Examination of Witnesses (Questions 18400
- 18419)
18400. Our two main points are: firstly; those
assessments which have been carried out have been shown to be
inadequate and incomplete; secondly, the Promoter has not produced
individual reports for all the listed buildings in the area contrary
to his claim presented to the Committee last year. To take the
first point that the assessments are inadequate and incomplete.
This is simply because they have not been inside any of the buildings.
They have therefore not recorded or appreciated the variety of
construction and structural defects inherent in many of the structures,
whether these arise from their original construction or subsequent
alterations and deterioration. These subsequent alterations, which
generally affect all the buildings, generally arise from the conversion
of the original houses into commercial use, usually comprising
the removal of structural elements that from an external inspection
you might assume still remain. For example, in many of the houses
all internal structure was removed at ground floor level in the
late 19th century to form open factory space. The necessary structural
support to the upper floors, that usually remained in residential
use, was often created by reinstating a single cast iron column,
or such like, in the centre of the plan, or otherwise we simply
relied on the strength of the original floor beams spanning between
the party walls.
18401. Our earlier evidence to the Committee
focused on three buildings that we had invited the Promoter to
visit and inspect internally. We had chosen these three buildings
on the basis that they are open to the public anyway and therefore
reasonably accessible and that they demonstrated an original cross-section
of the construction issues typical in the area. We pressed the
Promoter to visit these buildings because it seemed clear to us
that the scope of their settlement assessment reports did not
adequately reveal their condition and risks of damage from settlement.
These properties, which the Promoter and his experts did visit,
comprised 19 Princelet Street, the Museum of Immigration, 84 Commercial
Street, which is Ten Bells Public House, and Christ Church, which
you will know of. No assessment at all had been made of Christ
Church. The conclusion of these visits was that in the case of
Ten Bells at least they confirmed that they were happy with their
original assessment, but the other two properties now required
further consideration. They duly reported that further investigations
would be carried out into the effects of likely settlement on
Christ Church and that the building sensitivity score for No 19
Princelet Street would be upgraded from category 2 to category
3. This changed the impact from negligible to a moderate magnitude
and the overall assessment from a negligible impact to a potentially
significant impact.
18402. I have generally been referring there
to the historic building assessments carried out by Alan Baxter
Associates on behalf of the Promoter, but we have also received
advice subsequently from various structural engineers who have
worked on the repair of these buildings in the area and who have
now have sight of the assessments carried out by the Promoter,
and they raise rather more technical concerns arising from shortcomings
in the engineering analysis carried out by Mott MacDonald.
18403. I will summarise these. There is no information,
for example, on what analytical model has been used, nor the data
and assumptions that have been made in their input into this model.
As it stands, all we have is a table of results to go on giving
predicted settlements, strains and likely severity of damage.
Even if the predicted settlement is accepted, it is not clear
how they have used this to predict the likely crack width in particular
properties. They have given a prediction of maximum strains in
the buildings of .24 per cent, but they have not stated where
this occurs. One would assume, perhaps, that it is at the interface
between the foundations and the subsoil. If that is the case,
these will be magnified up the height of the building, as a result
of the hogging-the-shoulder effect as the tunnels come through,
the way the ground settles in various curved forms, this would
have the result of movement and cracking at higher levels and
is likely to be considerably more than the .1mm predicted. They
also pointed out that there is a severe lack of tensile resistance
within the buildings due to the lack of bonding and cross-walls,
the presence of lime mortar, and the poor bearing of often rotted
timbers on supporting walls or even worse rotted wall plates.
This means that movement would have serious consequences for the
buildings, requiring extensive remedial works and repairs.
18404. Of course, the risk of collapse, which
was referred to in a letter from the Ancient Monuments Society
to Norman Haste of Crossrail back in 2004 when we first picked
up this issue, and all the above clearly demonstrate that the
original assessments were inadequate. I referred earlier to the
fact that these assessments had just been made from the public
highway. The Promoter claims in his response to the Select Committee's
interim decisions of 11 October: "That an individual report
of all the listed buildings in Spitalfields has been produced".
We have made a further analysis, you do not have to dig very deep,
of the settlement assessment reports and it reveals that this
is clearly mistaken. For example, there are detached buildings,
and these are listed buildings, to the rear of number 3, no 5,
no 7, and no 9 Princelet Street, and to the rear of no's 13, 23,
24, and 25 that have not been inspected at all. There are also
large and architecturally notable extensions to properties, such
as no 4 Princelet Street, which is featured in countless well-known
film—it is a well-known filming venue and maybe they took
that as the evidence—and the old synagogue to the rear of
no 17 Wilkes Street, both these properties have been entirely
overlooked internally. In our view, that clearly demonstrates
that the original assessments are not complete.
18405. Can I demonstrate something. I have only
got one thing to put up in front of you but it is an extract from
the assessment report for numbers 17 to 25.[6]
18406. Chairman: For the record, can
we have that as A205.
18407. Mr Wheeler: The description given
refers only to the front elevation. If we go a bit further down
the page, it starts with plain stock brickwork with red rubbed
brick dressings. I will not read all that, but it comprises entirely
of a description of the front elevation. It is not surprising
that when they get on to the next bit of the report where they
talk about significant and potentially vulnerable features, read
that list, that is entirely a description of defects or likely
risks to the front elevation as well, no consideration of any
internal features or internal risk of damage at all nor any buildings
beyond that front elevation. In estate agents' circles this is
what I think they call a second gear survey; second gear being
the gear you need to engage as you drive past the building to
make your survey.
18408. Then they get to the technical bit at
the bottom of that page where it says foundations. The technical
bit is so short I will read it all. Corbelled brick strip footing
is approximately 2 metres to 2.5 metres below road level. That
is the technical analysis. There is a likely settlement, and you
see the heading of that likely construction, then we go on to
likely settlement and there is a single sentence which goes on
to the next page. Can we look at the next page, but the remainder
of that sentence talks about differential movement between one
of the buildings at the end and the next-door building, nothing
to do with 17 to 25. Again, you see all the pictures and they
are all outside the front door. My understanding is that this
process, this Bill, essentially comprises the equivalent of the
Promoter applying for planning permission, or in the case of these
buildings, listing building consent for the works that will so
affect these historic structures. The reports prepared to date
come absolutely nowhere near complying with the scope of detail
required for historic building assessments by the local authority
if you were submitting a listed building application. If any of
the residents of those buildings have to make any changes, and
they are not going to be likely to be anything as significant
as the whole building setting by half a brick force, if any of
them applied to make any changes to these buildings, they would
have to do a historic building assessment which is enormously
more detailed than you have in front of you from the Promoter.
18409. There are technical guidelines for how
the Promoter ought to go about this. They are contained in government
guidance PPG15 which demands a detailed understanding of the historic
character and significance of the buildings concerned and the
government guidance PPG15 particularly refers to internal features
like panelling, stucco, and plaster freezes, none of this has
been tackled in these assessments at all . Let me quickly demonstrate
the last point considering number 17 to 25. I will describe a
few things they have missed. To the rear of no 17 there is an
old synagogue, two-storey galleried space supported on cast iron
columns, and apparently one of the first synagogue in the country.
It incorporates many of the characteristics of a synagogue at
no 19 which has been found to be deserving of a reassessment.
This building behind no 17 is not mentioned in the Promoter's
assessment at all. No 19 is entirely underpinned with concrete
footings and a lowered basement floor, the only house treated
this way in the street, and is therefore guaranteed to move differently
from its neighbours. This presents very critical issues and again
has been ignored in the assessments. No 21 remains entirely in
its original form on its three upper floors but has been gutted
at ground level in the way I described right at the outset where
the whole of the ground floor and all the structure was removed
to make way for factory space. It is now being turned back into
a house and has no rear wall at all at basement ground floor level
but has a two-storey glass screen of full height, any movement
will render these useless. The internal structure now rests entirely
on a single cast iron post in the basement, as I described earlier,
a very typical construction. No 23 includes a complete self-contained
dwelling in the rear garden of original historic construction
with a glazed lantern roof. Another building which has been completely
missed. No 25 demonstrates what happens when work is undertaken
without sufficient analysis of the historical fabric.
18410. While this building was being converted
back to residential use some 20 years ago the entire front wall
came loose and crashed down into the street. The fragile junction
between the front wall and the remainder of the structure, so
absolutely typical in all these buildings, simply gave way as
a result of building works elsewhere in the house. What arises
from all this is two main points and I will reiterate them again.
Firstly, as I say, the assessments which have been carried out
have been shown to be inadequate and incomplete. Secondly, the
Promoter has not produced individual reports for all the listed
buildings in the area. We had hoped that we had demonstrated the
inadequacies of these reports in our submission of 13 June last
year and we were encouraged by the Committee's decision which
asked the Promoter to come back to the Committee in the autumn
and demonstrate clearly that an individual assessment has been
made of each listed building and historic building in the area
and that the appropriate mitigation has been put in place.
18411. The Promoter has subsequently replied
to confirm that the reports he has already prepared are all that
he intends to produce at this stage. We do not believe that you,
the Committee, would have asked him to come back to the Committee
in the autumn if you had been happy with those previous reports.
I have already demonstrated how those reports are so wide of the
mark of current public government guidance PPG15, we do not believe
you would have asked him to come back again if you had been satisfied
with what he had already produced. We therefore require the following
undertaking.
18412. All listed and historic buildings under
an accurate and comprehensive individual inspection and assessment
now and not once work has started on the tunnelling; to determine
the settlement impact and mitigation measures, firstly: for the
long-term protection of the individual buildings so affected,
but also, secondly, to give a clear idea of the likely impact
of the Promoter's preferred route alignment on the historic fabric
of the area before you make your decision on the final selection
of the route. There is no use doing this work after you have decided
the route. I appreciate you may feel that you have already asked
the Promoter for this undertaking in October, but can we now ensure
that we are not fobbed off again by Crossrail and that the Promoter
now takes these issues of settlement and potential damage to the
historic fabric of our city seriously and does these reports properly?
18413. There are a number of other undertakings
in respect of the Petitioners whom I represent but they will be
listed by Pat Jones when she gives her submission for the Spitalfields
Society so I will not go over them again here. Thank you very
much.
18414. Mr Mould: I do not know if you
want me to deal with it now or ...
18415. Chairman: Bearing in mind the
statements which are being made in relation to what this Committee
has been told, I think it is important that we call Mr Berryman
to answer some questions.
18416. Mr Mould: Very well.
18417. Chairman: I think we will now
adjourn until ten minutes to twelve.
After a short break
18418. Chairman: Mr Mould, we have been
told by Mr Wheeler that we have been fobbed off, and it is your
job now to prove otherwise.
18419. Mr Mould: We do not accept that
we are fobbing you off. Mr Berryman is here so I will ask him
to tell the story to a large extent, but I can perhaps begin by
reminding you of your interim decision in relation to the historic
buildings in Spitalfields, and I would ask Mr Fry to put up paragraph
16830.[7]
This is Day 58, when we came back with our response to your interim
decision, if you recall, and it sets out the decision and the
response. The first point I would draw to your attention is that
you heard, as you say at 16830, a great deal of evidence about
listed buildings in the Princelet Street area. Sir, I cannot remember
who was sitting in the Chair, but I think it was Mr Liddell-Grainger,
and I am not sure whether you personally were present, but certainly
you will recall from reading the transcripts that there was a
great deal of debate about this in June, and we heard from Mr
Berryman at that time, and we drew attention to the Information
Paper which deals with the settlement process and settlement investigation,
and we note specifically about the approach to listed buildings.
Mr Keith Berryman, Recalled
Examined by Mr Mould
6 Committee Ref: A205, Settlement Assessment Reports,
17-25 Wilkes Street, Tower Hamlets (SCN-20070130-012 to -015). Back
7
Para 16830. Back
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