside. Separate
RAM consultations in 2001 and 2002, and they are in the bundle,
got similar bland answers. Also, Cross London Rail Links ignored
searching letters from well-known solicitors, Charles Russell,
acting for RAM which dealt with that.
16641. How do you see the House of Commons'
Direction and why do you think it was put down?
(Mr Winbourne) Well, I do
not wish to criticise Parliament. I think that it would be very
wrong of me to do so. Sir, it is your admonition that I was concerned
about earlier and I have taken heed. What I am saying is that
I think a lot of people on the inside, civil servants, people
with influence and so on, have got involved with fixing it. I
am not blaming particular Ministers or Members or anybody, but
I am simply saying that it is part of the process. That is what
I am trying to get over.
16642. Can you point to environmental agencies
not performing?
(Mr Winbourne) Can I just
say before I answer your question, I did mention the property
deals before, that some of these are going to be beneficial and
I hope most of them would be, but the issue is one of transparency.
If they have got 17 deals, which they say they have, for repurchase
with no basis in law, then something is wrong somewhere because
that means that deals have been done with big freeholders, people
like the City Corporation and others, and they are not worrying
about the other people who may be displaced. Therefore, there
is not equal treatment. There is a very good reason why repurchase
is not allowed in London or any big city or towns that you might
represent. The point is that ownerships are fragmented in the
towns. Out in the country, yes, it is fairly easy to arrange for
repurchase of a farmer's field or something like that if it is
not required for a road or whatever it may be, but in London or
other cities there is no statutory requirement for repurchase.
16643. Mr Mould: I am sorry to interrupt,
but it is now 11 o'clock and you have asked, I think, certainly
on two occasions if we can hear what the concerns about the Petitioner's
property. We have touched very briefly and tangentially on that
in relation to settlement, but apart from that, which I think
took all of about two minutes of this presentation, you have been
hearing far-reaching complaints and support for a range of other
alternatives. You have made the point that this House has already
made a judgment about the principle of Crossrail which embraces
the broad alignment of the route which this Committee is considering
and I do wonder, with respect, whether the Committee is being
much assisted by the line of evidence that we are now embarked
upon. I would invite you, sir, respectfully, if you think it appropriate,
to ask that the Petitioner should concentrate on the issues which
arise in relation to his property rather than more generalised
concerns about alternatives to the Crossrail scheme.
16644. Chairman: Thank you very much
for that view. I think all of us here have heard many speeches
like this on the floor of the House. I have been trying to draw
Mr Payne back to the issue of his Petition which is about the
properties which concern him. The wider-reaching trawls of debate
have been done in this House and will continue to be done in this
House, so I do not think we need to keep revisiting the case of
the alignment and the whole scope of the Bill itself. You are
now questioning in your evidence Parliament itself and decisions
which have already occurred, but that in particular is not a matter
that we can deal with. Parliament has decided and instructed us
to take this forward. That part of it really you are not going
to make any progress on whatsoever, it is just chatting. What
I and other members of the Committee want to hear is your case,
your evidence about your properties and how it concerns you in
your Petition, so perhaps we can move on quickly.
16645. Mr Payne: Can you point to environmental
agencies not performing?
(Mr Winbourne) Yes, Crossrail
is assisted by compliant—
16646. Chairman: Mr Payne, we are back
again to the broader scheme. Is this going to relate directly?
16647. Mr Payne: Yes, it is really because
at each stage we get more examination of the Crossrail scheme.
16648. Chairman: But we have not heard
any reference to your properties at all yet.
16649. Sir Peter Soulsby: Chairman, can
I just reinforce the point which you have been making. We, as
a Committee, have heard and read many arguments for alternative
alignments for this route and we may or may not have views on
those issues and we may or may not express them somewhere else,
but they are not really the task in hand as far as this Committee
is concerned. Similarly, we have heard much evidence in the Committee
on subsidence and compensation being adequate or otherwise and
again we are not really hearing anything new here, but it is just
adding to what we are already well aware of and may well wish
to discuss elsewhere.
16650. Chairman: The discourse which
we wish to concentrate on is how it affects you in your Petition,
so perhaps we can concentrate on that, and not on the broader
alignment all the time. This is evidence which we have already
received and all Petitioners are told about repetitious argument
and we really do not want to spend much time on that, and I think
we have spent quite enough already, so perhaps you can get to
the meat of your Petition and deal with that.
16651. Mr Payne: It is just that I am
very concerned about the next stages and the agencies that really
do look after us.
16652. Chairman: My advice is, therefore,
that when you are looking at the presentation of your case, you
refer directly to how it affects your Petition, your properties.
It is something you are going to have to do, otherwise I am going
to have to call a halt to this.
(Mr Winbourne) Could I deal
with two then out of the three that I was going to refer to? The
City of Westminster—Mr Payne has not had his answers about
the vibrations from the Central Line, for example. I understand
this is good news and they have long last woken up about Paddington
Station which may affect Eastbourne Terrace and, therefore, the
alignment, with respect, sir, could affect Mr Payne for the reasons
we have given. Secondly or thirdly, they have only dealt with
Cavendish Square to protect the car parking. I find it difficult
to believe that the City of Westminster were not aware of what
we were driving at via Crossrail with regard to the alternative,
so I do not think that he has been well served by Westminster.
The other thing is that English Heritage are not here, as I understand
it. I think this is quite important, sir, and it is up to you,
but the fact is that English Heritage, in my understanding, are
bypassing the House of Commons and going direct to the House of
Lords. That seems to me to be shutting the stable door after the
horse has bolted.
16653. Chairman: But that is not up to
us. If they choose to take a particular route like that, we are
all held at that. Similarly, Westminster's case, if they make
a good case or a poor case, that is entirely down to them as to
what argument they use. We are not here to discuss either Westminster
or—
16654. Mr Payne: We are just looking
for protection really. That is what we are looking for.
(Mr Winbourne) If I may
just go further through this bundle to assist you, Mr Payne, and
I am very conscious of what the Chairman has said, if you go to
page 7 of draft 3, you see you have a question there.
16655. What about the Crossrail tunnels under
my home? In the published limits of deviation and wider reserved
zones of 133 metres in the unpublished guidance notes to the 1991
Crossrail Safeguarding Direction, would your routes be less damaging?
(Mr Winbourne) Well, leaving
aside my routes, what I am saying is that Crossrail is about the
worst route you could have chosen from this point of view. If
those outer zones and demarcations were marked out with freedom
of information on the ground, I think there would be a massive
public outcry because they would be across your area and everywhere
else. We are stuck with the 1989 central London Crossrail route
planned by good Halcrow engineers, but acting under crass instructions
of London Underground. Then we go on to comparisons which the
Chairman does not want, so, if I may, I will leave out why the
route should go to airports because it is obvious, so I think
we go to page 9.
16656. In Society evidence you cited a list
of outline proposals for escalators and travelators linking up
pairs of central London stations. Is the list in your evidence
here?
(Mr Winbourne) Yes, except,
as I have said, I would extend it. I will not go on to that. There
are also outer London minor improvement schemes that you could
look at Park Royal and Ealing and all sorts of other places. There
are about 50 places where you could do an improvement before you
even started to do major routes across London.
16657. I am most interested in your proposed
travelator from Paddington Praed Street to the western end of
Lancaster Gate Tube Station. People use regular, longer walking
routes already, but how do you see that one and indeed any others
helping my area?
(Mr Winbourne) Crossrail
cite congestion on the Bakerloo Line, presumably Paddington to
Oxford Circus. The Lancaster Gate travelator would give you relief
for that and the Central Line west of Oxford Circus. The Central
Line eastern sections are already relieved by the Jubilee Line
and other lines are relieved in other ways. Oxford Circus is the
sole interchange between three main lines and I have already referred
to my Portland Place interchange. Those two things with Lancaster
Gate would relieve everything and it would cost a great deal less
money.
16658. Reverting to the full-size tunnelling
under my home, what do you say about the size of tunnels and the
nearness to the basements, the questions of noise and vibration
and the dangers of Listed buildings threatened with settlement?
First of all though, can you explain why you think they are avoiding
the use of floating slab track?
(Mr Winbourne) I do not
know why they are avoiding it. The floating slab track system
ought to be a given, it ought to be automatic, except for tunnelling
under Hyde Park or similar places with no stress to people. The
parallel is with normal ameliorating works for airports or new
roads, such as sound barrier fencing and double glazing. Perhaps
Crossrail are simply delaying the unavoidable and perhaps there
will be a late grand concession.
16659. What about tunnelling?
(Mr Winbourne) Tunnelling
and compensation grouting are the really serious potential nuisances.
Professor Mair's evidence is economical, chiefly about the first
shockwaves and so on, and you are going to get two. One photo
only of a CTRL tunnel-boring machine shows the Select Committee
the twin, eight-metre diameter, twin Crossrail tunnels. Each eight
metres will include linings, but not the further wide ring around
each tunnel of about five metres thickness of pressurised concrete
compensation grouting going on a long time and causing repeated
ground movements. The primary purpose of compensation grouting
is to surround and protect the tunnel itself and not your home
or anyone else's. Furthermore, pressure injection of concrete
grouting requires a wider area. Professor Mair is assuming grouting
injected at prescribed angles from under a lot of Conservations
Areas and Listed buildings and arguably even the US Embassy and
the Canadian High Commission. If you look at his diagrams, where
is he going to get his grouting in from? He needs to look at that
very carefully and he has skipped over that, in my opinion. There
is no mention of the mining out by hand of vast stations and emergency
intervention points of the same size as City Thameslink and the
new St Pancras Station. However, getting back to your area, I
wonder if he assumes grouting from under places that are near
you which are quite important and in Mayfair it looks as if he
wants to do it from under Claridges Hotel. Broadly speaking, the
pressure of compensation grouting squeezes upwards, in the case
of Crossrail, towards the foundations and basements of Listed
buildings, like yours. The reason is that the opposing compression
forces by the ground below and on either side—this is simple
mechanics—are stronger than from the thinner layer of land
and buildings above. Furthermore, there are some risks of haphazard
physical connections between the grouting with some buildings.
If so, all the floating slabs in the world will not make much
difference. Crossrail have kept quiet about the distances and
true depths as between basements in general and their tunnelling
works, while offering comparisons with the much smaller JLE works.
Nevertheless, the JLE has caused widespread settlement of land
and buildings on large sections of its route across central London,
as is shown by the European Space Agency's satellite colour imaging
published in the national press. That is also reproduced in my
own article which I referred to earlier, sir, and it was in my
longer previous article.
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