Examination of Witnesses (Questions 17900
- 17918)
17900. Ms Lieven: Yes, please, sir.
The witness withdrew
17901. Ms Lieven: Sir, again, briefly,
settlement and then noise. On settlement, the property is assessed,
as you have heard, up to Stage 3 so far, as slight to moderate
risk. I would remind the Committee that those assessments are
based before mitigation. So that is the unmitigated risk. So the
actual chance of there being any damage to property is small.
Also, as Mr Berryman has told you, there are a number of steps
that can be taken to mitigate the risk before any settlement occurs
whatsoever, such as grouting, such as you have seen in D12 where
tunnel-boring machines are used. So there are various steps that
can be taken to reduce any settlement down even further. What
is more, if there is damage (and, as Mr Berryman said, that is
considered to be very unlikely here) it will be repaired by Crossrail
at Crossrail's expense. So, sir, I cannot say "hand-on-heart",
absolutely no risk of settlement because that is not the way the
world works, but the risk here is small and is, in my submission,
fully managed.
17902. As far as noise is concerned, the noise
assessment at this property is 32dBA, well below the 40 criterion
that you have heard so much about. Sir, I would say to the Committee
that although one understands the Petitioners' position to say
that any perceptible noise is unacceptable, the consequences of
accepting that submission are that it would make it almost impossible
to build a railway, let alone a railway in an urban area like
London, and that it would be imposing a requirement on a railway
project which would be wholly different from the requirements
imposed on road or other forms of surface level transport. So
the suggestion that it should be imperceptible is, in my submission,
one the Committee should be very, very slow to accept. What you
have heard from Mr Taylor today and heard in the past is that
at 32dBA the chances of it causing any detriment to anyone are,
really, very, very small.
17903. Sir, it may be that the greater real
concern when Crossrail goes ahead for the Wheelers is the worksites,
and if I can just touch on that briefly. There are two worksites
that impact upon them, although they are linked together. The
worksite at Wrexham Road, we fully accept, is very close to their
property, but it is for a relatively limited period, which is
four months—limited in the scale of the kind of times that
we have been talking about on Crossrail—but, also, very
importantly, it is only a daytime worksite. So although nobody
chooses to have a worksite next to them for four months, it is
very comparable to the kind of utilities work in the street that
we all have to put up with, for instance, as our sewers are rebuilt,
as is going on all over London. So the fact that it is a daytime
worksite is very important.
17904. As far as the Wick Lane worksite is concerned,
which is the longer one that Mr Berryman spoke about, I would
ask the Committee to bear in mind that although the period for
that worksite is 22 months, it is, for the vast majority of that
time, all but about four months, only to be used as what is called
a logistics site; so it is only for the storage of materials and
plant and for site welfare facilities for the people working on
the site, the Manhattan Site, a little further to the north. So
the level of disturbance from that site will be very small; logistics
sites do not cause people any material level of disturbance, except
in truly exceptional circumstances. We quite accept that there
will be an impact from those worksites, but the position is nowhere
near as bad as it looks when one looks at the plan and sees two
worksites. I hope that covers the main points.
17905. Mrs Wheeler: The Blackwall Tunnel,
A12, worksite is directly behind our house as well, so we get
daytime impacts from the bottom of Wrexham Road right up against
the house, and then we get night-time impacts from the work being
carried out on the sewer diversion along the A12.
17906. Mr Wheeler: Not only that, sir,
but Wick Lane, down our end, as the lady said, will be for the
workers, the plant, but that will be because the Manhattan building
of the shaft will be 24-hour working. So although the building
might be for people they will be going in and out of those buildings
and it will be lit. I am not completely sure (I am sorry) but
I believe the shaft, when it is actually built, will be 24-hour
working. So those people will be in and out of those buildings—designers,
planners, workers or whatever—for, obviously, overnight
at that particular time. I do not know how long for, it might
be only weeks, but just to correct that it is not just daytime.
17907. Chairman: Is that true, Ms Lieven?
17908. Ms Lieven: Can I just check in
relation to the Manhattan site?
17909. Mrs Wheeler: There are sites which
will be operating 24 hours a day.
17910. Ms Lieven: Sir, my understanding—and
I will be corrected by those behind me if I am wrong—is
that I was entirely correct in what I said that the Wrexham Road
site is daytime only. The point about Wick Lane is that for the
vast majority of the time it is being used as a logistics site,
so nobody is digging on that site during the vast majority of
the time, but it is right to say that for a relatively short period,
I think about four to six months, the Manhattan site, which is
this one here, will have some night-time working. So there will
be workers going backwards and forwards on to the Wick Lane site,
and the site facilities means, effectively, toilets and a tea
point for the people working on the site. Yes, there will be people
going backwards and forwards during the night, but I would suggest
that that is, although not perhaps something you would invite
near your house, not a major impact, and one has to remember that
in terms of the effect of people walking backwards and forwards
to the facilities is concerned, we are talking about some distance
from the Wheelers' house. So the Manhattan building does have
some night working but the Wrexham Road site does not.
17911. Mr Wheeler: The distance is just
a road; it is just across the Wrexham Road to us. We can walk
across the road to the site. Theoretically, as the lady said,
there might be plant there as well. Obviously, plant, diggers,
cement mixers and whatever, have to move backwards and forwards
from this docking area to go to the site; so it might not just
be people—I do not know.
17912. Mrs Wheeler: The Blackwall Tunnel
worksite, we are going to have a lot of daytime work outside our
main window, and then at night when we are trying to sleep we
will have night-time work going on just in the road behind the
house. It is a tiny garden at the back of the house; it is no
distance at all to the worksite.
17913. Chairman: Does that conclude your
evidence?
17914. Mr Wheeler: Just to say that this
is ongoing; our lives will be affected for the duration of the
construction of Crossrail and the duration of the construction
of the sewer and, maybe—we do not know yet—for some
foreseeable time afterwards. We do not really want to have to
keep going to a third party or to someone who will liaise between
us and the Promoter to put right things that have gone wrong in
the house, regardless, as my wife said. Who knows what we will
be doing in one year, five years, ten years or 20 years' time?
People move on. We are expecting a family, so we might move ourselves
and we want to be assured that whoever purchases the house after
us, the house will be a home.
17915. Chairman: Is there anything you
would like to add?
17916. Mrs Wheeler: I am worried about
the acceptable level of risk, which I feel we are exposed to on
every level. We instinctively feel, from all the meetings that
we have had with Crossrail, and all that we have read, that this
acceptable level of risk is a big grey area and that we are expected
to put up with, at every stage, acceptable levels of risk which
are determined by Crossrail and on which we have not had assurances
as to exactly where that level is going to be. What is their acceptable
level of risk? From what we have heard, we are worried that the
level of risk we are expected to put up with is quite a lot.
17917. Chairman: Thank you very much.
That concludes the evidence session for today. Ms Lieven and Mr
Elvin, is there anything you want to add about future business?
17918. I am told that coffee is available after
this meeting concludes. A further hearing will take place tomorrow
morning at 10.00.
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