Examination of Witnesses (Questions 18300
- 18319)
18300. Paragraph 2.1 says: " ... other
parties of the local population who might not have been actively
involved up to that point", and paragraph 2.3 says: "CLRL
consulted their Community Cohesion Adviser from Social Research
Associates to review their views on proposed BME stakeholders
and groups in the area". You might think this is a laudable
intention, but I do question why the advice was sought from an
outside group with no apparent links to Spitalfields and why only
consult them and Tower Hamlets Council? Why did Crossrail not
actually consult the Petitioners who live or work in Spitalfields
and know the local groups? The Committee need to be aware that
in 2004 the Woodseer and Hanbury Street Residents Association
provided Crossrail with the contact details of some 40 Spitalfields-based
groups, yet that list seems to have been totally ignored and we
ask why?
18301. I have to say that in fact the Social
Research Associates do not appear to have been very successful
either in identifying appropriate and interested local BME groups.
In an e-mail from Tom Mantey on 25 January it said: "One
group has not responded to invitations, one group has not attended
either meeting (that was the October and December meeting) one
declined to participate, but want dialogue outside of the panel;
another group declined to participate but Crossrail continued
to invite their representative to meetings anyway; a BME residents
group who had in fact petitioned on behalf of his organisation
had to ask to be invited to the meeting; and other groups attended
the second but not the first meeting". Papers were sent to
other unidentified groups who have not so far attended any meetings.
It seems to us that it is a very unsuccessful way to identify
panel members and not, we believe, in line with the Committee's
intentions. Paragraph 3.1 of their response says: " 7 stakeholders
attended" and "a different group representing BME residents
were asked to attend". I personally encountered six stakeholders,
including the one who had asked to attend, and I am bemused by
the presence of a local police officer and a representative from
Skanska who are currently rebuilding London Hospital.
18302. She explained the value of the emergency
services at meetings, which I accept might be useful if we were
discussing an actual construction site, but at the moment with
the Community Liaison Panel we are discussing a hypothetical hole
in the ground, so I wonder at the value of such members at this
stage. If the project ever gets underway it might be useful to
have their contributions at that particular point.
18303. Paragraph 4.2 says that, "Some attendees
were of the view that the Panel should not commence operation
until a public meeting or a meeting of all Petitioners had been
convened to allow local members of the community to select representatives."
This was stated very clearly at the meeting by five of the six
community representatives and it remains the view of many groups,
including the Community Association, the WHRA, the Spitalfields
Small Business Association, the Spitalfields Trust, the Kempton
Court residents, which is at Whitechapel, the Local Area Partnership,
individuals, including Patricia Jones, as well as many others,
and we believe that the membership of the Panel must include a
wide range of interested local people who live or work in the
area, but selected by the community to ensure transparency, accountability
and credibility as well. We also believe that the professional
agencies working in the area should also be invited, and surely
this must be the best way and the most transparent and appropriate
way to go forward, and we wonder why Crossrail are afraid of calling
such a meeting.
18304. Para 4.2 says, "action is necessary
in the locality immediately", but again the question is because
of the time lapse from the Committee charging Crossrail with setting
up this Community Liaison Panel, the first meeting in October
can hardly be described as immediate or expeditious. Surely a
few more weeks spent in seeking proposals from the Petitioners,
an existing body of identified Spitalfields residents and businesses
with roots in the community might have been beneficial and prevented
this complete breakdown that we appear to have in communication
between us.
18305. Para 4.2 says it is , "open to the
Petitioners themselves or members of the wider community to arrange
a meeting to select their representatives." This is a very
questionable suggestion because it is Crossrail that is charged
with establishing the Panel, and I would ask them who would pay
for the adverts, the leaflets, the hire of the venue, to distribute
the leaflets not just in monetary terms but in time too? Crossrail
appear to have vast sums of money and staff and they should not
be allowed to avoid responsibility by passing the task to local
groups. Generally most local community groups are volunteer-led
on very small budgets.
18306. Para 5 says, "six names were added
to the list of invitees." Three of these were actually suggested
by me, including Dr Safir, as I could not fathom out why he was
not invited to the first meeting. Paragraph 5 also goes on to
say that they " ... received a letter from the Spitalfields
Small Business Association who own one of the potential venues,
refusing permission to use their facilities." I have handed
in a copy of the letter that was sent to Crossrail on behalf of
the SSBA, number 5 in your bundle. The letter is dated 15 November
and I would draw your attention to that because nowhere in that
letter is any indication given that SSBA refused permission to
use their venue. The letter points out that they do not have a
large enough venue to accommodate a big meeting, as requested
at the first Panel meeting; and it suggests instead to use the
Brady Centre as an appropriate venue. I believe that this is a
clear indication to the Committee members how Crossrail completely
misrepresent matters, and I am not sure if it is deliberate or
not. There is the reply from Gareth Epps on behalf of Crossrail
on the back of that letter, from Ms Brawne.
18307. Para 8.2 says, "Therefore, making
it largely a mechanism to communicate with the Petitioners does
not appear to CLRL to be the right approach and is cumbersome
and is unlikely to achieve the Committee's objective". The
Committee, I believe, must understand that nowhere or at any time
has it ever been suggested that only Petitioners should be members
of the Panel. We consistently requested larger meetings specifically
to invite Petitioners, as they not only live and work in the area
but they actually do reflect the make-up of the community. We
have already shown our commitment to the issues regarding the
impact of Crossrail on all of Spitalfields and representatives
must be chosen from the larger meeting. This would be transparent
and give the Panel members credibility, a mandate to enter into
negotiations with Crossrail, and accountability to discuss all
matters. We are confident that this was the intention of the Committee
and I ask again what is Crossrail afraid of?
18308. Paragraph 8.4 says, "CLRL is currently
looking at ways to improve the effectiveness of the Panel."
I assume that this includes continued contact with Tower Hamlets
as before Christmas I was contacted by Owen Whalley from the Council,
suggesting that they call a public meeting and they told me that
they were acting as honest brokers. The Community Association
and others rejected this suggestion as we are of the opinion that
Crossrail was charged with establishing this Panel and not the
Council. I told them that we were coming back to the Committee
to seek some guidance on this matter.
18309. I also assume that that paragraph includes
meetings with a local resident, who happens to be Vice Chair of
the Local Area Partnership, which is a council run organisation,
allegedly to devolve matters to small areas in the borough. I
understand from her that ostensibly this meeting was requested
to ask her why she had not gone to the second Panel meeting, but
during that discussion she was asked by Crossrail if LAP 2—which
is what they are known as—is an appropriate group for the
Panel. She responded, and I quote, "LAP 2 is not appropriate
for this Panel as it is run by council officers, who will be perceived
as having London Borough of Tower Hamlets control." She also
told them that the way they had gone about setting up the Panel
had not worked and suggested that Crossrail go back to the community
and ask what they want and to cancel the February meeting in order
to rethink the whole process.
18310. Paragraph 8.6 says, "It ... "—and
I assume "It" is CLRL—" ... will continue
to work to improve the functioning and usefulness of the Panel."
On behalf of the substantial proportion of the Spitalfields community,
I would say that until and unless Crossrail arrange a large public
meeting, including invitations to all local Petitioners, including
Kempton Court, in order for the community to choose their own
representatives to the Panel, then I suggest that this Community
Liaison Panel will never fulfil the intentions of the Committee;
it will remain unrepresentative, ineffectual and a travesty of
alleged community involvement. We make a reasonable suggestion
for a way forward and I seek guidance from the Committee on this
important matter.
18311. Despite all that I have described Crossrail
carried on with the second meeting in December and they fixed
the date of 6 February for a third meeting. Both Spitalfields
Community and Crossrail need the Committee's help and guidance
on the way forward and for this reason we seek the following undertaking
today. We ask Crossrail to convene a public meeting in Spitalfields
to which they agree to invite all local Petitioners, including
nearby Kempton Court, community groups, amenity groups, residential
groups, small businesses, schools, social and health services,
in order to select representatives with a mandate from the community
in a transparent manner. The Community Liaison Panel should formulate
an agenda to alleviate concerns of the local community and call
on the Promoter to provide site-specific information on impacts
and implement robust measures to mitigate harm. The Community
Liaison Panel should be granted equal status and the workings
of the Community Liaison Panel in Spitalfields should follow the
recommendations of the 2004 inquiry into the Channel Tunnel Rail
Link.
18312. The second part of that undertaking that
we seek today is that Crossrail should ensure that members of
the Spitalfields Community Liaison Panel should be consulted about
practices, selection of lorry routes and the nomination of contractors
to ensure that the Promoter adopts Best Practice Management techniques
in the densely populated area of Spitalfields. And I would ask
for Crossrail's undertaking to be given to that today.
18313. Can I then turn to the Health Impact
Assessment—and it is set out in paragraphs 20 to 24 of the
Community Association's petition? The Committee will recall when
I gave evidence last year that I was highly critical of the bland
and generalised Health Impact Assessment produced by Crossrail,
and I was told that it was a work in progress and that future
community consultations regarding the impact on health on specific
communities would take place. To date there appears to have been
no action from Crossrail.
18314. Crossrail's response to the Community
Association's petition says, "However, the mitigation measures
set out in the Environmental Statement will reduce the potential
health effects from construction activities to a level where they
do not represent a significant risk to local communities."
Yet again they have given no evidence for that statement and only
last week Crossrail admitted publicly that their estimates of
noise levels emanating from the Hanbury Street worksite would
be higher than originally estimated. We know that noise exacerbates
existing health problems and where no health problems exist noise
can potentially cause them. How can we believe anything that Crossrail
have told us so far about the low level risk to the health of
the Spitalfields community from proposed construction in the Hanbury
Street site? That is why today we seek specific undertakings about
site-specific Health Impact Assessments beginning immediately.
18315. At the first meeting of the Community
Liaison Panel, as I have already said I was extremely surprised
that Dr Safir was not even invited, despite him being the local
GP and a Petitioner, and I proposed that he was invited to our
meetings. Since then I have spoken to him and learnt that he did
attend the December meeting but because of the lack of other community
groups he felt that the meeting was not very useful, and he is
now considering his position regarding attendance at future meetings.
He also said that the meeting was told that the community groups
were boycotting the meeting, but no explanation was given.
18316. I have also spoken to the Assistant Director
of Public Health in Tower Hamlets, and she told me that she had
had no contact with Crossrail since the workshop in August 2005.
She also said that she was concerned that no meeting has been
convened locally to begin discussions on the impact on health
and safety of the Spitalfields community from this major construction
site being proposed for Hanbury Street. She wants that to begin
as soon as possible, she told me, so that discussions can begin
to decide what features need to be factored into codes of practices
of construction in order to mitigate against the inevitable impact.
18317. In Crossrail's Health Impact Assessment
supporting information document it says, "The Crossrail Health
Impact Assessment is focused on the changes to the key determinants
of health that are predicted to occur as a result of the project.
It is not concerned with effects that would have occurred anyway,
without Crossrail, but it does consider possible cumulative impacts
resulting from implementing the project on an environment that
is already affecting the health of a defined population."
18318. It goes on to say, "These impacts
on the key determinants of health may then lead to a changed health
outcome ... in the risk of a disease or accident."
18319. The document further states, "With
Tower Hamlets having the lowest life expectancy (and fourth lowest
in England) life expectancy is an indication of general health
and lower life expectancies are associated with poorer levels
of health.
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