Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 21300 - 21319)

  21300. Chairman: He is already on the record.

  21301. Mr Levaggi: His CV is at tab one of the bundle.

  21302. Chairman: For the benefit of the record, it has already been listed as AP3.

  21303. Mr Levaggi: Mr Winbourne, could you turn to tab three of the bundle?[13]

  (Mr Winbourne) Yes.

  21304. You prepared this document, did you not, headed "Revised planning balance sheet"?
  (Mr Winbourne) That is right.

  21305. Mr Winbourne, this relates to AP3?
  (Mr Winbourne) Yes.

  21306. Item one is headed "Paddington Crossrail Station AP3". What is your opinion of the current proposal for the Paddington Crossrail Station and the amendments AP3?
  (Mr Winbourne) They are cutting down it seems, as far as I can see, to an island platform for economy and ten coach trains only. I see no reason for that. Twelve coach trains is the norm that Network Rail and everybody want to run to. I cannot see any reason why we cannot have 12 coach trains stations on Crossrail, whatever the final answer may be.

  21307. You say that the station costing guide says it is £400 million?
  (Mr Winbourne) That is very rough. I have not been given any exact figures, if you want to be pejorative, you could say I plucked them out of the air, they are the sorts of figures, I have discussed this with Michael Schabas who has been a witness before, he is a railway construction man and that is the sort of cost of these Crossrail stations with the twin tunnels and so on, they are very expensive items. This one happens to be a cut-and-cover but it is under Paddington and under Eastbourne Terrace where there is a considerable disruption of the services and the roads in a major road.

  21308. As it currently stands following AP3, do you think this proposal is cost-effective?
  (Mr Winbourne) No.

  21309. Why not?
  (Mr Winbourne) You still have Paddington Station entrances, this is where you are putting the Crossrail platform, Paddington Station stays where it is. Where I would put the Crossrail platforms under the basin, the cost would be halved.

  21310. You are saying, are you, that the AP3 amendments are not the most cost-effective?
  (Mr Winbourne) They are not. May I say the proposal that I made for putting the station under Paddington basin is not unlike their own proposal at the Isle of Dogs where they are proposing to drain a basin, put a station in and put the water back afterwards.

  21311. What do you mean by the Paddington basin suggestion?
  (Mr Winbourne) Paddington basin is big enough to take one and a half times the size of City Thameslink Station which is the only 12 coach station in London underground or appearing to be underground. In effect, it was a cut-and-cover job where the viaduct was knocked down, it was rebuilt, it needs looking at, it has two tracks in the middle with platforms either side which is what you can achieve or build up from the ground basis. If you simply go to an A-Z and look at the size of that station, you can fit it in a Paddington basin one and a half times.

  21312. This is cheaper than AP3?
  (Mr Winbourne) Undoubtedly. Generally speaking it has to be because there are no services or anything in Paddington basin, you are simply draining it, putting in a station and putting the water back, there are no services, not like Eastbourne Terrace.

  21313. What about disruption caused?
  (Mr Winbourne) I would say there has been very little. There would be some effect on the buildings around Paddington basin. There may possibly have to be some compensation, I doubt very much, it is not as serious as what they are proposing.

  21314. Mr Winbourne, the second item on your revised planning balance sheet is headed "Paddington to Bond Street via Crossrail"?
  (Mr Winbourne) Before you go on to that can I say that I mentioned four possible options at Paddington all of which would be less intrusive in my opinion. The Paddington basin one is my preferred option, there are a couple more and there is even a possibility which would be similar to this which would be to go under Edgware Road itself. Obviously that would be disruptive to services and so on.

  21315. For clarity, how does this relate to AP3?
  (Mr Winbourne) It is simply the case that their Crossrail station at AP3 is a bad buy in itself and also it creates the need for more disruptive tunnelling to get onto the next station that need not apply otherwise.

  21316. Are there any additional points that you wish to make about the second item, "Paddington to Bond Street via Crossrail"?
  (Mr Winbourne) It is very simple. They never asked me when I said there was an alternative alignment, they simply went and did their own thing. I say you go from Paddington to Bond Street largely under Edgware Road, there is nothing under there, no tubes or anything that is of significance and it is even possible to consider at a lower cost because the tunnelling is very expensive with these huge twin tunnels. Edgware Road is wide enough to consider cut-and-cover. Cut-and-cover would mean that it would cost about a third the moment you do that. London Underground is proposing big cut-and-cover to dig up Marylebone Road again to re-do the Circle line.

  21317. Mr Winbourne, for clarity when you say they propose, this relates to the Hybrid Bill as amended as the proposal is under AP3, that is correct, is it not?
  (Mr Winbourne) The difficulty that one has is AP3 is based on the original thing and I am saying that the alignment is the stations, the station entrances are not altering to any great degree, whether they be at Bond Street, or they be at Paddington. I am saying, and I hope the Committee will not think I am taking any liberties because I hope this is terribly important, not only do you cut the cost enormously, especially if you can do cut-and-cover, it goes down exponentially, it also means that you do not disrupt that whole area where there are huge numbers of listed buildings and so on. It is the easy route and it is the route that would have been chosen traditionally in London for the tubes or anything.

  21318. Mr Winbourne, can we deal with your third heading, "Bond Street Crossrail Station"?
  (Mr Winbourne) Yes, it is important to Mayfair.

  21319. What do you think of the proposed amendments to the works at Bond Street?
  (Mr Winbourne) They are extremely expensive, they are caused by predictable overcrowding as a result of the Jubilee Line Extension to the east which should have been addressed ages ago and that has compelled them to look north of Oxford Street, extremely expensively, to knock down, for example, additional buildings. They propose to knock down in all four or five buildings, the most expensive of which they spot-value themselves, it is the one in this consultation document. They put £50 million on that building alone which is on the north side of Oxford Street in the most expensive prime retail patch in Europe, a little to the east of Selfridges. They are proposing to knock that down, I think they have selected it because of prejudice against the 1960s type of building and also its location obviously, the fact is that it is completely unnecessary in my opinion. If you keep your station at Bond Street, you simply put the Crossrail platforms not under Mayfair, but under the north side of Oxford Street. Same station, yes, of course, there will be additional entrances, but there will be with their scheme too.


13   Committee Ref: A230, Revised `Planning Balance Sheet' covering broad brush comparisons between Crossrail and CNIR to include engineering costs, environmental, valuation, compensation and disturbance issues following AP3 (WESTCC-AP3-27-05-045). Back


 
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