Examination of Witnesses (Questions 19020
- 19039)
19020. That certainly accords with my experience.
So how significant is it that we are getting yellow at the bottom
of those escalators in the PM peak?
(Mr Anderson) It is very
significant and it is something that we want to avoid.
19021. Do you just want to summarise why from
a passenger transport point of view the AP3 scheme is being progressed
by Crossrail rather than being left to an LUL and a TWA?
(Mr Anderson) It is clear
that under certain conditions there is a significant impact from
Crossrail here. We simply would be leaving too much to risk if
we did not try to address that impact in our works at this stage.
19022. Ms Lieven: Sir, can I just say
if there are any concerns in the Committee as to the need to do
these works then I would invite the Committee to go on a site
visit, which we could arrange quite easily and it is a very easy
site to get to. Those are all my questions for Mr Anderson.
19023. Chairman: Mr Thompson?
19024. Mr Thompson: We have no questions,
sir.
The witness withdrew
19025. Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. Ms Lieven?
19026. Ms Lieven: Sir, shall I proceed
to closing?
19027. Chairman: Yes, please.
Ms Lieven: Sir, to put the matters the
way I would have in a planning inquiry probably in cross-examination,
Mr Spencer accepts that Bond Street Station is congested at the
moment. He accepts that there is growth to 2016. He accepts that
Crossrail increases the interchange flows. There is a dispute
about how much it increases but he accepted that there was an
increase. He accepts, as I understand it, there is no possible
dispute, that AP3 relieves that congestion. The PEDROUTEs that
you have just seen, and nobody suggests PEDROUTE is a perfect
vehicle but it is the one that LUL's station planning guidance
requires to be undertaken, it is the basic LUL tool, shows that
with Crossrail in 2016 this station is very seriously congested.
Sir, in my submission that is as far as you need to get. It is
utterly unacceptable that the Secretary of State, the Government,
should spend billions of pounds on Crossrail and at one of the
most important stations on the route it is so busy at the opening
date that there is a serious risk the station would either have
to be closed or the interchange closed. Really, in my submission,
sir, I do not need to say any more than that. This is utterly
unacceptable. If one looks at it from a political position for
the moment, what would the average Londoner think if, after however
many billions it is that Crossrail costs, they end up with a situation
where they cannot change trains at Bond Street or perhaps they
cannot even get into Bond Street Station on the opening day? It
is just a totally unacceptable situation. In my submission, why
it got to that point whether one could say it was LUL's own passengers'
fault or Crossrail's passengers' fault is really neither here
nor there. What we must be about is building an acceptable public
transport scheme for London and at this location with Crossrail,
we would not be achieving that end result, so arguments about,
"Well, should it be LUL? Should it be TfL? Should it be Crossrail?"
are really, in my submission, beside the point in the light of
the accepted evidence as to what the situation would be in 2016
with Crossrail.
19028. Sir, if one looks at it in this light,
there can be no possible question that it is in the public interest
that this AP3 is built rather than taking the risk of leaving
the matter to a TWA and all the time that that encompasses and
the risk that at 2016 the works would not have been done.
19029. I go on from there, that once one has
accepted that there has to be a congestion relief scheme by 2016
with Crossrail, then I would also submit that it would be ridiculous
to spend millions of pounds on this station, not just ridiculous,
but quite improper, and then leave it with no proper PRM access
because that appears to be Mr Spencer's case, "Well, all
right, even if there is a congestion relief case, you don't really
need the ticket hall and PRM access can be put off to some other
route". Well, in my submission, that really is not the way
we should be going forward and the Committee will remember the
evidence we have given on the PRM and the lengths that we are
trying to go to provide a scheme across the route that has properly
taken into account PRM issues. Added to that are the evacuation
issues and again one asks: what would the ordinary person think
if we spend hundreds of millions of pounds on Bond Street and
leave a station that does not meet the requirements in terms of
evacuation, which seems to be what Mr Spencer is suggesting?
19030. Then the final additional benefit of
this scheme is that it provides a quality ticket hall on the north
of Oxford Street. Now, that in itself may or may not be a justification
for the scheme, but it is a major benefit to those people using
Bond Street Station. One remembers that all the department stores
are on the north side and at the moment the only access to the
LUL station is via a rather grotty, little staircase which, I
have to say, after many, many years of usage, I always forget
even exists, as plainly do most passengers in the area, so there
is a huge public benefit there from having that ticket hall, quite
apart from the other benefits. Mr Mould reminds me, and I am sure
I need to remind the Committee, that this is the principal retail
street in the United Kingdom, so having a quality ticket hall
on the north side does seem to be quite a major public benefit.
19031. Sir, turning to Mr Spencer's two other
criticisms, he says that the design work is not of a sufficient
stage to justify the scheme. Sir, you have heard from Mr Berryman
that the design work for this part of the scheme is at the same
stage as the rest of the Crossrail project on stations, so, sir,
there is simply nothing in that point. It may have come late,
and there is no dispute about that, it did come late, and that
is why it ended up in AP3, but it is now at the same stage as
everything else.
19032. The other one is that the options have
not been assessed. Options have been assessed here, that is Mr
Berryman's evidence, but it is fair to say that the options are
extremely limited. The scheme that formed the basis of the TfL
investment programme, the benefit:cost ratios that were referred
to, was an earlier scheme which was ultimately found to be unbuildable,
so in order to find a buildable scheme that does not have completely
unacceptable impacts either on listed buildings or on people in
Oxford Street has been a very significant challenge and the evidence
is that this is the best, and quite possibly the only, buildable
scheme. Can I make one point, sir, while I remember it which I
should have made earlier? You may remember that there was a reference
to a rather surprising benefit:cost ratio going up to 14:1, the
kind of benefit:cost ratio which TfL would die for. It was actually,
as we discovered over the luncheon adjournment, a typing mistake
and it was 4.1:1 which is still a very good benefit:cost ratio,
but not quite as surprising as 14:1.
19033. The Petitioners ask for further discussions.
Now, as far as the over-station development collaboration agreement
is concerned, we are more than happy to have further discussions
on commercial terms on those. I am not going to call Mr Smith
because I do not think that that is an issue that the Committee
ought to be getting engaged in, it is all about the commerciality
of the negotiations. However, we do say that there is simply no
point in going on discussing the principle of the scheme. Once
this Committee has decided that the AP should go forward, then
there is no point trying to have endless meetings with Mr Spencer
to prove the need for the scheme. What is that going to achieve
with anybody? It might make GE Pensions happy, but, sir, I hope
that the Committee will feel that the Promoter has been more than
willing to continue with the discussions with the Petitioners,
but that is where there is something to be achieved by discussion.
Therefore, as far as the OSD collaboration agreement is concerned,
we are quite happy to have further discussions, but so far as
the principle of whether or not we need their site in order to
provide an appropriate station at Bond Street is concerned, we
say there is simply no benefit from further discussions and we
do not want to have them for the sheer sake of having more discussions.
We do not view that as being a sensible or a productive way forward.
19034. The very final point is one which was
raised in the course of this afternoon about Legion. There has
not been a Legion study done on this site and I understand that
it would be enormously difficult to do so because of the complexities.
It could, I assume, ultimately be done if enough time and money
was thrown at it, but it has not been done yet and certainly our
view is that it would not be a sensible way to proceed at this
stage.
19035. Chairman: Let me solve that problem.
What I have decided is to accept your earlier suggestion which
is to have a site visit and I think that will solve the problem.
19036. Ms Lieven: Yes, thank you very
much, sir.
19037. Chairman: Mr Thompson?
19038. Mr Thompson: Just getting rid
of the OSD point first, I think Ms Lieven clearly said then that
Crossrail are willing to have further commercial negotiations,
so I am going to leave that there on the basis that I hope I have
inferred correctly, that the various matters, the three items
I mentioned, would be part of this commercial discussion without
anybody necessarily forming a view on them just yet.
19039. Leaving that to one side and dealing
with the justification of the rationale for this proposal on this
site which we have queried, we invite you, sir, to come to a view
on this very much upon the basis of the detailed evidence, the
science and the documentation, rather than pure assertions. It
seems to me, sir, if I may say this, that there have been quite
a number of assertions in relation to this scheme which are not
necessarily ones that are fully backed up by evidence today. We
invite you to conclude that the evidence that you have heard discloses
the following facts. Firstly, the proposals affecting my client's
property originated with, and were being advanced until very recently
quite separately from, Crossrail. I do not think that is denied.
Secondly, the inclusion of the proposals in AP3 was a late decision
unrelated to your Committee's recommendations or proceedings on
the Bill generally; it has come sideways, if you like. Thirdly,
sir, it was prompted, it is quite clear, in large part by a desire
to take advantage of the hybrid Bill procedure and to avoid the
greater challenges acknowledged by LUL in promoting a Transport
& Works Act Order on the subject. Mr Berryman confirmed to
me that yes, he views this as sensibly opportunistic and one can
understand that. I am sure my clients would understand also the
Committee taking the view that it must determine the ambit of
what is appropriate to put in the Bill, not particular parties,
and one does not want to be too precise about this, but it is
one thing for someone to be sensibly opportunistic, it is another
thing for it to actually be required. We ask you to consider whether
it was required. I think Ms Lieven said in opening that Mr Berryman
would tell you that Crossrail had concluded that they simply could
not proceed with the Crossrail scheme without it. I did not hear
Mr Berryman say that, he did not say it in response to my questioning
on being sensibly opportunistic, and I think we can see that.
The justification for accepting the proposal, sir, is extremely
limited. We would say little more than assertions. No attempt,
for instance, has been made to justify the ticket hall—none
whatsoever. Having a ticket hall on that site is a very substantial
part of the works; it is going to use up the entire retail space.
We have heard no detail on justification.
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