Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20620
- 20639)
20620. You have never been able to use the bridge,
save a 650-metre detour, because of the steps at one side, the
steps at the other side and the bits in the middle, yes?
(Mr Kelly) That is right. In all the period
of time I have lived here, I have never been able to access this
bridge at all. In order to visit family members on either side
of this bridge currently I have to jump into a car, do a very
brief drive down to one side of the bridge, get out of the car
and get back in it to go to the other side. It takes me more time
to get in and out of the car than it does to get to the person.
20621. Lady Bright: If we could flip
through the pictures of the bridge so you can see what it is that
Mike has missed and what joins our two sides.[3]
You can see it is a sort of tin box with various steep steps and
there is the corner of the wall.[4]
Next one, please. That is the structure, seen from the outside.[5]
You can just about see those rather flimsy couple of posts that
the thing is standing on, it is not by any stretch of the imagination
a 21st century bridge, even to take William Whitely's workers
across to the shop, which is what it used to be. What it will
be now is a major thoroughfare to join the Academy, the new school
and this side. Just before I ask you further questions, Mike,
I should say we have had a letter from the Academy to say that
a full quarter of their children will be coming from the south
side so the families are split.
20622. Mr Binley: Could you give us an
idea of how many people that would be?
20623. Lady Bright: It is difficult to
judge. I think there are 1,200 pupils, is that right?
(Mr Kelly) If I could help, Mr Binley. The
Academy is designed to absorb the students who used to go to a
school called "North Westminster". At its peak number
I think there were 1,440 students there.
20624. You have been involved in all the planning
for the Academy through the Westbourne Neighbourhood Forum and
the local neighbourhood partnership. Would you like to explain
how thorough that consultation has been?
(Mr Kelly) It has been very thorough. My involvement
with regard to the Academy has been omitted because that is neighbouring
to the one I live in; however, I have had involvement as a member
of my resident-registered social landlord. We have significant
numbers of residents living on the road to the north side of that
bridge so we have involvement with that there and, as I say, there
are family members on the south side. From there and anecdotal
evidence it does appear to be that the consultation has been through
several different and extensive corridors, written communications,
vocal communications, communications through the Civic Watch and,
again, there has been some co-operation through the Civic Watch
movement. Civic Watch is a Westminster-orientated group which
involves multiple statutory agencies within the area to try to
address resident concerns and improve and, in the areas I work,
regenerate those areas.
20625. These are just a few pages from the Westbourne
neighbourhood plan for 2006 to 2009 which was produced after this
widespread consultation. There are 10,000 people within the Westbourne
Neighbourhood Forum immediately on the other side of the bridge,
and safety and accessibility on that bridge came in their top
three priorities, an area which is in the top five per cent of
the most deprived in the country. The Westbourne Neighbourhood
Forum is partly state-funded and partly local authority-funded.
It has got a three-year plan and the Academy is going to open
when, do you think?
(Mr Kelly) September 2007 it is expected to
open.
20626. So the bridge is needed in a form that
people can use. I believe you have some information on the number
of pupils who are disabled, in fact there will be quite a few.
(Mr Kelly) I do not have specific numbers as
such, but one of the things which has come out through consultation
discussion is that the Academy will be a first-class DDA compliant
establishment. As a result of that, it is quite likely to act
as a magnet for other disabled students within the area because
other educational establishments are, to varying degrees, DDA
compliant and some of them have listed building status, so the
level of change which is available in that establishment is quite
limited. It tends to be the new which adapts to the circumstances
that are required at the time rather than having a proactive approach
of being an adapted premises to the broadest range of disabilities
available. Nothing is entirely perfect, there is always something
you can add, something that perhaps needs changing, but sometimes
you can get conflicts of interest within various groups. To have
the Academy as accessible as it is expected to be and to be as
open to as wide a range of students as possible, which is what
the exception is, I can certainly see the number of disabled residents
going to the Academy and then, as a result, will need to cross
over the bridge from both sides, and that will increase particularly
with time.
20627. Lady Bright: Thank you very much.
It is probably worth out pointing out that for the extended congestion
charge barrier we are the frontier of that too, so if you are
on the north side of the bridge you are out of it and on our side
of it you are in it, and that road inevitably includes foot traffic.
The Academy head also wanted me to point out that they are desperately
keen to encourage students to cycle, walk and get some exercise.
We need a bridge that you can push a cycle over which will obviously
be perfectly doable if you have decent disabled access. There
will be lots of mothers and small children and older people. This
is a bridge that needs replacing and I will tell you just that
point about the middle view, if you would not mind showing us
the next two pictures, please. They should follow on. That is
what you see when you get to the top of the steps.[6]
The width in the middle goes down to 1.6 metres, it is 1.8 I think
at this end, it is in three sections basically. I have to explain
this for Mike because he has never been able to get up over it,
of course. By no standards can you get two wheelchairs past each
other or even a wheelchair and a buggy?
20628. Mr Binley: My colleague has a
question.
20629. Mrs James: I was going to ask
that, because I have visited on a separate occasion and what struck
me was for a person with limited ability there are quite a number
of steps and I could not imagine how anybody meeting in the middle
would pass. If you met somebody, Mr Kelly, would you be able to
pass them?
(Mr Kelly) Certainly not on this bridge as
it is at the moment. My other concern, having seen this picture
now, is if you go to the end of the bridge, there is a curve in
the bridge, so you would need a wider circle at the end.[7]
To meet somebody else, whether it be somebody who has a pushbike
or a dog, you need a wider curve to get around them. It is certainly
not wide enough.
20630. Mrs James: It also concerns me
that you cannot see anybody coming towards you. It did give me
the impression that you cannot see beyond.
20631. Lady Bright: You cannot, it is
a dog-leg and Crossrail is refusing to remove it. When they make
the north bands—it is in three parts: south, middle and
north—disability compliant, which they are only going to
do because they need to raise it to accommodate the overhead electrical
wires, they are going to refuse point blank to put it back straight,
it is going to go back with a kink.
20632. Lady Bright: I should also mention
the police concerns. It is the safety side of this that concerns
the largest number of people here. We had some break-ins in cars
two weeks ago on our side, the perpetrator escaped, a neighbour
was chasing him in total darkness; very easy to escape and disappear.
When the police came around afterwards, they said, "Look,
we are advising residents not to walk across that bridge in the
dark". Even the school children coming home in the winter
would be advised not to walk over that bridge. Therefore, it is
a complete nonsense that it should not be replaced and in time
for the Academy's opening but it belongs to Network Rail. Crossrail
says, "We are not interested in bridges, we are not going
to replace it as you wish", so can we find a way out of this?
Westminster is very happy, Crossrail said they have to consult
with Westminster and your groups and the enabled forum and so
on, which is one step forward, but they refuse to adopt in its
entirety the document of inclusive mobility, which you have. We
do not need to read the whole document.
20633. Mr Binley: Before you continue,
I need to know about school use in the evening. I know the local
authorities are very keen to maximise the return on the size of
the investment in the school and they would open that to the community.
Is that the case?
20634. Lady Bright: That is definitely
the case. If you remember that first slide that showed the area
as a whole you saw a label where the Academy is going to be, it
is now there and it is almost finished. Next to it is a very swanky
private health club, The Harbour Club, and around it all is going
to be community and sports facilities that will be open to the
community.
20635. Mr Binley: Just one final question,
I noticed there were no lights or there did not appear to be any
lights on the bridge. Is that one of the things that is vital
too?
20636. Lady Bright: That lighting and
CCTV is vital. Network Rail will not put CCTV on their property
because it might set a precedent, so Crossrail offered to make
passive provision for CCTV on the south side. The Academy will
have some CCTV receptors on the other side, I do not know about
the middle. The chances are we are back where we started, the
bit in the middle will have nothing done to it. Obviously we need
to hurry this one through, but the worry is that if it is left
until too late in the process, Westminster will not be able to
get on with its consultation and produce the bridge that is required.
I should just say—I am sure Crossrail will say something
about it—there is a plan for repossession of the tracks
for about a month, I think, in the course of building the work
and they say repossession is needed. If some of that could be
brought forward, it would be very helpful. I do not know if there
is anything else you feel you need to say.
20637. Lady Bright: Inclusive mobility.
Could you put the slide up for us.[8]
It is just a page, you do not need to see the whole document.
It is the rule book, recipe book, for disabled access and disability
act compliance produced by the Department for Transport and Transport
for London. If it is good enough for them and they are two co-promoters
of the Bill, I would have thought, would you not, that it should
be adopted for this bridge, and how Crossrail can say, "We
will take it into account" rather than applying it I do not
know. I think Crossrail may want to show us some of the drawings
for the ramp, et cetera, at the end. All I can say about that
is we have barely begun to get the design going. I think Mike
may have something to suggest in general terms of the design of
the bridge that would make it a great deal better than anyone
has thought so far.
(Mr Kelly) Could we go back one
picture to the one we were looking at before.[9]
First of all, if I can address what I believe to be the major
concerns with regard to the bridge that Lady Bright has already
made reference to. My most important concern is that this bridge
needs to be as inclusive in terms of DDA as possible so we are
not looking to make this just a stepless bridge, which has been
proposed, we want to make it accessible and useable for all residents
irrespective of what disability or restriction there may be. Just
to highlight a couple of these, sound reverberation has come up
in another issue, and if we look at this picture at the moment
we have got the hoarding on either side. If you have got a blind
resident with a guide dog walking across here and a train passing
at the same time, my understanding is that there is a potential
for this noise to bounce around in this area and therefore cause
problems for the blind and their guide dogs. Apart from anybody
else they would be going over there anyway, but the blind would
have additional sensitivities to that kind of noise. Multiple
wheelchair users we have already addressed in terms of not being
able to use the bridge in the first place. I have seen several
sets of plans, and I do appreciate that the drawings of the plans
are being negotiated now, but one of the absolute minimum things
I would like to see is that the width of the bridge is two metres
wide at all points. Some of the plans we have seen show that the
platform part of the bridge reduces down to 1,600 at various points,
it is absolutely essential that the absolute minimum would be
two metres. In addition to that, there should be rails on both
sides of the bridge for various reasons and also rails with passing
points in the centre. If you agree to that, then you would need
to expand the bridge slightly more to about 2.5 metres. Natural
light again with regard to people with visual impairments, as
you can see this bridge is currently open with a cage at the top
there to stop things being thrown onto the track. A suggestion
I would like to propose in respect of that is we retain the same
principle of the cage but we make this a perspex cage and that
would then help to address some of the issues with regard to the
noise and reverberation of the noise. It would also provide natural
light into the area and protect users from external weather in
the event that they get caught midway. The Academy proposes an
issue to have 25 per cent of its students using this bridge on
a regular basis. In addition to that, there will be, as Lady Bright
has mentioned, all the evening classes and events on the north
side of this bridge and there are extensive community sports facilities.
I understand that the Academy does intend to make full use of
those facilities both during school time and in the evening, so
traffic over the bridge will be substantial in the evening. I
think CCTV and lighting in particular are very, very important,
the right sort of lighting as well. I know we hear various discussions
about the right sort of this, right sort of that, but the lighting,
as much as possible, needs to be natural lighting. Sodium is a
yellow light which, for some visually-impaired people, is quite
difficult to work with, so it does need to be almost natural light.
20638. That chimes in with the need for translucency
from a safety and security point of view which the police are
concerned about, they want a straight bridge with disability pass
and good lighting at either end so people will scoot off, because
the bridge will not be used as long as people continue to be afraid
of it.
(Mr Kelly) Could I mention two final points.
With regard to access to the bridge, one of the designs I have
seen suggests an elevation level of 1:17. Under the building regulations,
it is suggested that the maximum elevation which should be considered
for DDA compliance is 1:20, so that is something we need to look
at. In addition to that, all the proposals that I have seen suggest
quite a lengthy ramp. Some have already suggested this as an option,
but it is absolutely imperative that along that ramp you have
approximately ten metres apart level platforms so people going
over those ramps can then stop and rest before going on to the
next point, because the longer the ramp is the harder it is to
get to the top of it. I know I would not make it over a 1:17 ramp,
I have tried it and it is absolutely impossible and I do not consider
myself to be unfit or weak by any stretch of the imagination.
20639. Lady Bright: Perhaps we should
point out that Mr Kelly is a Guinness Book of Records holder for
the number of wheelies.
(Mr Kelly) It was quite a time ago and has
been superseded, but it was for the amount of time I managed to
sustain a wheelie.
3 Committee Ref: A236, View of Westbourne Park Villas
from footbridge (WESTCC-AP2-10-05-012). Back
4
Committee Ref: A236, View of footbridge steps at Westbourne Park
(WESTCC-AP2-10-05-019). Back
5
Committee Ref: A236, External view of footbridge at Westbourne
Park (WESTCC-AP2-10-05-020). Back
6
Committee Ref: A236, Alternative view of footbridge at Westbourne
Park (WESTCC-AP2-10-05-016). Back
7
Committee Ref: A236, Alternative view of footbridge at Westbourne
Park (WESTCC-AP2-10-05-021). Back
8
Committee Ref: A236, Inclusive Mobility, Department for Transport,
www.dft.gov.uk (WESTCC-AP2-10-04-006). Back
9
Committee Ref: A236, Alternative view of footbridge at Westbourne
Park (WESTCC-AP2-10-05-021). Back
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