Examination of Witnesses (Questions 21100
- 21119)
21100. Mr Whale: He has been sworn before,
I do not think he needs to be re-sworn.
21101. Chairman: No, we remember.
21102. Mr Whale: The swearing itself!
The transcript of the suspended hearing records Mr Schabas' expertise.
That in itself was not the first time he appeared but the Committee
still wanted him to go over that again. Would you like him to
do that again?
21103. Chairman: No.
21104. Mr Whale: Mr Schabas, do you have
a bundle? Yes, you do. If Members could please go into the bundle
that has been supplied by the Association this evening, you should
find in there an advice dated 29 January 2007 written by Richard
Harwood of counsel.[14]
It is paragraph ten of that advice where the conclusion is reached
that: "The Environmental Statements and its supplements are
therefore deficient in failing to explain the main alternatives
considered and providing insufficient comparison of the Crossrail
proposal with the alternative they describe to understand what
their reasoning is and to evaluate its correctness." Mr Schabas,
you are not a lawyer but you are an expert, do you have any comment
or observation or any evidence on the Environmental Statement
and its adequacy?
(Mr Schabas) Yes. I have to be
careful, I do not want to say what I am not supposed to say. Having
read the Environmental Statement, to me everything in it and everything
subsequent to it continues to be deficient in methodology. There
is no systematic analysis of alternatives. There is no attempt
to trade-off costs between different alternatives and where costs
cannot be estimated use pairwise comparisons, which is a methodology
that we used on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and on other projects
I have been involved in. I do not see tables listing the alternatives
and listing the trade-offs between the choices. I do not see an
effort made to identify whether there really are fatal flaws.
Frankly, I do not see an effort by the Promoter to try very hard
to come up with alternatives that might work. That is just lacking
through everything I see. It is the easiest thing in the world
to say something is wrong with one route or another, there is
no such thing as a perfect route, and the analysis—I can
go into more detail—shows a clear bias to trying to always
justify the route that they have previously picked. The alternatives
analysis has been done after the fact to justify their choice.
21105. Can I now invite you and the Committee
to go to the plan I mentioned earlier this evening.[15]
It is plan A00/4 revision A. There is a full-size colour plan.
As I have explained, this plan was disclosed to the Association
I represent on 24 January this year. Mr Schabas, my question for
you is what if any are the implications of this plan and its disclosure?
(Mr Schabas) Okay. This shows
that there was briefly a consideration of alternative routes between
Liverpool Street and Whitechapel, either of which, I think, complies
with the Second Reading direction. The Whitechapel Station they
have got is not directly under the existing Whitechapel Station
but it connects with it. Alternative B also connects with Whitechapel
Station very correctly. Alternative B clearly is a better alignment
in railway operational terms. It may or may not be more difficult
and more expensive in terms of construction and environmental
impacts. This drawing was withheld, I believe, and has only now
been released and I do not see any supporting analysis of any
detail. There is, I believe, a one page note with a few, "Well,
it's not so good for this" and "it might not be so good
for that", sort of thing. I have seen no analysis to show
that they seriously looked at alternative B and I think they should
have and they should have then; I do not know why they did not
actually.
21106. Do you know if the routes on this map
are the same routes as were subsequently considered as alternatives?
(Mr Schabas) No. In 2004 just before the Hybrid
Bill went in they commissioned Mott MacDonald to do a more detailed
analysis. I can only speculate but I think somebody thought, "We
need something more substantial to show that we have done our
homework". Having gone through this report, which is dated
21 June 2004, it has the same flaws although in greater length
as the previous analysis, it is not systematic, there is no real
attempt to quantify most of the impacts, it is bias and prejudiced.
I would like to go through some of the points in it and explain,
if I can.
21107. Can I just stop you there because you
have prepared, and everyone here should have received, an analysis.
You referred earlier to a table and you have effectively done
a table with on the left-hand side—Sir, it looks like that.[16]
(Mr Schabas) Yes. This is not
what they should have done. The table that they should have done
would have had many more columns and rows and real numbers in
there, and obviously I am not equipped to produce that.
21108. Before you get into the detail can you
first of all explain to the Chairman and honourable Members what
this document is, when did you produce it and what is its purpose.
(Mr Schabas) I produced it this afternoon.
21109. Mr Elvin: Sir, I have not seen
this.
(Mr Schabas) The left-hand side is actually
straight out of the text of the—
21110. Chairman: I have just been reminded
that both sides can make mistakes.
21111. Mr Whale: Sir, if I may, there
was in fact no mistake on our side. It was sent to Mr Walker this
afternoon.
21112. Chairman: Mr Elvin said he has
not seen it. It is normal to see documents a little in advance
of the afternoon. I apologise for it being even later than that.
It is usually more than 24 hours before.
(Mr Schabas) I apologise for not doing it sooner.
21113. Chairman: I am responding to Mr
Elvin's protestation that he was not aware of it.
21114. Mr Whale: I honestly do not know
why Mr Walker did not pass it on. The timing of it was today.
21115. Chairman: Can I just say we have
dealt with it now.
21116. Mr Whale: Mr Schabas, please tell
the Committee what this document's purpose is?
(Mr Schabas) I just thought it would be easier
to understand the points with a note for people to understand
because there are quite a few. In the Mott MacDonald report for
the base scheme, which is the Crossrail Bill scheme, they identify
11 bullet points which are called advantages and three which are
called disadvantages. On Option D, which misses Spitalfields entirely,
does not go through or under a listed area, historic preservation
area, in the same way. It goes under a developed area, you cannot
go from Whitechapel to Liverpool Street without going under something,
but Option D is identified as having only one advantage and ten
disadvantages, which is very impressive if you are counting advantages
and disadvantages. This is a pretty superficial way to make choices
and you would like to think there was some more analysis behind
that. When you just read the words behind these bullet points
it gets even more disturbing. The first point CLRL cite for why
they prefer their scheme is that: "The shaft is located within
a position that is favourable in terms of railway alignment and
journey times, intervention and ventilation requirement."
To me that is a general and meaningless statement that could be
applied to any option actually. It is not factual evidence, it
is not specific as to why it is a better or worse one. They could
put that down as an advantage or a disadvantage on any line. I
guess you could say a railway through the Sahara Desert on a nice
flat plain is probably more advantageous for operation and ventilation.
Most of the next points are points basically saying, "We
have worked hard on this and we have done our best to make it
as good as we can", and, again, it is not surprising given
this is the one they have been working on for the better part
of a decade. Any of these reasons could apply to any of the options
as well, we just do not know. It says it has been designed to
construct it wholly within London Clay and to avoid aquifers.
We do not know whether any of the others do or do not do the same,
and there should be a table and a matrix with at least a "yes"
or a "no". The third one is that it is well suited for
a construction adit to the Pedley Street shaft. I know that is
a legal and technical issue but it seems to me being near the
Pedley Street shaft is not important any more, so that is one
less so-called advantage of this scheme. The fourth is that it
has been developed to minimise impact on the buildings on Princelet
Street and Hanbury Street. That is hardly an advantage of this
scheme, the other routes do not go under Princelet and Hanbury
Street so they avoid it entirely. It is a bit like saying, "I
didn't shoot your mother last week". It does not require
demolition of buildings 61-67 Princelet Street; again, none of
the other options do that, so it is a kind of negative thing.
The base scheme has no major conflicts with known building foundations.
There are two important qualifiers: no major conflicts, we would
like to know what a minor one is; and no known building foundations,
and again I think they are accepting they do not know. Again,
they do not provide this for all of the other options, they do
not know for any of them. They know that some have got likely
conflicts but they have not quantified that. "The shaft head
building has been designed to accommodate over site development",
again that applies to all of the options, they can all have the
shaft head building designed to have over site development. No
road closures required, again none of the other options require
road closures that I am aware of. That ground borne noise and
vibration is minimised due to increased depth, again these are
enhancements to the scheme but basically everything they cite
as an advantage frankly is not an advantage. There are no advantages
that they have cited here to this scheme that could not equally
apply to the other options. In terms of disadvantages they correctly
state that it goes under Grade I and Grade II listed buildings,
which seems to me to be actually quite important, and buildings
68-80 Hanbury Street will be demolished, which is pretty serious.
This is one of the largest environmental historical impacts on
the route. There is no mention in the disadvantages of the speed
restricting curve coming out of Liverpool Street which to me is
actually quite an important disadvantage looking at the drawing,
and I will come back to that. They turned it around on Option
D. Option D is a different one from this map that was shown, but
it is one that does go south from Liverpool Street and swings
around and goes into Whitechapel Station on the Bill alignment.
They cite as one of the advantages of Option D that it avoids
the tight alignment at the eastern end of Liverpool Street but
then goes on to say that: "..this will not reduce the journey
time as the affected length is within the deceleration zones into
and out of the station." I have not seen any calculations
and I have not done any calculations, but I suspect that statement
is not true. Crossrail trains are very long, they are ten and
eventually will be 12 cars long. One of the problems with designing
a railway is the front and the back of the trains have to go at
the same speed and that means when you go through a speed restricting,
curve, and this is a speed restricting curve, you cannot speed
up above the maximum speed of that curve until the entire train
is off that curve. So although having the curve near a station
is less bad than having it in the middle, midway between stations,
it is still not a good thing to have a sharp curve like that.
21117. Chairman: Can you remind me how
this applies to AP3 provisions?
(Mr Schabas): Yes, because AP3 relates to the
shaft at Hanbury Street and the alignment through Hanbury Street,
I believe, and the argument they have used for why that is the
preferred route specifically is the alternative analysis they
have chosen, and why they picked that route, and I go through
these reasons and I say the whole methodology is grossly inadequate.
The other barrister who was here last time, Ms Lieven, put it
quite well actually in shooting down one of the other Petitioners.
She said you have to systematically and carefully look at all
these alternatives, and that to me is exactly what has not been
done in going through these points, and when I read this not only
has it not been done but it is laughable. The analysis is so inadequate
for a scheme of this size. Maybe if you are doing a garden shed,
yes, but you are not supposed to do it this way. You are supposed
to go through them systematically and have a matrix and a table
and try to assign costs to these, and to say that it has no impact
on journey times in this case is nonsense. It almost certainly
will have an impact on journey times and on operational costs,
and they should have calculated that and that should be in the
table added up. Instead they go on and refer to the difficulties
of the shaft at Pedley Street and give ten disadvantages, and
I think three or four of them relate specifically to Pedley Street.
Number 4, additional length of tunnel added to Pedley Street;
number 5, increase in quantity of spoil; number 6, increase in
spoil from the tunnelling operations, and they total £620,000
and £450,000. I am not sure if the person who wrote that
had a sense of humour but in a project the size of Crossrail those
numbers are not usually decisive in the choice of an alignment.
You can get a flat probably in Hanbury Street for that if you
are lucky now, but they are using Pedley Street as the justification
for this alignment, and, again, I would like to see the table
putting out the matrix saying that if you still had the shaft,
and it is not relevant now because you do not have the shaft but
the analysis should be weighing off the additional costs of a
longer shaft, if you had to have it, against the cost and the
operational implications of the curve at Liverpool Street. If
you do option D you avoid that curve near Liverpool Street station.
You have other impacts; you go near and under the foundations
of some buildings and there will be costs associated with that,
but they do not tell us those, they do not try to weigh them out,
and there is no evidence that they have actually done any evaluation.
The whole approach is, I have suggested before, not to look at
alternatives and that is evident here.
21118. Mr Whale: And what about the route
map and the Supplementary Environmental Statement? Is that an
approach that is different there, or is the same kind of approach
repeated?
(Mr Schabas): Reading this, and it is half
a page—
21119. Just tell the Committee what you are
looking at.
(Mr Schabas): I am looking at the Supplemental
Environmental Statement, SES3, page 43, 3.5.9 through 3.5.12.[17]
It is four paragraphs and maybe I misread it but I thought that
it said that the Promoter did say they would undertake to look
at the relative merits of a tunnel alignment south of Hanbury
Street. On the map that is attached they have not looked at the
alignment B we spoke about before to Whitechapel but only looked
at an alignment that swings down and then back into the existing
Whitechapel station, so they have first of all constrained themselves.[18]
That may be fair enough in that they do not want to unstick the
whole alignment; they are trying to get on the right angle to
go into Whitechapel station that is in the Bill and not change
that. They do not mention that they did that and they probably
should have. They constrained themselves. Maybe they were not
aware of it or maybe they did not want to mention it. They then
say, "Of course you cannot really closely follow roads because
you would not be able to stay within Crossrail design standards".
That is true but previously they have admitted that the scheme
they have does not follow Crossrail design standards. The curve
into Liverpool Street is substandard. They then say that if they
do something with a minimum radius of curvature there is an increase
in the degree to which it passes between relatively modern buildings
with deep foundations --
14 Committee Ref: A243, Correspondence from Woodseer
and Hanbury Residents Association to the Chairman, 29 January
2007 (SCN-20070320-013). Back
15
Committee Ref: A243, Liverpool Street to Burdett Road-Alignment
Options A, B and C (A and B under Ansell House) (SCN-20070320-014). Back
16
Committee Ref: A243, Michael Schabas Evidence to Crossrail Bill
AP3-Alignment comparison from CLRL technical note 1D0300-C1N00-00805
prepared by Mott MacDonald, 21 June 2004 (SCN-20070320-015). Back
17
Crossrail Supplementary Environmental Statement 3, Southern Alignments,
billdocuments.crossrail.co.uk (LINEWD-SES303-029). Back
18
Committee Ref: A243, Liverpool Street to Burdett Road-Alignment
Options A, B and C (A and B under Ansell House) (SCN-20070320-014). Back
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