Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20600
- 20619)
20600. Mr Binley: A complaint, Lady Bright?
20601. Lady Bright: Well, yes, because
new drawings arrived from Crossrail yesterday afternoon, just
when my printer broke down, showing two revised drawings for the
350-metre sidings which, under AP3, are going to be put in purely
to serve the contentious concrete plant which you heard about
the last time we saw you back on 27 June. They came with a very
clear health warning from Crossrail. They simply said, "Well,
these are just indicative drawings, you do realise". In other
words, I was getting the strongest implication that these drawings
were perfectly meaningless. They were designed to solve some of
our problems which are to do with the route of the freight trains
which at present runs right down to the end of the Villas to Royal
Oak and then runs back, so it wakes up the whole of the Villas,
even though the concrete batching plant is actually further over,
so that is why we are annoyed. However, we were told that these
drawings were only indicative and, "It won't be us that does
it" basically, and the same with the bridge, "It won't
be us that does it", so you asked, the Committee asked, to
have the bridge replaced, which sounds to me like replacing the
bridge. It does not sound to me like simply putting a north bit
and a south bit and doing nothing about the middle, which is not
compliant with disability regulations.
20602. Here we are again and the plea, because
of this complaint really, is this: that the problem is that Crossrail
can get Bill consent on the basis of sketches like the ones that
they produced yesterday afternoon, just whimsical drawings, vague
things which may or may not get built, and which may not even
resemble what we have been shown once the detailed work has been
done by somebody else. For the first time they were absolutely
clear yesterday that they will not be doing this work. The assumption
is that the nominated undertaker will be Network Rail, but it
is only an assumption and I am told that it will not actually
happen until after the Bill has received Royal Assent, so whom
do we talk to? Crossrail are telling us, "We don't do pedestrian
bridges. We are tunnellers. Somebody else is going to do that.
Anyway, it is Network Rail's bridge", but does it not look
to you a bit like a democratic deficit here if the nominated undertaker
is Network Rail and it is only decided after Royal Assent? You
will hear from Mrs Hessenberg actually about how difficult it
is to deal with Network Rail on the existing sources of the noise,
the existing railway, which you talked to us a lot about last
time and you were very helpful about and you said we should pressurise
Network Rail. Well, we tried, but, as Mrs Hessenberg will tell
you, they do not listen to a word.
20603. Now, on Crossrail, which includes so
many Network Rail installations and where Network Rail is likely
to be the undertaker at the point where the trains emerge from
the new tunnels at the portal at Royal Oak, Network Rail explicitly
will not talk to us. We have tried at several levels to get some
conversation going and they have said, "No, it's not appropriate
until after the Bill has been through committee".
20604. Therefore, the plea really is that you
help us to arrive at some sort of undertaking which will enable
us to be consulted and our concerns to be kept in the frame whoever
is dealing with these issues. Can you perhaps simply support the
precept that Westbourne Park Villas residents' concerns, which,
I should say, are not just ours, but we represent the whole of
the Conservation Area to the south and, as you will hear in discussion
about the bridge, the area to the north that uses that bridge
from the other side, a bridge between communities, if you like,
so support the precept that our concerns will be taken into account
by the contractor, the nominated undertaker and the Promoter of
any works relating to the Crossrail Bill at all stages from here.
I do not know whether that can be phrased in a more legally correct
way.
20605. Mr Binley: We have certainly noted
that and we will consider your plea of course.
20606. Lady Bright: If that is something
we can achieve, then perhaps we need not take so much time.
20607. Ms Lieven: I do not know if it
is helpful to say, sir, but all those bodies, the contractor,
the nominated undertaker and, if the nominated undertaker was
Network Rail, then Network Rail, they will all be bound by the
undertakings that the Secretary of State gives to this House,
so any obligation on the Secretary of State is necessarily in
law passed on to those other people, so I hope that gives at least
some comfort. Because the Secretary of State is not going to go
out and dig and Mr Berryman is not going to go out and dig makes
no odds in legal terms; all those other parties will be bound
to exactly the same extent.
20608. Mr Binley: I think I am right
in saying that we can specifically ask for that in our report
if we decide that to be necessary.
20609. Lady Bright: If the undertaker
is not nominated until after Royal Assent, is that not going to
cause a few problems?
20610. Mr Binley: I feel that my learned
support will help us in that!
20611. Lady Bright: Good. Well, I have
pointed it out and that is the best I can do. I would just like
to give you an example which I hope we do not have to go into
too much detail on today, which is these new sidings and the concrete
plant. As you will recall, we do not want the concrete plant and
we think it should go down to Old Oak Common where, in the AP3
proposals, Crossrail has its own concrete plant, so, if it is
good enough for Crossrail to have a concrete plant there and it
is rail-served and it is only two kilometres down the track, we
see no reason whatsoever why the existing concrete plant, the
Tarmac plant, instead of having a postage stamp of a temporary
plant squeezed on to that site, should not go straight to Old
Oak Common and be built as an all-singing, all-dancing modern
plant of the size that they need.
20612. In this proposal, the sidings and the
reversing facility, which is tucked in there as well, we have
heard frankly from Crossrail that there have been a few design
problems. There is not room basically, as we said there would
not be, on that site, so we know they may not implement these
plans as we have them, but it does not matter whether it is done
by Network Rail or somebody else, obviously that is not our business,
but what is very much our business is the standard to which it
is done and how much our concerns are taken into account in the
doing of it.
20613. We are not trying to stop this railway;
we are just trying to make it liveable and our real fear, and
I am going to spell this out and you can tell me I am wrong if
you like, but it is a fear, is that we will not get the chance
really to try, and I take what you have said about noting that
undertaking and thank you. Does the Committee realise that, even
though Crossrail is billed as the biggest new urban rail project
for 100 years, Network Rail just may try to get away with saying
that this bit, the bit that runs along the street, the bit where
we live, is not a new railway at all? It is, we think, the most
exposed site along the whole of the Crossrail route and it has
umpteen work sites, so it is going to mean four-plus years of
absolute misery for everybody while that is happening, but thereafter
we should end up with a new railway, or will we? It may not be
classified that way because it is just possible that they will
say that Crossrail's bit ends at the portal and where the new
ramp is and that the railway line running down towards Westbourne
Park from that point is just the old railway, the relief lines.
This may sound implausible, but they have done it before. They
may well just say, "Oh, we're just dusting off the old track
and moving it a bit, so it is not a new railway", move it
over a bit with maybe a bit of new ballast and that will be it.
They will say, "It's just the operational railway",
and, as you know and we know from experience, the operational
railway has a lot of power to do what it likes and listen to nobody.
20614. It ought to sound implausible, but our
experience with Heathrow Express, which I would like to bring
in here because it was not all that long ago, 12 years ago, makes
us wary. It was Network Rail's predecessor or possibly pre-predecessor,
I forget, but that was another new railway which turned out not
to be just along our stretch. It was a new railway which started
at Paddington, it was a new railway going out to Heathrow, but
not where we are. It is right under that wall. At the time, the
British Airports Authority, which were the co-Promoter in that
case just as you have Crossrail, the Secretary of State and TfL
here, were expecting, and were fully prepared, to offer the same
modern comforts on our stretch of the line as elsewhere. They
completely saw that they would be needed, noise mitigation and
so on, continuous welded rail, hardly a major innovation in 1994,
but oh no, British Rail would not do that, or Network Rail or
Railtrack or whoever it was. They said, "It's running along
existing track, it is not a new railway, so we don't have to do
any of that. We don't have to consult residents and we won't allow
BAA to do so either".
20615. They then told us that we would not hear
their quiet, modern trains at all, just as Crossrail are telling
us that we will not hear their quiet, modern trains at all. We
may even find ourselves in problems with continuously welded rail
because there may be points there which cause a problem, I do
not know, but with Crossrail trains there are going to be 48 an
hour, 24 in each direction, and they will cross, they will pass
each other, so that will create additional noise which has not
been allowed for. There is also a reversing facility, so how many
trains are we going to have whizzing past all the time? I find
it completely implausible, because the silent train has not yet
been invented, that we would not be troubled by the noise from
these trains and we submit that not enough work has been done
on noise projections to give us any idea whether they will and
to what extent they will affect us.
20616. We are worried, as you can see, and I
do believe that it is possible for Network Rail to try to claim
that and we do ask for help in ensuring that that does not happen.
Thank you. Perhaps I could now call Mr Kelly.
Mr Michael Kelly, sworn
Examined by Lady Bright
20617. Mr Binley: Could I ask that the
portfolio of photographs be designated A236. Mr Kelly, perhaps
you could introduce yourself.
(Mr Kelly) Good morning. My name is Mike Kelly
and I am a resident on the north side of this bridge. However,
I wear several caps here today. I am a board member on my local
area regeneration project, I am the former Chair of the Residents'
Association and am currently the secretary of that same Residents'
Association. I am a board member with Stadium Housing Association
which is a registered social landlord, and I am also a member
of our local Civic Watch team, so I come with various expertise
in various areas, but my specific interest today is the disability
issues with regard to the bridge and, from that side, I am an
affiliate with two organisations, one called Action for Better
Access, which is based in the north of England, and in Westminster
I am an affiliate of the Westminster Action Network on Disability.
I have been asked to comment on access issues with regard to the
bridge and with personal experiences as a resident living in the
area for now 40-odd years.
20618. Mr Binley: You are a very busy
chap, but we are pleased to see you.
20619. Lady Bright: We feel that you
tick all our boxes! I believe it is right that you have family
on both sides of the bridge.
(Mr Kelly) I do. I have family members on both
the north side and the south side of the bridge.
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