Examination of Witnesses (Questions 17980
- 17999)
17980. Thank you very much. First of all, perhaps
we can have put up the exhibit which shows the precise relationship
between the sewer and the redevelopment?[2]
Can you explain why the existing piles have to be removed, or
may have to be removed, and the new building might have to be
slightly redesigned?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, as I think
has been given in evidence previously, the sewer diversion for
the Ham and Wick sewers needs to go under this building. You can
see here a plan of the intended development. You can see here
there is a development of flats, a block here, a block here, and
a link block between them with a courtyard around. We have chosen
this location as it appears to be the area where it will be easiest
to reconfigure the piles to allow the tunnel to pass through.
I should say at this point, there are two problems: the existing
piles which may or may not be there, and the future piles which
will be provided to support this building. We will not know where
the existing piles are until the demolition of the existing building
takes place by virtue of the fact that we have no piling records
for the site. If it appears that by minor tweaking of the alignments
we can avoid having to remove the existing piles, then we will
do that. As we said in our Petition response, we are happy to
work with the Petitioner to achieve that objective. We will also
work with them to help minimise the redesign of piles that they
may have to do in order to accommodate the tunnel going underneath.
I think we made both of those points, as I think counsel for the
Petitioner has just mentioned in his opening remarks.
17981. Is there any chance at all of redesigning
the sewer so that there will be no impact on this building?
(Mr Berryman) Unfortunately
not. The building, as you can see, is quite a long site. It goes
virtually all the way from Wick Lane down to the next road, Fairfield
Road. The sewer has to go somewhere in that area to avoid our
tunnels.
17982. Are there other instances along the route
where landowners have had to redesign buildings in order to accommodate
Crossrail and have done so at their own expense?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, there
are a number of such buildings where that has been done. Perhaps
the most notable is the Paddington Central development which is
immediately to the west of Paddington Station. I know it is a
different scale of project but the builder of that scheme spent
a very substantial amount of money in providing transport structures
so that our tunnels could pass underneath easily. Of course it
is a very high-rise building so that was an expensive operation.
There is another example in Farringdon Road where a building was
redesigned to make allowance for the tunnels to pass underneath.
These were for the main running tunnels rather than for the sewer.
17983. Mr Bishop has mentioned, and members
of Paddington Churches have mentioned at formal meetings, the
potential cost of £300,000. Obviously the Committee are not
here, and you are not a quantity surveyor, to assess the precise
cost, but what would be your professional view of the likely order
of magnitude of cost that we would be talking about here?
(Mr Berryman) I would be quite surprised if
it was over £100,000. I have been surprised many times in
my career, of course, but based on another similar example of
the Farringdon Road site, the cost then was roughly £70,000
for doing that. I would need a bit of convincing that £300,000
was the right figure.
Cross-examined by Mr Bishop
17984. Mr Bishop: I have one or two questions,
Mr Berryman. Presumably, from what you say, discussions have not
ended, but will be ongoing because, until you get below ground,
you do not know what you are going to find?
(Mr Berryman) Absolutely right, and we do have
a certain amount of freedom of movement as to the exact location
of the sewer. We cannot put it completely outside the development
site, but we can move it to some extent to try and minimise the
impact on your clients.
17985. Do I understand you right when you suggest
that you do not expect to find too much in the way of existing
piling, but it is the newer, modern, deeper piling which is going
to be of more significance?
(Mr Berryman) No, that is
probably not true. We think the existing building is piled, but
we do not know exactly where the piles are, we do not know what
kind of piles they are and we do not know how deep they are, so
we can only establish that when the building has been demolished,
and I understand your clients are about to start work on that
demolition.
17986. I mentioned the figure which had been
given to me, the £300,000. Do you have any idea where that
figure might have come from?
(Mr Berryman) I am afraid
I do not, no. I really cannot comment further on it without seeing
a breakdown. At first sight, it seems quite high to me.
17987. Leaving aside the question of the piling
that has either got to be removed if it is old or put in particular
places if it is new, are there any other significant design issues
in relation to the foundations that are going to have to be taken
into account?
(Mr Berryman) No, I do not
think there should be. This is a sewer, not a railway, so issues
of noise and such like do not arise here. It is a small-diameter
tunnel as well, so issues of settlement are also trivial. I do
not think there are any other issues which need to be taken into
account.
17988. Have you any idea how long the situation
is going to remain fluid, as it were, as to determining either
what is going to have to be removed or where new pilings are going
to have to be put in?
(Mr Berryman) I think that
will be determined by your clients. As soon as the building is
demolished and we can see where the piles are, what we would want,
and seek, to do is to work with them to get the best fit between
minimising the cost of the new foundations and minimising the
cost of taking old foundations out, if needed. We are trying to
maintain, and I think succeeding in maintaining, a regular dialogue
and we will continue to do that until the building work starts.
17989. Just one final question, and perhaps
a fundamental one: the cost of those works falls on Paddington
Churches Housing Association, is that correct?
(Mr Berryman) The cost of
the pile removals and the piling, I am afraid it does, yes.
17990. Mr Bishop: Yes, thank you.
17991. Ms Lieven: I have no re-examination,
sir.
The witness withdrew
17992. Ms Lieven: I shall proceed to
my closing, sir, which, as always, is going to be brief. I think
the first point to emphasise is that the project will seek to
minimise the impact on this building, and Mr Berryman has just
given evidence about that. We are fully committed to talking to
Paddington Churches and doing whatever we can in terms of design
of the sewer and helping them with the design of their piles in
order to minimise the interface and to minimise, therefore, the
cost. Sir, that is an ongoing process and it may be almost wholly
successful and it may be that there are no existing piles and
that the cost of redesign is really very minimal, but we will
do everything we can to assist with that process.
17993. Next, Mr Berryman's view, and it can
only be a very general view at this time, is that the cost will
not be nearly as high as that which Paddington Churches are concerned
about, the £300,000, which is quite important in terms of
the scale of what we are talking about, but I would also emphasise
two points.
17994. Firstly, if there is a cost, Mr Bishop
told us that Paddington Churches Housing Association had bought
this site, subject to planning permission, and that is extremely
important in terms of financial impact because any professional
valuer who advised them would have said that the value was diminished
by having to comply with the conditions or was likely to be diminished
and, therefore, the amount of money that Paddington Churches paid
for this site would have taken into account the cost of complying
with the conditions. Sir, instinctively, one has a good deal of
sympathy with the idea that Paddington Churches, as a housing
association, should not have to bear this cost, but if they were
competently advised when they bought this property, given that
they did so subject to planning permission, then they are not
the ones bearing the cost; the people who bear the cost are the
people who sold the land to them in the first place because the
value would have been diminished. If the cost was not diminished,
the price did not fall, then there must have been something wrong
with the advice that Paddington Churches were getting, so I would
suggest, sir, that that is a very important point in the underlying
true merit of this case.
17995. Secondly, sir, and probably equally importantly,
there are a number of people up and down the line who have had
to incur increased costs in order to comply with the Crossrail
safeguarding. Now, of course one might say, "Well, the Housing
Association are in a bit of a different position because they
are a housing association", but, on the other hand, the developers
of Paddington Central are probably going to have to spend hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, to redesign and nobody is compensating
them for that. Complying with safeguarding is not a matter that
one gets compensation for in this type of situation. Paddington
Central is this very, very big development at Paddington Station
where huge blocks with piles will have had to have been slightly
redesigned. Sir, it is by no means a unique situation and, in
my submission, it comes back to the fact that the Compensation
Code does not cover it and all our submissions in the past remain
about that. Thank you, sir.
17996. Mr Bishop: Sir, I think I have
more or less shot my bolt at the outset, but, in reply to those
points, I concede, as I did in opening, that we bought with the
planning permission with the knowledge. I cannot say as to what
financial adjustments or forecasts were made in that regard, and
I have to concede that that must have been a factor and, if it
was not, it should have been. I do not think we seek to hide that
or back away from that, but my point is, looking at the way this
is having to proceed and from what we hear from Mr Berryman, what
we are presented with is an evolving situation and one which is
not entirely predictable. As I said, we do not seek either particular
sums of money or blank cheques. If one was seeking perhaps enormous
costs in a court case, one might say that that should be the subject
of a detailed assessment in due course, but we point, sir, to
the fact that this an evolving situation with which we are confronted
and in the final analysis we are in the hands of Crossrail as
to what is acceptable and what has to be done or not. They will
in a way set the budget for us to an extent and we can only ask,
if it is found in due course that we face onerous obligations
perhaps beyond what might reasonably have been expected, that
some consideration can be given to recompensing the Association
for that, given that it is particularly spending public money
on providing social housing. Sir, I do not think I can assist
the Committee any further.
17997. Chairman: You may be able to assist
the Committee in a slight way if you could go back to your clients
and ask them whether, when they bought the site, they did actually
get this advice because, if they did not get this advice, they
should have, as you rightly pointed out, and, therefore, they
would have a claim against their advisers, so that may be a possibility.
It would be helpful for the Committee to know, therefore, whether
or not you did get that advice at the time of the purchase and,
if you could be in correspondence with the Clerk, that would be
most helpful.
17998. Mr Bishop: You are saying you
would like a written response to that?
17999. Chairman: Yes.
2 Crossrail Ref: P134, Ham and Wick Sewer Diversion
in relation to Paddington Churches Housing Association (SCN-20070118-003). Back
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