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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