Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20820 - 20839)

  20820. Mr Leddon: Mr Downing, I wonder if I could stop you there for a moment. We produced some photographs for the Committee and I was wondering if you could put up the waterside view.[29] Can I ask you to proceed from there, Mr Downing.

  (Mr Downing) If we lose our water view for five and a half years this will have a major impact on our business and all businesses around us. Looking at mud and silt and potential odour issues during the summer will affect our business in a dramatic way as our customers do have a choice of alternative facilities in the local area. It will directly impact the views of 131 hotel rooms and service departments which currently face south and overlook the water which is a popular request. This does not include 32 rooms and apartments facing east which will overlook the construction of the Crossrail station. In the Canary Wharf area we have other hotels, the Four Seasons, two Hiltons, the Britannia, the Radisson which is opening in August this year and ten minutes away we have a Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Novotel and Ramada all with water views. For service departments we have Fraser, Circus and 60 new apartments next to the Hilton Canary Wharf all with water views. I have serious concerns that if the water is drained in front of our hotel, apartments and restaurant, it will affect our business dramatically in all areas including banqueting and groups. The hotel currently employees around 240 people and with a sustained decline in business, the possibility of the need to forcibly reduce staffing levels is increased which is highly alarming. We have a £22 million business and if this is impacted, for example, of 50 per cent over a five to six year period the potential loss would be around £70 million and that is for our business alone. This does not take into account loss of business before and after the works and the advertising costs we will have to re-establish our business. If the plan to drain the dock goes ahead, we will have to inform our customers in advance and this will affect future bookings.

  20821. Chairman: Just before you move on, we have not got a copy of the photograph which is on the screens at the moment.

  20822. Mr Leddon: Sir, we have brought 16 copies of the advertising brochure within which that photograph occurs.

  20823. Chairman: We have received three which we can list as 238 a, b and c, but if you could get us a copy of this one at some point.

  20824. Mr Leddon: Sir, I have handed them to your Committee clerk and I understand that they are available for circulation.

  20825. Chairman: We will list them as 238 a, b, c and d.

  20826. Mr Leddon: I am grateful to you, Sir. I was wondering if we could now put the scenario two drawing, which I think is 11—04-003 on the inquiry documents, up which shows the dock as drained.[30] Mr Downing, you can continue.

  (Mr Downing) Group and catering bookings are often done one or two years out and there is no guarantee of the completion date, it will affect our business in future for several years, even when the works are completed. Guests who chose to stay in other hotels may not return, even once the construction is completed. We do support Crossrail, as we know it will benefit the area and we feel the impact to our business and the surrounding businesses will be less only if the Select Committee supports my plea not to drain the dock immediately in front of the hotel. If I may suggest the dam be built directly beneath the DLR track which is about 80 meters from the current planned dam on Wrens Landing. The proposed Crossrail station is further towards Billingsgate Market allowing construction to take place and leaving water in front of our property. We know that even with this solution we may still be impacted through the construction noise, dust and possible odour issues, but it is a much more workable solution. I thank you for listening to my concerns today and behalf of Marriott International and the Yianis Group this is very much appreciated. Thank you.

The witness withdrew

  20827. Mr Leddon: Thank you, Sir. That is the evidence.

  20828. Chairman: Ms Lieven?

  20829. Ms Lieven: Sir, I am not going to cross-examine because the answers are all engineering ones and I will call Mr Berryman to deal with them.

  Mr Keith Berryman, recalled

  Examined by Ms Lieven

  20830. Ms Lieven: Mr Berryman, you are very well known to the Committee but these petitioners have not been here before so perhaps you could explain your position on this project for them.
  (Mr Berryman) I am the Managing Director of CLRL which is responsible for assisting the promoter in the promotion of this Bill. My specific responsibilities relate to the prosecution of the Bill.

  20831. Ms Lieven: I would like to go straight to the heart of this matter. First of all, why are we supporting Scenario Two as one of the proposed methods for constructing the Isle of Dogs station? What are the advantages of Scenario Two?
  (Mr Berryman) There are a number of advantages with Scenario Two. One of the main ones is that it does not require offsite disposal of the dock silt. In the bottom of the dock there is a layer of silt and we are not quite sure how thick it is at the moment, but we know it is there. If we go for the other scenario, Scenario One, which is building an island in the middle of the dock, we will have to dredge that out and move it off-site and it is extremely difficult to find disposal sites for silt around the London area. The advantage of this is that we know as long as we keep the silt within the dock area, it is acceptable to the Environment Agency and the authorities who have responsibility for it. There is already a case in point where this area here which is known as Adam's Place has been used as a silt store for some time. The idea would be to put the silt in here, cover it with water and then, in due course, when the construction stage has been finished re-distribute it back over the bottom of the dock. That is one of the main advantages, the other advantages are that we would need to import less fill, Scenario One involves building an island and that would involve bringing more material in. It has got a larger work site and easier access and it should lead to overall shorter construction time and better services of the programme. It also means that the walls and so on that we have to build are shorter because we are starting from the bottom rather than at a point six meters above. It should help reduce noise, particularly for Canary Wharf people, but also hopefully for the hotel as well simply because equipment would be lower down and it should generally help with the reduction of noise.

  20832. Ms Lieven: Thank you. Can you explain why the cut-off wall needs to be in this location? To orientate us here is the Marriott.
  (Mr Berryman) There is a particular problem at the south side of the dock. There is a large building on piles which is built out over the water so the dock edge is here.

  20833. Ms Lieven: That is the Banana Wall?
  (Mr Berryman) That is the so-called Banana Wall and there is another building here which is also on dense piles. This is the area where the density of piles is less and therefore there is more room for us to get in. The other location which was mentioned by the petitioner is here and there is also a very dense network of piles underneath here because this supports the Docklands Light Railway. The location that is really optimum for the south end of this wall is here and then having selected that as pretty well the only viable option for that south end, we are then looking for where to put the north end. There is a corner here of the Marriott basement which is a diaphragm wall just at the back of that Banana Wall which is there and that is a good position for us to connect to.

  20834. Thank you. If you could just give us a little bit more detail, if we were to go under, first of all, to connecting under FC2, which I think is a large office block occupied by a legal firm, what would be the problems with connecting in there?
  (Mr Berryman): Well, the difficulty is that there is a very dense network of piles into the bottom of the dock which supports this building, and the way that we will have to do this by going under the building involves us getting in there with floating plant and so on, and it is impossible to get in effectively under this building in—well, it is not even in a cost effective way. It is impossible for us to get in.

  20835. This is possibly the first time on the route where you have used that word. This really is more than normally difficult, is it?
  (Mr Berryman): This is more than normally difficult. I have often said that anything in engineering is possible if you throw enough money at it. Moving Clifford Chance out of here probably exceeds the bounds of throwing enough money at anything!

  20836. You said I think that it would be under the DLR bridge. What kind of specific problems would arise if you try to go in under there?
  (Mr Berryman): It is exactly the same problem as under Clifford Chance. There is a very dense network of piles. You can see even from this drawing that the structure is quite complicated with crossovers on the rail tracks and the like. As I think you know I actually worked on the DLR and I am aware that there are many piles under that area.

  20837. Chairman: You were the engineer on that?
  (Mr Berryman): Actually on that one, sir, I was not the engineer. I was the engineer on the extension eastwards from there.

  20838. Ms Lieven: One issue on which perhaps we can put the Marriott at rest a little bit is odour from the silt and the works in the dock. Can you explain to what degree there is likely to be an odour problem and the relevance of this letter?[31]

  (Mr Berryman): Yes. Canary Wharf Group, who are the big land owners in the area, have on a number of occasions drained the bottom of the dock usually by putting a cofferdam around it first and then pumping the water out, and they have told us on several occasions that they have not experienced odour problems, and I think that is probably the best guide that we have here. We have not been able to identify a scientific way of knowing whether there will be odour problems but experience tells us that there will not be any problems with that.

  20839. Ms Lieven: Thank you very much, Mr Berryman. That is all.


29   Committee Ref: A238, London Marriott West India Quay Hotel (TOWHLB-AP3-8-05-005). Back

30   Committee Ref: A239, Isle of Dogs Stations Site Plan (Scenario 2) (LONDLB-AP3-11-04-003). Back

31   Crossrail Ref: P152, Correspondence from Canary Wharf Group plc to CLRL, Crossrail Isle of Dogs Station-Odour Issues, 16 February 2007 (TOWHLB-AP3-8-04-007). Back


 
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