Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20587
- 20599)
Ordered: That Counsel and Parties be called in.
The Petition of Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association.
Lady Margot Bright appeared on behalf of the Petitioners.
20587. Mr Binley: Can I, as usual, inform
the Committee that it is my intention to suspend at a convenient
point so that members can attend Prime Minister's Question Time
and that point will come after 11.45.
20588. Can I now ask, Ms Lieven, if you would
open on behalf of the Promoters and explain a little of the case
we are dealing with today.
20589. Ms Lieven: Certainly, sir, and
I will do so very quickly, if I may, because the first Petitioners
this morning are the Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association
and the Committee may remember that we have heard these Petitioners
before, on Day 45A, which was the evening of Tuesday 27 June last
year. In case the Committee do not have a perfect recollection,
both, sir, yourself and Mr Hopkins were present that evening,
although Mrs James, I note from the record, was not present, so
this will be new to her, so I am only going to open extremely
briefly.
20590. This concerns the section of the route
just to the west of Paddington Station. If you look at the photograph,
Paddington Station is just over here and Westbourne Park is to
the south and they are the residents' properties along the line
and, to orientate ourselves, this is the main line coming out
of Paddington going west.[1]
This is the West Way, the A40, and just to the west, to the left
of this photograph is the existing concrete batching plant which,
the Committee will remember, is being reconfigured under our proposals.
20591. Sir, given that the Committee heard not
just the Petitioners last June, but also both engineering evidence
from Mr Walters on that occasion and noise evidence from Mr Thornely-Taylor,
I do hope we might be able to keep that evidence short to non-existent
today, though we will obviously have to see how the matter goes.
There are two issues, as I understand it, which the Petitioners
are going to raise this morning.
20592. The first is noise. Now, sir, that was
dealt with, I would suggest, in its entirety last year when we
called Mr Thornely-Taylor and, in essence, the points are that
this is already an extremely busy and noisy railway and the Petitioners'
argument is that there should be an acoustic barrier to the south
side of the railway. Mr Thornely-Taylor will explain to you why
that is not needed by Crossrail and why it would be difficult
to make it in any sense efficacious and why it is really not an
issue for Crossrail at all, but that is all evidence which he
has given already, so we will see whether or not we need to call
it again.
20593. The second issue is a different one.
The Committee may remember that across the railway here there
is a footbridge, the Westbourne Park footbridge, which goes from
Westbourne Park on the south side and across the railway and,
to the north of the West Way, Westminster Council are building
a new school, the Westminster Academy, so the footbridge plays
quite an important role in bringing students to the Academy. After
the Committee's interim decision last July, Crossrail have agreed
to make the south side of that footbridge DDA compliant, and Mr
Berryman will explain how we are going to do that.
20594. I understand that the Residents' Association,
and Lady Bright in particular, have two concerns about the footbridge.
The first is that they would perhaps like a slightly different
design on the ramp for disabled access. Sir, as Mr Berryman will
explain, although the position of the ramp is set by the limits
of deviation, if there are arguments for a slightly different
design, that is something we will discuss with Westminster and
the residents and reach hopefully the best solution, so that is
not fixed. The other issue is that the residents appear to want
us to rebuild the entire footbridge and, sir, Mr Berryman will
explain to you why that is neither necessary nor appropriate.
20595. Sir, that was all I was intending to
say at this stage, unless there are any other matters which the
Committee would like clarification of now.
20596. Mr Binley: No, I think not, Ms
Lieven. Thank you for opening in that manner. Can I now ask you,
Lady Bright, if you would be kind enough to put the case of the
Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association to the Committee.
20597. Lady Bright: Certainly. I have
lived in Westbourne Park Villas since 1983 and I have here two
other residents who have lived there for rather longer, one of
whom I would like to call as a witness on the noise in connection
with the noise barriers and the other is here if you would like
to ask any questions. I am the member of the Association to whom
it has fallen to deal with the issue of Crossrail.
20598. You have heard Ms Lieven point out to
you where the street runs. If you ever travel into Paddington
by train, you would know it and some of you have actually been
on a site visit there. If we could show the wall running alongside,
the wall that you can see the corner of there, which is where
the footbridge will go, runs opposite the houses alongside the
railway.[2]
There are a few houses just on this side where you can see the
wall left over from the original street, but the others were all
knocked down to widen the railway years ago, so that is what we
are going to be talking about where the bridge starts, and you
will probably recognise those houses from views from the train.
20599. I do have a bit of a complaint and a
plea to make before I go into talking about the bridge, if I may.
1 Crossrail Ref: P152, Westbourne Park-Footbridge
(WESTCC-AP2-10-04-014). Back
2
Committee Ref: A236, View of Westbourne Park Villas (WESTCC-AP2-10-05-018). Back
|
