UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 235-xv

HOUSE OF COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

taken before the

COMMITTEE

on the

CROSSRAIL BILL

Wednesday 14 March 2007

Before:

Mr Alan Meale (in the Chair)

Mr Brian Binley

Kelvin Hopkins

Mrs Siān C James

 

In the temporary absence of the Chairman, Mr Binley was called to the Chair

Ordered: That Counsel and Parties be called in.

The Petition of Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association.

LADY MARGOT BRIGHT appeared on behalf of the Petitioners.

 

20587. MR BINLEY: Can I, as usual, inform the Committee that it is my intention to suspend at a convenient point so that members can attend Prime Minister's Question Time and that point will come after 11.45.

20588. Can I now ask, Ms Lieven, if you would open on behalf of the Promoters and explain a little of the case we are dealing with today.

20589. MS LIEVEN: Certainly, sir, and I will do so very quickly, if I may, because the first Petitioners this morning are the Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association and the Committee may remember that we have heard these Petitioners before, on Day 45A, which was the evening of Tuesday 27 June last year. In case the Committee do not have a perfect recollection, both, sir, yourself and Mr Hopkins were present that evening, although Mrs James, I note from the record, was not present, so this will be new to her, so I am only going to open extremely briefly.

20590. This concerns the section of the route just to the west of Paddington Station. If you look at the photograph, Paddington Station is just over here (indicating) and Westbourne Park is to the south and they are the residents' properties along the line and, to orientate ourselves, this is the main line coming out of Paddington going west. This is the West Way, the A40, and just to the west, to the left of this photograph is the existing concrete batching plant which, the Committee will remember, is being reconfigured under our proposals.

20591. Sir, given that the Committee heard not just the Petitioners last June, but also both engineering evidence from Mr Walters on that occasion and noise evidence from Mr Thornley-Taylor, I do hope we might be able to keep that evidence short to non-existent today, though we will obviously have to see how the matter goes. There are two issues, as I understand it, which the Petitioners are going to raise this morning.

20592. The first is noise. Now, sir, that was dealt with, I would suggest, in its entirety last year when we called Mr Thornley-Taylor and, in essence, the points are that this is already an extremely busy and noisy railway and the Petitioners' argument is that there should be an acoustic barrier to the south side of the railway. Mr Thornley-Taylor will explain to you why that is not needed by Crossrail and why it would be difficult to make it in any sense efficacious and why it is really not an issue for Crossrail at all, but that is all evidence which he has given already, so we will see whether or not we need to call it again.

20593. The second issue is a different one. The Committee may remember that across the railway here (indicating) there is a footbridge, the Westbourne Park footbridge, which goes from Westbourne Park on the south side and across the railway and, to the north of the West Way, Westminster Council are building a new school, the Westminster Academy, so the footbridge plays quite an important role in bringing students to the Academy. After the Committee's interim decision last July, Crossrail have agreed to make the south side of that footbridge DDA compliant, and Mr Berryman will explain how we are going to do that.

20594. I understand that the Residents' Association, and Lady Bright in particular, have two concerns about the footbridge. The first is that they would perhaps like a slightly different design on the ramp for disabled access. Sir, as Mr Berryman will explain, although the position of the ramp is set by the limits of deviation, if there are arguments for a slightly different design, that is something we will discuss with Westminster and the residents and reach hopefully the best solution, so that is not fixed. The other issue is that the residents appear to want us to rebuild the entire footbridge and, sir, Mr Berryman will explain to you why that is neither necessary nor appropriate.

20595. Sir, that was all I was intending to say at this stage, unless there are any other matters which the Committee would like clarification of now.

20596. MR BINLEY: No, I think not, Ms Lieven. Thank you for opening in that manner. Can I now ask you, Lady Bright, if you would be kind enough to put the case of the Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association to the Committee.

20597. LADY BRIGHT: Certainly. I have lived in Westbourne Park Villas since 1983 and I have here two other residents who have lived there for rather longer, one of whom I would like to call as a witness on the noise in connection with the noise barriers and the other is here if you would like to ask any questions. I am the member of the Association to whom it has fallen to deal with the issue of Crossrail.

20598. You have heard Ms Lieven point out to you where the street runs. If you ever travel into Paddington by train, you would know it and some of you have actually been on a site visit there. If we could show the wall running alongside, the wall that you can see the corner of there (indicating), which is where the footbridge will go, runs opposite the houses alongside the railway. There are a few houses just on this side where you can see the wall left over from the original street, but the others were all knocked down to widen the railway years ago, so that is what we are going to be talking about where the bridge starts, and you will probably recognise those houses from views from the train.

20599. I do have a bit of a complaint and a plea to make before I go into talking about the bridge, if I may.

20600. MR BINLEY: A complaint, Lady Bridge?

20601. LADY BRIGHT: Well, yes, because new drawings arrived from Crossrail yesterday afternoon, just when my printer broke down, showing two revised drawings for the 350-metre sidings which, under AP3, are going to be put in purely to serve the contentious concrete plant which you heard about the last time we saw you back on 27 June. They came with a very clear health warning from Crossrail. They simply said, "Well, these are just indicative drawings, you do realise". In other words, I was getting the strongest implication that these drawings were perfectly meaningless. They were designed to solve some of our problems which are to do with the route of the freight trains which at present runs right down to the end of the Villas to Royal Oak and then runs back, so it wakes up the whole of the Villas, even though the concrete batching plant is actually further over, so that is why we are annoyed. However, we were told that these drawings were only indicative and, "It won't be us that does it" basically, and the same with the bridge, "It won't be us that does it", so you asked, the Committee asked, to have the bridge replaced, which sounds to me like replacing the bridge. It does not sound to me like simply putting a north bit and a south bit and doing nothing about the middle, which is not compliant with disability regulations.

20602. Here we are again and the plea, because of this complaint really, is this: that the problem is that Crossrail can get Bill consent on the basis of sketches like the ones that they produced yesterday afternoon, just whimsical drawings, vague things which may or may not get built, and which may not even resemble what we have been shown once the detailed work has been done by somebody else. For the first time they were absolutely clear yesterday that they will not be doing this work. The assumption is that the nominated undertaker will be Network Rail, but it is only an assumption and I am told that it will not actually happen until after the Bill has received Royal Assent, so whom do we talk to? Crossrail are telling us, "We don't do pedestrian bridges. We are tunnellers. Somebody else is going to do that. Anyway, it is Network Rail's bridge", but does it not look to you a bit like a democratic deficit here if the nominated undertaker is Network Rail and it is only decided after Royal Assent? You will hear from Mrs Hessenberg actually about how difficult it is to deal with Network Rail on the existing sources of the noise, the existing railway, which you talked to us a lot about last time and you were very helpful about and you said we should pressurise Network Rail. Well, we tried, but, as Mrs Hessenberg will tell you, they do not listen to a word.

20603. Now, on Crossrail, which includes so many Network Rail installations and where Network Rail is likely to be the undertaker at the point where the trains emerge from the new tunnels at the portal at Royal Oak, Network Rail explicitly will not talk to us. We have tried at several levels to get some conversation going and they have said, "No, it's not appropriate until after the Bill has been through committee".

20604. Therefore, the plea really is that you an help us to arrive at some sort of undertaking which will enable us to be consulted and our concerns to be kept in the frame whoever is dealing with these issues.. Can you perhaps simply support the precept that Westbourne Park Villas residents' concerns, which, I should say, are not just ours, but we represent the whole of the Conservation Area to the south and, as you will hear in discussion about the bridge, the area to the north that uses that bridge from the other side, a bridge between communities, if you like, so support the precept that our concerns will be taken into account by the contractor, the nominated undertaker and the Promoter of any works relating to the Crossrail Bill at all stages from here. I do not know whether that can be phrased in a more legally correct way.

20605. MR BINLEY: We have certainly noted that and we will consider your plea of course.

20606. LADY BRIGHT: If that is something we can achieve, then perhaps we need not take so much time.

20607. MS LIEVEN: I do not know if it is helpful to say, sir, but all those bodies, the contractor, the nominated undertaker and, if the nominated undertaker was Network Rail, then Network Rail, they will all be bound by the undertakings that the Secretary of State gives to this House, so any obligation on the Secretary of State is necessarily in law passed on to those other people, so I hope that gives at least some comfort. Because the Secretary of State is not going to go out and dig and Mr Berryman is not going to go out and dig makes no odds in legal terms; all those other parties will be bound to exactly the same extent.

20608. MR BINLEY: I think I am right in saying that we can specifically ask for that in our report if we decide that to be necessary.

20609. LADY BRIGHT: If the undertaker is not nominated until after Royal Assent, is that not going to cause a few problems?

20610. MR BINLEY: I feel that my learned support will help us in that!

20611. LADY BRIGHT: Good. Well, I have pointed it out and that is the best I can do. I would just like to give you an example which I hope we do not have to go into too much detail on today, which is these new sidings and the concrete plant. As you will recall, we do not want the concrete plant and we think it should go down to Old Oak Common where, in the AP3 proposals, Crossrail has its own concrete plant, so, if it is good enough for Crossrail to have a concrete plant there and it is rail-served and it is only two kilometres down the track, we see no reason whatsoever why the existing concrete plant, the Tarmac plant, instead of having a postage stamp of a temporary plant squeezed on to that site, should not go straight to Old Oak Common and be built as an all-singing, all-dancing modern plant of the size that they need.

20612. In this proposal, the sidings and the reversing facility, which is tucked in there as well, we have heard frankly from Crossrail that there have been a few design problems. There is not room basically, as we said there would not be, on that site, so we know they may not implement these plans as we have them, but it does not matter whether it is done by Network Rail or somebody else, obviously that is not our business, but what is very much our business is the standard to which it is done and how much our concerns are taken into account in the doing of it.

20613. We are not trying to stop this railway; we are just trying to make it liveable and our real fear, and I am going to spell this out and you can tell me I am wrong if you like, but it is a fear, is that we will not get the chance really to try, and I take what you have said about noting that undertaking and thank you. Does the Committee realise that, even though Crossrail is billed as the biggest new urban rail project for 100 years, Network Rail just may try to get away with saying that this bit, the bit that runs along the street, the bit where we live, is not a new railway at all? It is, we think, the most exposed site along the whole of the Crossrail route and it has umpteen work sites, so it is going to mean four-plus years of absolute misery for everybody while that is happening, but thereafter we should end up with a new railway, or will we? It may not be classified that way because it is just possible that they will say that Crossrail's bit ends at the portal and where the new ramp is and that the railway line running down towards Westbourne Park from that point is just the old railway, the relief lines. This may sound implausible, but they have done it before. They may well just say, "Oh, we're just dusting off the old track and moving it a bit, so it is not a new railway", move it over a bit with maybe a bit of new ballast and that will be it. They will say, "It's just the operational railway", and, as you know and we know from experience, the operational railway has a lot of power to do what it likes and listen to nobody.

20614. It ought to sound implausible, but our experience with Heathrow Express, which I would like to bring in here because it was not all that long ago, 12 years ago, makes us wary. It was Network Rail's predecessor or possibly pre-predecessor, I forget, but that was another new railway which turned out not to be just along our stretch. It was a new railway which started at Paddington, it was a new railway going out to Heathrow, but not where we are. It is right under that wall. At the time, the British Airports Authority, which were the co-Promoter in that case just as you have Crossrail, the Secretary of State and TfL here, were expecting, and were fully prepared, to offer the same modern comforts on our stretch of the line as elsewhere. They completely saw that they would be needed, noise mitigation and so on, continuous welded rail, hardly a major innovation in 1994, but oh no, British Rail would not do that, or Network Rail or Railtrack or whoever it was. They said, "It's running along existing track, it is not a new railway, so we don't have to do any of that. We don't have to consult residents and we won't allow BAA to do so either".

20615. They then told us that we would not hear their quiet, modern trains at all, just as Crossrail are telling us that we will not hear their quiet, modern trains at all. We may even find ourselves in problems with continuously welded rail because there may be points there which cause a problem, I do not know, but with Crossrail trains there are going to be 48 an hour, 24 in each direction, and they will cross, they will pass each other, so that will create additional noise which has not been allowed for. There is also a reversing facility, so how many trains are we going to have whizzing past all the time? I find it completely implausible, because the silent train has not yet been invented, that we would not be troubled by the noise from these trains and we submit that not enough work has been done on noise projections to give us any idea whether they will and to what extent they will affect us.

20616. We are worried, as you can see, and I do believe that it is possible for Network Rail to try to claim that and we do ask for help in ensuring that that does not happen. Thank you. Perhaps I could now call Mr Kelly.

 

MR MICHAEL KELLY, sworn

Examined by LADY BRIGHT

 

20617. MR BINLEY: Could I ask that the portfolio of photographs be designated A236. Mr Kelly, perhaps you could introduce yourself.

(Mr Kelly) Good morning. My name is Mike Kelly and I am a resident on the north side of this bridge. However, I wear several caps here today. I am a board member on my local area regeneration project, I am the former Chair of the Residents' Association and am currently the secretary of that same Residents' Association, I am a board member with Stadium Housing Association which is a registered social landlord, and I am also a member of our local Civic Watch team, so I come with various expertise in various areas, but my specific interest today is the disability issues with regard to the bridge and, from that side, I am an affiliate with two organisations, one called Action for Better Access, which is based in the north of England, and in Westminster I am an affiliate of the Westminster Action Network on Disability. I have been asked to comment on access issues with regard to the bridge and with personal experiences as a resident living in the area for now 40-odd years.

20618. MR BINLEY: You are a very busy chap, but we are pleased to see you.

20619. LADY BRIGHT: We feel that you tick all our boxes! I believe it is right that you have family on both sides of the bridge.

(Mr Kelly) I do. I have family members on both the north side and the south side of the bridge.

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. You can see it is a sort of tin box with various steep steps and there is the corner of the wall. Next one, please. That is the structure, seen from the outside. 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. 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. 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 pointblank 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 a 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. 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. 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.

20640. MR BINLEY: You are a man of many talents, Mr Kelly.

(Mr Kelly) Thank you.

20641. LADY BRIGHT: Shall we show them slide 013, which is how not to do it. You see that extension, they spent a lot of money doing a nice long bridge and then how come they put that extension right in the middle of the bridge? Do you think you could get past that? It would be a squeeze?

(Mr Kelly) It would be a squeeze.

20642. It is how to ruin it and the point about our insisting that they stick to inclusive mobility is all these things are tried and tested, you do not have to make it up as you go along, and we propose a disability audit by Mike's organisation to check that it is right.

(Mr Kelly) If I could close with one final statement. The one thing I would like to see coming out of this is that consultation exists both with residents on the north side and the south side, that is quite important because although Lady Bright is here specifically for the north side, it does have an impact on the south side. The consultation on the south side has been more extensive than the consultation on the north side, so I think that needs to be addressed. With regard to the bridge, I would also like to see a regulator, somebody to take responsibility for the bridge itself, and the reason I suggest that is I have been involved as part of my work in Stadium in lots of broader projects where we have consortia and we generally find if you have a regulator who deals with the issue and re-charges to other organisations that you get a much better result.

20643. MR BINLEY: Thank you very much. Ms Lieven?

 

Cross-examined by MS LIEVEN

20644. MS LIEVEN: Can I ask a few questions, sir, really for clarification. Mr Kelly, first of all, as far as details of the ramp, the light, the canopy, raised sodium lighting, perspex are concerned, all of those matters will be subject to detailed design stage and approval of Westminster Council, so I am not going to deal with them now, sir. They are all in Westminster's hands ultimately as to whether they approve what we are doing, the right kind of lighting and matters such as that. I hope I can put your mind at rest with one thing, Mr Kelly. As far as lighting is concerned, we are quite happy to light the bridge, I think the original proposal was to light the bridge we are widening, but we are quite happy to say to the Committee that we will light the whole bridge if neither Westminster nor the Academy will do it. I hope that at least makes you happier. Could we work out what is going on here. At the moment, as a wheelchair user, you cannot get across the bridge at all, is that right?

(Mr Kelly) Not at all.

20645. Under the Academy proposals the Academy is intending, and indeed may have already done so, to upgrade the north end of the bridge to provide full disability access, is that right?

(Mr Kelly) It is my understanding that they are in the process of doing that, it is not yet complete.

20646. They are going to do it. You have spoken about how many Academy students will use the bridge, they are likely to be the main users, and a significant proportion of them may be disabled in, or not, wheelchairs but as far as the Academy is concerned it has been sufficient, in their view, to make one end of the bridge DDA compliant but not the other end. Is that right?

(Mr Kelly) I think there are two issues here and one of them is to do with the very last issue I raised in my formal comments to do with the consortium. It has been very difficult to get agreement between all the bodies involved in what is going to be suitable for everybody and how that can best be achieved. The Academy is opening in September 2007 and, with that in mind, they have tried to progress the issues from their end as quickly as possible to insure that side of the bridge is compliant and is accessible by the time they propose to be able to use it. I understand similar agreements might have yet been reached on the other side because of the issues about the platform itself of the bridge and the access to the ramps on the other side.

20647. So, as far as the Academy is concerned, if you take Crossrail out of the equation and assume no Crossrail at all, you will have a situation where the north side of the bridge is DDA-compliant but disabled people cannot get off the south side of the bridge under the present proposals. Is that right?

(Mr Kelly) That is my understanding, but, as I say, these works have not yet been completed, so I cannot ----

20648. LADY BRIGHT: I think it is a bit unfair to ask Mr Kelly to answer that.

20649. MS LIEVEN: I am so sorry, sir, I thought he knew about ----

20650. LADY BRIGHT: He is not here to represent the Academy.

20651. MR BINLEY: Bear with me a little, ladies! It is perfectly correct for Ms Lieven to ask questions of that kind, and whilst they might not be overly helpful to what you are trying to say, that is the point of this Committee.

(Mr Kelly) Can I make a point of clarification, though, Chair? I have not actually had any direct consultations with the Academy in respect of that bridge.

20652. MR BINLEY: That is helpful. Thank you.

20653. MS LIEVEN: I am sorry, perhaps I slightly misunderstood Mr Kelly's role at the Academy. Let us move on to Crossrail. Crossrail is coming along and is now proposing to make the south side of the bridge fully DDA-compliant.

(Mr Kelly) Yes.

20654. So, assuming that Crossrail happens, as we all hope it will, and works go ahead, you will then be in a situation where as a wheelchair user you will be able to get on the bridge, get across the bridge and get off the other side.

(Mr Kelly) Yes.

20655. A major benefit over the existing situation.

(Mr Kelly) Yes.

20656. As far as this situation - is the bridge wide enough - is concerned, the bridge is, as I understand it, presently 1.8 metres along its width. Is that so? It sounds about right.

(Mr Kelly) It sounds about right. I have not been able to use the bridge. All I have been able to see is the drawings and pictures.

20657. LADY BRIGHT: It does go down to 1.6 at one point.

(Mr Kelly) It is my understanding, if we go back to one of those earlier pictures, that the curve that occurs at the far end of the overview of the platforms - it does narrow to 1600 at that point.

20658. MS LIEVEN: My instructions, and Mr Berryman will pull my gown vigorously if I have got it wrong, is that the entire span of the bridge ---- Can we just work on the 1.8 for the moment, even if there is a short stretch that is 1.6? As far as 1.8 is concerned, let us use, if we may, your wheelchair as a comparator. I guess your wheelchair is the right size to get through doorways, is that right?

(Mr Kelly) As a rule mine would not get through the average doorway. This is not an atypical wheelchair; the wheelbase of this particular wheelchair expands outwards. This is a (sports (?)) wheelchair, so it is slightly wider.

20659. The average wheelchair is about 700mm, I ascertained from the Department for Transport document. Is that right?

(Mr Kelly) It varies according to the weight and size of the users. They generally start at, I think, 700 and they go through to 950, at the top of the range.

20660. We can turn to the page if we need to, but according to the Department for Transport document the 95^th percentile of wheelchairs is slightly over 700mm, which means that, as I understand it, 95 per cent of wheelchairs are a little over 700mm or less. Assuming, let us say, a wheelchair of 800mm, to be generous, and remembering one has to have hands pushing, so you have to have space for hands as well, my understanding is that if you have wheelchairs of that dimension, 800mm, they are a bit above the 95^th percentile and a bridge of 1.8 metres - width of 1.8 metres - is wide enough to pass.

(Mr Kelly) I would argue that it probably is not, for several reasons, particularly with regard to this bridge. If we can go back to that picture, I know there are going to be proposals to change the boarding, but you have as part of DDA you would want to have railings along both sides of the bridge here. You have the encroachment - it is almost shown as a curve along the side there. Presumably there would be something like that, again, in any revised bridge, so you have got run-off from the bridge, and also, when you get to the end of this, there is a curvature in that bridge, so you need to allow a wider circle at that point for two wheelchairs to be able to bypass or pass each other in a curve. It is not a straight-over crossing.

20661. MRS JAMES: I am fully respectful of disabled access here but speaking as somebody who has had to organise disabled access and disadvantaged access at many different places, you have to take into consideration people with double-buggies; anybody pushing a double-buggy along there would certainly cause a problem, and anybody carrying large bags along there meeting somebody with a wheelchair - there are many, many different permutations rather than two wheelchairs meeting. Anybody on crutches would have a problem to manoeuvre around and certainly you are going to get other people, elderly people, and people with babies in prams, buggies, etc. So there is an advantage in having disabled access but it also has a wider advantage for the less able.

20662. MS LIEVEN: Absolutely, Madam. I was only using the two wheelchairs as a kind of aide memoir; I completely accept that is why London Underground call it "mobility impaired" rather than disabled, because there is a whole gamut of different kinds of users. I will just let the Committee know there are two points here: one is we are widening the part of the bridge we are rebuilding, and we are widening it to 2 metres. That is wholly DDA-compliant. So far as the other stretch of the bridge is concerned, it is acceptable in DDA terms because it is not 2 metres but it is 1.8, it is not far off and there is, in reality, enough room for users to pass with a small amount of flexibility, with one, perhaps, in exceptional circumstances, having to wait. The other point is, and it is an important one, albeit I accept not necessarily a wildly attractive one sometimes, that that bridge is nothing to do with Crossrail. It is going across Network Rail land, it is a Network Rail bridge and if the Academy do not feel the need to upgrade it for their purposes then Crossrail do say to the Committee it is not our responsibility. In the same way that we cannot go across London sorting out every transport problem we cannot go across the route sorting out every pedestrian accessibility problem. This is a bridge where we are doing, we would say, well beyond what is strictly a Crossrail issue, and if there is unacceptability about the remaining bridge, that is ultimately not our, I am afraid, responsibility. I will ask Mr Berryman to deal with that.

20663. MR BINLEY: The Committee did ask for this matter to be looked at and, of course, you have undertaken to do one part of the bridge. There is a concern about that, and we have a right to express that concern. That needs to be noted in response to what you have just said.

20664. MS LIEVEN: Of course. I think, Mr Kelly, those are all the questions, because the other issues I will ask Mr Berryman to deal with, and obviously noise is for Mr Thornley-Taylor. I am not going to ask any more questions on that. Thank you, Mr Kelly.

20665. MR BINLEY: Lady Bright, would you like to re-examine? You do not have to.

20666. LADY BRIGHT: I just briefly wanted to make a few points. I think it is terribly unfair to blame the Academy for not making arrangements on the south side of the bridge; it is nothing to do with them, it belongs to Network Rail and Network Rail will not let anybody touch it. Now Crossrail get - I do not know quite what it is, it is not a leasehold - whatever they get over this bridge because they are going to be ----

20667. MR BINLEY: Lady Bright, you will have the chance to sum-up at the end of this. The point at this moment is if you wish to re-examine Mr Kelly.

20668. LADY BRIGHT: It is not necessary. Thank you very much.

20669. MR BINLEY: Thank you. We are very grateful to you.

(Mr Kelly) Is it possible to make one point of clarification before I go?

20670. MR BINLEY: Yes, of course.

(Mr Kelly) With regard to the Academy's view on the bridge, my understanding is that the north side, which they are in the process of making DDA-compliant, does not satisfy them that the bridge itself will be DDA-complaint. One of the reasons that they continue to maintain that stance is because at this stage that appears to be as in the photograph (?).

20671. MR BINLEY: Thank you very much.

 

The witness withdrew

 

20672. MR BINLEY: Do you have any other witnesses, Lady Bright?

20673. LADY BRIGHT: Yes, not on the bridge, but on the noise issue.

 

MS NICKY HESSENBERG, sworn

Examined by LADY BRIGHT

 

20674. MR BINLEY: Make yourself comfortable and then tell the Committee your name and a little about yourself.

(Ms Hessenberg) Good morning. My name is Nicky Hessenberg. I have lived in Westbourne Park Villas as a resident for the last 42 years, and I am a member of the Westbourne Park Villas Residents' Association. I cannot really add any more to that.

20675. MR BINLEY: That is perfectly adequate, thank you.

20676. LADY BRIGHT: We thought it might be helpful to have Ms Hessenberg come along because of the freight sidings and the batching plant that you have heard about before. I will not go into that in any further detail because we have got such unreliable drawings, but I know Crossrail will. The Hessenbergs suffer, like the rest of us, the effect of this, but it works in a rather peculiar way. Would you like to explain how the noise of that freight train affects your house and the people in it?

(Ms Hessenberg) I live at number 60, which is about halfway down the street. My sister and brother-in-law live at number 58, so we have a bit of a rabbit warren, how it is joined up. My daughter and granddaughter sleep on the top floor of our house. Our houses are basement, ground floor and first floor. Our daughter and granddaughter live on our top floor. My husband and I sleep on the ground floor level on a bit which is joining numbers 58 and 60 together. So we are on the ground floor level on the south side of the house. My sister and brother-in-law in number 58 sleep on the south side on the top floor. So, again, it is a basement, ground floor and first floor building. My husband and I have very sleepful nights, quiet, overlooking the garden with just the blackbirds in the spring. My daughter, who sleeps on the south side of our house, on the top floor, and my sister and brother-in -law, who sleep on the south side first floor of their house, are shaken by freight trains that come and load and unload every night between the hours of 11 and one, or something like that. They say that they lie in bed and things shake on the shelves, literally shake - bottles, china, whatever - vibrate with the noise. But where we are, on the ground floor level, we hear very, very little - a few clanks sometimes, but we do not get the vibration. So the noise is obviously going up. We are protected by our wall, which you saw on the photograph, and I think where we are on the ground floor level we have greater protection than people who are living on higher levels. So the noise is going up.

20677. How often have you tried, over these 45 years, to get something done about it, or is it, perhaps, only the last few years that have been particularly difficult?

(Ms Hessenberg) The noise at night, we have had 'phone calls about. The noise that I have been particularly embattled with are the 125 trains which stop just outside our house during the day, waiting to get in and out of Paddington Station. In the old days when British Rail owned the tracks if we had a train sitting there waiting to be admitted you could ring them up in the duty office and someone would be sent down the line and the driver would be asked to turn his engine off, to stop the vibration. Plus you do get fumes; it is really unpleasant smoke going up. That we have battled on for the last 10, 12 or 15 years on a regular basis. I have got worries for my granddaughter, who is 18 months to two years (?), because I was extremely worried about the effluent coming off the train, and also about the effect it was having on our house because the vibration is really terrible. It is quite low level but it creeps up through the ground and you can feel it in the house, shaking. But since British Rail gave up, or were passed on, we have had absolutely no response at all; we have been passed from pillar to post, telephone call to telephone call; drivers are given instructions which they do not follow because, obviously, it takes time to start a train up, so it is much easier for them to leave their generator running. That is very unpleasant, and we dread the summer months because that is when the summer timetable comes in and that is when we get the 125s sitting on tracks during the afternoon, and sometimes in the morning as well, and the freight trains at night. So it makes for a fairly vibratory situation, let us say.

20678. You have your file of unanswered correspondence with Network Rail.

(Ms Hessenberg) It has been answered but it has always been deflected.

20679. The line is: "We always wish to be good neighbours". Silence. Sir, we wanted to raise these points just so that you could, if you wish, ask questions of Ms Hessenberg, just to hear that it is not me making it all up! I wanted to make a couple of points to see whether you agree. You mentioned the wall and how effective it is as a sound barrier. That, basically, is what it was built for. It is to hold up the railway embankment but it is there to protect the remaining houses on the street after they knocked those down on the other side. As I am sure Mr Thornley Taylor would agree, it works only at the lower level and only to a certain degree. That is why we wanted to go on to tell you something about noise.

20680. MS LIEVEN: I have no questions.

20681. MR BINLEY: Clearly, there is no need for you to re-examine, is there? Thank you very much, Mrs Hessenberg.

 

The witness withdrew

 

20682. MR BINLEY: Do we have any other witnesses to call?

20683. LADY BRIGHT: No, we do not, unless you wish to question anybody else from the street.

20684. MR BINLEY: You will have the chance, of course, to sum-up at the end of the process. Thank you. I am going to call on Ms Lieven if she will be kind enough to present her case.

20685. MS LIEVEN: Certainly, sir. I am going to call Mr Berryman first.

 

 

MR KEITH BERRYMAN, recalled

Examined by MS LIEVEN

 

20686. MR BINLEY: I might say we do not need further introductions.

20687. MS LIEVEN: No, I do not think Mr Berryman needs me very much, either. Just vaguely to keep the evidence in order, can we deal with the footbridge first and then the noise issue. Can you explain briefly what Crossrail is planning for the footbridge? It might be useful to put up the photograph.

(Mr Berryman) Basically, the footbridge spans across the whole of the railway network near the approach of Paddington Station, as everyone knows. What we need to do is to put new tracks under this area here, to go down into the Crossrail tunnels. Those tracks will be electrified and have overhead electrification. What that means is that to do that we have to raise this end of the bridge slightly by about 200mm.

20688. Is that there?

(Mr Berryman) That is just there, yes - your hand is steadier than mine. So that span of the bridge has to be raised by about 200mm. The southern span of the bridge, that bit there which Ms Lieven is pointing to, was already raised by British Railways when they built the Heathrow Express service, because that line is electrified, as you know. What we are doing is raising the rest of the bridge to make it level. That will have the effect of making that part of the bridge DDA-compliant. That is the only bit of work we need to do for the Crossrail works. That is the bit we actually need to do.

20689. Can I stop you there, Mr Berryman? In the photograph (I think it was one of the photographs with the dog) you can see a little speck (?) in the middle of the bridge. That is being removed by our works.

(Mr Berryman) That will be removed. My original intention was that we would just jack up this span - you see the span between where the cameraman is and where the step is, the original idea was to jack it up and put new bearings underneath it - but my engineers are advising that it may need to be replaced because of the state of it. But that is Network Rail's property, that bridge. We have arranged with the Academy that their walkway which links to the north end of the bridge will actually be at that slightly higher level. So when the walkway is initially built there will be a step down, you walk along the north span of the bridge and there will be a step up. When we have finished our works that section of the bridge will be raised so it will be level all the way across. Then, at the request of the Committee in your interim findings, we have agreed to make this southern end of the bridge DDA-compliant as well. That is, really, the works that we need to do to the bridge.

20690. Before we look at the southern end of the bridge in detail, Lady Bright raised a concern right at the beginning that our plans were changing and that the plans she was sent sometime yesterday were sent with a health warning about changes. Can you explain, first of all, in terms of the main works, the works to the railway, what scope is there to change there?

(Mr Berryman) There is very little cope to change, but I think what Lady Bright was being told was that it is still subject to detailed design. Everything we do is subject to detailed design. The exact railings of the curve (?), the exact kind of transition curves, and so on, will be reviewed. Not the design layout (we know where things are going to go) but there may be movement - and we are talking about a few hundred millimetres; we are not talking about big movement - and that is as far as the railway works are concerned. As far as the footbridge is concerned, and the works associated with that, of course, this is subject to detailed planning in Schedule 7 of the Bill (I think it is Schedule 7). That will be for Westminster City Council to approve the plans that we put forward for those works.

20691. Can we then look in a little more detail at the southern side of the footbridge and put up 005, please? Can you explain what Crossrail is currently envisaging and the benefits and disbenefits?

(Mr Berryman) Yes. What we are planning to do is replace the section of the bridge from here southwards and put in a ramp which runs down like that - it has got zigzags in it. The reason for the zigzags is to prevent skateboarders and people with funny trainers rushing down and bashing into people. It has been designed like that after consultation with the Metropolitan Police and with British Transport Police and with Westminster City Council. However, it could be changed; it is not written in stone. I think the Petitioners have proposed that we turn it 180^o and bring it back to there, and that is certainly something we can look at in detail. As I say, it is something which requires input from various authorities particularly the police, to make sure it is safe and it has been built in a manner which is not going to be increasing the possibility of crime.

20692. The principal concern of the Petitioners appears to be the width of the main span of the railway going across the active Network Rail track. Can you explain why Crossrail is not planning to replace the entire footbridge?

(Mr Berryman) Well, replacing the entire footbridge would be a very, very big job. The footbridge is not ours, of course, it is Network Rail's (as has already been mentioned several times) and it would involve putting new foundations in the permanent way as well as erecting new bridge spans. It would be quite a substantial piece of work. The existing span, the central span, is only very marginally below the 2-metre width which is required by the guidelines and it just does not seem to be justified, from a cost-benefit point of view, and it is certainly not justified from Crossrail's point of view because, as I said earlier, this is nothing to do with us, we are just doing it because you have asked us to, basically.

20693. MR BINLEY: Out of the goodness of your heart. I understand that.

20694. MS LIEVEN: With the goodness of our heart prompted by the appropriate response ----

20695. MRS JAMES: Being a good neighbour!

20696. MS LIEVEN: You have talked about cost and it not ultimately being our responsibility. What about disruption to the railway? Would there be implications on that?

(Mr Berryman) I was using cost as shorthand for the generalised issues of how it would need to be done. I feel bound to say this bridge has been controversial for many years. It has been a source of a very long-running - I think one could call it - dispute between Westminster City Council and the railway authorities. It certainly goes back to British Railways' days, and whether it goes back to the Great Western Railway days or not I do not know, but it certainly goes back quite a long way. This has been a bone of contention locally for many, many years.

20697. So far as the width of the existing footbridge is concerned, it might be helpful if you just put up the Department for Transport Inclusive Mobility document, first of all, exhibit page 6, please, which, just so the Committee can see, is the place where it refers to the wheelchair users' width of the 95^th percentile slightly over 700mm. Then if we go on to the following exhibit page, page 8, and expand 3.1, please, on widths. That says: "A clear width of 2000mm allows two wheelchairs to pass one another comfortably. This should be regarded as the maximum under normal circumstances. Where this is not possible because of physical constraints 1500mm could be regarded as the minimum acceptable under most circumstances, giving sufficient space for a wheelchair user and a walker to pass one another." The absolute minimum is 1000mm. Just applying that to the circumstance of this, the retained portions of this bridge, in your view is there adequate width being left, taking into account, in particular, Mrs James' point that we are not just talking about two wheelchairs, but probably the more common situation of one person with a double-buggy and one person with a lot of shopping, or crutches, or something such as that?

(Mr Berryman) We know that the majority of the bridge is 1.8 metres wide - one of my staff has actually measured it. The reason I was tugging on your gown earlier was because I could not actually swear that the whole bridge is 1.8 metres, because he did not go along and measure every section. The vast majority is certainly 1.8. There may be short sections which are slightly less. We do not think there are but it is possible. Now, 1.8 metres is 8 inches less than the 2 metres suggested here, and that is enough to allow - sorry to mix my units.

20698. You are showing your age, I am afraid!

(Mr Berryman) That will be enough to allow two wheelchairs to pass, perhaps not comfortably but certainly to pass.

20699. I do not know what your experience is of double-buggies.

(Mr Berryman) I have managed to avoid double-buggies myself, at least so far. My recollection is that they are usually narrow enough to fit through a doorway, an ordinary household doorway, and that would be a similar width to a wheelchair. That is the major design factor for a wheelchair width: that they can fit through doorways.

20700. With a more extensive knowledge of double-buggies, I would agree with that. That is the width issue. What about the safety issue and the kink in the middle of the bridge, or the curve, as it has been described?

(Mr Berryman) The curve, or kink, is a very slow change of direction; it is not a right-angled bend or even quite an acute angle; it is a very slow angle. It is not the kind of angle behind which a person could conceal to jump out and surprise somebody, because as you walk towards the kink, or curve, you can see round it.

20701. MRS JAMES: In general, sometimes when you are looking down it is really quite intimidating.

(Mr Berryman) When you are standing on one end and you cannot see the other end of the bridge, but similarly someone could not stand behind the kink and conceal themselves.

20702. Somebody could think twice about using that bridge, however convenient it would be, if it was dark; you would think: "I cannot see the other end".

(Mr Berryman) I have to say, straightening it would be an absolutely monumental undertaking; it is not something you can just tweak.

20703. Could you have a mirror there so people can actually see?

(Mr Berryman) You could put a mirror up. We would be happy to do that. I am not sure how helpful a mirror would be, actually. We have promised the provision of CCTV, and Westminster, I think, have indicated that they would make it part of their supervisory scheme. Obviously, it would be pointless for us to have CCTV cameras because we do not have any presence there or even anywhere near it.

20704. MS LIEVEN: I think Lady Bright mentioned the CCTV planned by the Academy on its site.

(Mr Berryman) We could link to that. What we have basically said is we will put the brackets and the conduit up but it obviously cannot be part of our CCTV because we have no supervisory role there.

20705. What about lighting?

(Mr Berryman) Obviously, we will be lighting the new sections of the bridge in accordance with the necessary standards, and we can extend - I think I have already told Westminster City Council this - that to cover the whole bridge.

20706. Thank you very much. Can we move on to the noise issue, please. I think Mr Thornley-Taylor will come back to this in more detail but can you explain why from an engineering point of view we cannot provide a noise barrier on the northern side of the villas?

(Mr Berryman): Would it be more helpful to explain what the trains are actually doing, first?

20707. Certainly. I am only reading out the question I have been provided with!

(Mr Berryman): If we could show the plan of the existing freight movements, what this shows is the way the trains currently work at the present time. What happens is the freight train comes in from the Great Western mainline and runs right down to point A, and for reference you can see the footbridge we have just been talking about and Westbourne Park Villas. The train runs down, reverses back up to a siding, and it is unloaded in the open air. The train then pulls forward again and is pushed back into another siding, at which point the trains splits and pulls forward again and then pushes back into another siding (indicating top left) to have the other nine cars of the train re‑loaded, so there is quite a lot of manoeuvring which goes on between points A and B, and this takes place in the middle of the night. The trains typically come at 11.30 and depart at 2.30. There is a path at midday and a path at midnight, so quite often it is in the middle of the night. (Next slide shown) In future the furthest point the trains will come down to is just adjacent to the footbridge we have just been talking about. The locomotives will not be able to go beyond that point because there is insufficient room. Even if we wanted to - and we do not - there is insufficient room under the new scheme to extend the siding further down, so that (point Y) will be the absolute limit of operation of the freight trains. What will happen then is that the freight train will come through here (indicating top left), be pulled slowly through a discharge point, which will be concealed in a building and soundproofed, until it gets to this point (Y), at which point the locomotive will be detached, will run round to the other end of the train, will pick up the train and take it away. So the level of movements required and the level of manoeuvring and splitting trains and shunting will be enormously reduced. Moreover, from this point (Y) to the east there will be no freight train movements at all, other than what might be required for maintenance by Network Rail, which is obviously when they deliver stone and so on for their maintenance operations. So the impact in any event on Westbourne Park Villas from freight trains will be enormously reduced; and the impact on the properties shown in the middle will be no worse than it is now, and probably better.

20708. In terms of the "probably better" can we just look at a new concrete batching plant to be built at King's Cross, shown on exhibit 002? We are not saying this will be exactly like this, and I think this is a rather bigger one than the one that will be built at Westbourne Park, but can you explain the benefits to the residents of having a new batching plant as opposed to the existing arrangement?

(Mr Berryman): The main point about the new plant is it will be enclosed. On this slide you can see the aggregate unloading facility which already exists at St Pancras, and it will be something similar to that - probably slightly more enclosed because this is not in a residential area - that will be constructed at Westbourne Park. The bunkers or hoppers for storage of the aggregate will be something like the one shown, although smaller because this is a big scheme, and the advantage of that is that will be soundproofed so that the noise from handling the aggregates and so on will be much reduced as compared with the present day.

20709. At the present day it is not enclosed at all?

(Mr Berryman): No; it is entirely open air. It is a rather old‑fashioned sort of plant and I would guess, if we were not coming along, the owners would be thinking about renewing it anyway.

20710. Just one other issue on the batching plant. Lady Bright and the residents over a long period of time have said: "Why not move it to Old Oak Common? You have a batching plant there; take this one away up there." Why is that not an option?

(Mr Berryman): The two things are serving different purposes. The first point is that we will be putting a batching plant at Old Oak Common; that will be for the purpose of pre‑casting the tunnel linings, which will be actually made there, and the batching plant will be immediately adjacent to the production line for those segments. The distance from Westbourne Park to Old Oak Common is quite a long way. We did go on a trip, if you remember, two or three weeks ago and it is quite a long drive from Westbourne Park to Old Oak Common. If you were to put the batching plant at Old Oak Common it would mean that concrete lorries, before they could even start the same delivery run as they have now, would have a 20 minute or so run to get into town. Concrete normally has to be placed within two hours of batching. I have not been on a site for years but normally we would turn concrete away at the site gate if it was more than an hour old, so the fact you have a 20‑minute delay before you even get in towards the city centre would be a major problem for construction sites in the city centre. The great beauty of Westbourne Park is, first of all, it is rail‑served so aggregates can come by rail which is less environmentally damaging but, secondly, as far as the despatch of the concrete is concerned, it is near the areas where heavy construction is taking place, and that is an obvious advantage which would not be shared if the plant was moved to Old Oak Common.

20711. Lastly, it appears from the evidence that we have heard that the principal noise source is the passenger trains coming into Paddington, particularly the high speed diesel trains. Is there anything that Crossrail can do about them?

(Mr Berryman): There is absolutely nothing at all we can do about them. They are part of the national rail network; they are the HSTs, as you have just said; they are very noisy; they are diesel/electric trains, the diesel engines are quite loud and they discharge upwards. They are very loud, I have to say, but they are nothing to do with Crossrail; they are the existing railway network.

20712. Stepping outside Crossrail, for a moment, and this has absolutely nothing to do with us but from your own knowledge, is there any hope for the future for the residents in respect of those trains?

(Mr Berryman): There is a plan on which consultation has just been started to replace those trains in due course. As I understand it from colleagues, the current plan is to have dual power trains so that when they running under the electric wires they are able to run from using electrical power, which is relatively quieter, and when they get off the end of the electrics they can use diesel power. I think there are many unresolved problems with that proposal but that is certainly the direction in which thinking is going at the present time.

20713. MRS JAMES: The tender has gone out already. The idea is we would replace these high speed trains, our existing fleet, with a fleet that is uniform across the country. 2010 I think.

(Mr Berryman): I do not think the tender has gone out but it has gone out for consultation.

20714. 2010, I think.

(Mr Berryman): Yes.

20715. MS LIEVEN: Thank you very much, Mr Berryman.

20716. CHAIRMAN: Lady Bright, would you like to examine Mr Berryman's evidence?

 

Cross‑examined by LADY BRIGHT

20717. LADY BRIGHT: Thank you for explaining. It is very useful to have a drawing of the full route of the freight train which goes right round the houses and does cause a lot of the problems. If you were to move it back to the point indicated on the previous drawing it would be useful but obviously we cannot rely on that happening because the drawings are not indicative - and I was given a strong indication it was more than millimetres we were talking about. Could you give me an idea how much it costs to put in a new 350m siding? I mean to the nearest million, probably.

(Mr Berryman): It depends where it is. I do not want to evade the question, but the permanent way would probably cost ‑ I do not know, a couple of millions, probably. Maybe a little bit more. It just depends what the obstructions are, what point works are required and what signalling is required. There is not a straight answer that I can give to that. But can I just make one point about the remark you just made? You suggested that nothing is definite. I am telling you it is definite that the end of the freight siding will be at the point where I indicated on the drawing, and I can tell you that with complete confidence because it is physically impossible to fit the Crossrail trains and a siding in the space which is available beyond that point. That is, in fact, why, as you may recall, we took some limited compulsory powers over this corner of the Academy site so we could get the end of that siding in.

20718. I am not sure I completely understand. It is physically impossible to get the Crossrail trains ‑‑

(Mr Berryman): It is physically impossible to get the Crossrail tracks and a siding in the space between the London Underground tracks and the boundary of the railway land.

20719. So that is the only reason for moving it.

(Mr Berryman): Sorry?

20720. That is the reason for moving it?

(Mr Berryman): No, that is not the reason for moving it; that is the reason why we definitely cannot go any further. The reason for moving it is to get a better operational layout.

20721. It is for the concrete plant; it is nothing to do with residents, noise, pollution, planning - none of that. It is for the concrete plant --

20722. CHAIRMAN: Is this a question, Lady Bright?

20723. LADY BRIGHT: I was just going to ask Mr Berryman, what advantage is the concrete plant for the operation of the railways?

(Mr Berryman): What advantage is the concrete plant for the operation of the railway?

20724. Does it give any advantage? Is it useful to have it there from the railways point of view?

(Mr Berryman): From Crossrail's point of view or from the railway in general?

20725. Both.

(Mr Berryman): From Crossrail's point of view it is not relevant, because Crossrail is not a freight railway.

20726. KELVIN HOPKINS: If I can interrupt, if somebody decided to move it, you would be perfectly happy about that?

(Mr Berryman): We would not mind either way, no. From the overall railway point of view and from the point of view of the planning policies of Westminster City Council of course it is important that it is there, because it is rail‑served and it allows the aggregates to be delivered by rail, keeping many lorry movements off the road, and, secondly, it is in a position which is close to its market minimising the amount of road time for the truck mixers which need to deliver. That has two benefits - benefits for the operators in that they get the concrete quickly before it starts to go off, and it has benefits for Westminster or the residents in the area, as it means the amount of time that the truck mixers spend on the road and the amount of congestion they cause is minimised. So those are the positive aspects of moving the concrete batching plant.

20727. LADY BRIGHT: Are you sure Westminster favour having that plant there?

(Mr Berryman): Absolutely certain.

20728. I think that is misrepresenting Westminster, frankly.

(Mr Berryman): Well, Westminster is a large organisation. It may have many people in it but the people we deal with in the planning department are absolutely certain that they want it to stay there.

20729. Well, they have pointed out, the people in the planning department at Westminster, which is our local council, that that plant was granted permission under a 1971 regime and it was built I think finally in 1984 when the area was completely different - and they said all this to the Committee but I am just reminding you - the area is now densely populated all round and the last thing you want when you are building a school is a concrete batching plant right there. The plant has been safeguarded since - can you remember? 1991, is it?

(Mr Berryman): Ish.

20730. And you pointed out that it had not been modernised. I believe Tarmac would have modernised it by now because it would have been able to increase capacity, is that not right?

(Mr Berryman): You would have to ask Tarmac that question, I do not know. It is probably getting towards the end of its natural life.

20731. Obviously one must ask why they did not modernise it, knowing it was safeguarded.

(Mr Berryman): They are fairly careful with money, concrete producers, in my experience, but the only dispute between us and Westminster on the batching plant has been about the conditioning of it, in other words what planning conditions should apply to it. Obviously, as I think you are aware, we have come to substantial levels of agreement with them about that, which is why they did not appear when they had the opportunity to recently.

20732. It is causing you a lot of problems, that concrete plant, for something that does not bring any benefit because you have an awful lot of stuff to put into that area, have you not? You have reversing sidings that you also want to have there that we do not want there because we think they should be in the depot, but there is that, and have you now settled finally on the design for the postage stamp temporary plant?

(Mr Berryman): No. The temporary plant will be subject of on‑going discussions between the operator and ourselves and Westminster City Council. Do not forget, it will be quite some time before construction actually starts.

20733. But the design was approved under the AP2, is that not right?

(Mr Berryman): The location was approved, yes. There is a difference between location, which is effectively drawing a red line around the site where something will be, and the detailed design which goes to exactly where each bit of kit will be.

20734. LADY BRIGHT: We have to disagree about what Westminster thinks on this. We know that the London Plan - can I just make this point?

20735. CHAIRMAN: I think the point is noted, Lady Bright. You are able to sum up and you can mention it then.

20736. LADY BRIGHT: Then I have one last question because I am still very puzzled about all the trouble everyone is going to for this large multinational. What was the price of the deal with Tarmac to let them stay there?

(Mr Berryman): There is no price. Do you mean have they given us any money?

20737. Well, you are in negotiations still with Tarmac, I believe.

(Mr Berryman): Not about money. Tarmac are no different from any other land owner on the route or adjacent to the routes. We have as part of normal practice, and I think legally, to preserve their interests as far as we possibly can, and we do not go around gratuitously putting people out of business. It would make our lives a lot easier sometimes if we could, but we do not do that; we are not allowed to. If we put someone out of business we have to be able to demonstrate to this Committee that there is no alternative and there is an alternative. It can be kept going.

20738. LADY BRIGHT: There is always the difficulty of fitting in a temporary plant which we know from Tarmac cannot handle their current capacity at all, but do you not think that most businesses, if they are going to have an interruption of four and a half years, would prefer to go straight from plant A into a fully functioning plant B, and has that option been put to them? I am thinking of Old Oak Common or points west.

(Mr Berryman): We have discussed with them the alternative of moving their operations to various sites; we have talked about North Pole and I am not sure if we have talked about Old Oak Common in great detail but we have certainly indicated that there are a number of other potential sites around in that general area of Old Oak Common; we have certainly talked about sites up in the industrial estate where Guinness used to be - I have forgotten the name of it offhand - and they are just not interested because their market is central London and it is important to them to get the concrete to the sites in a timely manner, or wherever it fits in with planning consents.

20739. CHAIRMAN: May I just mention that I would hope that we might finish the witnesses before we break.

20740. MS LIEVEN: I was not going to re‑examine Mr Berryman. I think he has covered everything, so perhaps we can do a quick change to Mr Thornley‑Taylor, if the Committee has no questions.

20741. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We are grateful to you as always, Mr Berryman. You may leave.

 

The witness withdrew

 

MR RUPERT THORNLEY‑TAYLOR, re‑called

Examined by MS LIEVEN

 

20742. CHAIRMAN: We welcome Mr Thornley‑Taylor; we also know full well his distinguished background.

20743. MS LIEVEN: I have to say this is the first time I have called Mr Thornley-Taylor so I hope the Committee will bear with me, but I think I only have one question really, Mr Thornley-Taylor, which is can you explain to us the problems with putting a larger acoustic barrier on the south side of the railway?

(Mr Thornley-Taylor): Yes. I think it is helpful if I very briefly say how noise barriers work. They work by being higher than the line of sight from the source of the receiver, but not only that - they have to be either quite close to the source or quite close to the receiver. They do not work at all well, even if they are reasonably high, if they are a long way from both; if they are more or less in the middle of the space between the two. It is quite helpful to look at a cross‑section through the railway in this area, and there is a cross‑section on the system at number 17, I think, with 18 as the second one, and it is possible to see that the layout of the tracks in this area is very unfavourable from the point of view of the geometry of noise barriers. The Westbourne Park Villas facades are on the right, and this particular one applies to 14‑16, which is towards the eastern end of the terrace of houses. At this point the Crossrail tracks are low down and there is the retaining wall of the cutting in which they run which itself is a noise barrier, so in that area one is only really considering whether in principle a noise barrier could reduce noise from the existing railway. Whether or not it is a matter for Crossrail to do that is a separate issue, but leaving that on one side for the moment we have to remember that the noise source on a high speed diesel is 4m above the track, and even if a high speed diesel was on the nearest track to Westbourne Park Villas the noise source is going to be up there, and we heard in evidence today that bedrooms tend to be on the upper floors of these buildings, and although you might get a little bit of benefit from the very nearest track by extending the height of this wall with the noise barrier, in terms of the overall noise exposure of these facades, with the contribution of all the other trains on all the other tracks, the Heathrow Express and in this particular location the negligible contribution from Crossrail, the cost benefit of such a noise barrier simply would not be worthwhile. If we quickly look at the next cross‑section which takes you to the western end of the Westbourne Park Villas area, where there is a short terrace of houses on the north side of the road, again the same thing applies. There is the facade of the house and, again, the main noise source of the high speed diesel is 4m above the rail. Here Crossrail is at the same level as the rest of the tracks but its contribution to the overall noise exposure of that facade is very small indeed, it only just triggers eligibility for noise insulation through the statutory procedures, and the only thing you could do to reduce Crossrail noise would be somehow to get a noise barrier in the middle, which is impracticable, and putting extra height on the right hand wall would mean it would have to be extremely high to reduce noise from other non‑Crossrail railways, and as a general principle it is simply not a practical proposition for Crossrail to reduce noise from existing railways, otherwise all railway schemes throughout the country would have a huge cost burden attached to them if it fell to them to reduce noise from existing railways. It would be a nice thing to do in many areas but it is just not practical proposition.

20744. Mr Thornley-Taylor, last time you appeared on a Petition you dealt with the level of noise in some detail that was going to be generated by Crossrail at these locations, and just for the Committee's note it is Day 45A, paragraph 12761. I do not ask you to read back through that but can you just explain how much additional noise, if any, is the Crossrail scheme going to generate at this location?

(Mr Thornley-Taylor): The difference between with and without Crossrail is a matter of 1‑2 decibels on the L_Aeq scale that I have talked to the Committee about earlier on. It is a very small increase; not enough to trigger significance using the Environmental Assessment methodology, and it would be impractical to reduce it by means of noise barriers, for reasons I have just explained.

20745. I have one other issue which Lady Bright asked about which I think you know something about. She raised the concern that the Crossrail scheme at this location might be treated as an old railway rather than a new railway by reference to what happened with Heathrow Express. As I understand it the only relevance of old or new is as far as the railway noise regulations are concerned. Can you just explain what happened with Heathrow Express, and why Crossrail will be treated as a new railway for noise regulations?

(Mr Thornley-Taylor): Heathrow Express runs on a remodelled layout of the existing track in this area (indicating the middle area). Crossrail will run on new track laid; it is hard to see but the existing drawing shows that there is no railway in this space (indicating the left) and Crossrail will run on newly laid track, and it is absolutely clear and is set out in terms in the Noise Insulation Regulations that Crossrail will be treated as a new railway, and eligibility is absolutely clear.

20746. MS LIEVEN: In light of the time, I think I will stop there.

20747. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much; I am most grateful. Do you have many questions, Lady Bright?

20748. LADY BRIGHT: Because the exhibits were not arranged as we had hoped we missed putting in our exhibit on noise barriers which is an alternative view to Mr Thornley‑Taylor's.

20749. CHAIRMAN: You will be able to do that in cross‑examination. I now adjourn the Committee until 2.30 this afternoon.

 

After a short adjournment

20750. MR BINLEY: Ms Lieven, do you wish to complete your examination?

20751. MS LIEVEN: Sir, there are just two things I wish to deal with at this stage, and the first is to tell the Committee the happy news that Mr Reuben Taylor's wife had a baby this morning.

20752. MR BINLEY: Then you might extend our very good wishes to the lady in question and also to Mr Taylor.

20753. MS LIEVEN: I will, sir. Secondly, over the luncheon adjournment, a member of the team went out and measured the footbridge at Westbourne Park so that we are absolutely clear. The span of the footbridge is 1,850mm all the way along, except at the two points where there are handrails, one of which is the step up in the middle. If you remember, there is one step which will be removed by our works because we are lifting the other span, so there will not be any handrails, so that will all, when the handrails go, go back to 1,850. The other is 1,600 between the handrails at the northern end which again I believe will be removed when the northern end is rebuilt by the Westminster Academy. Sir, that is the factual point.

20754. Then finally, sir, Lady Bright wanted to refer to a letter that she meant to put up this morning, but it did not quite happen because of a failure of co-ordination, so, before Mr Thornley-Taylor proceeds, what Lady Bright and I have agreed is that she is going to read the letter to the Committee and then Mr Thornley-Taylor will comment on it, and then his proper cross-examination can begin. I hope that is acceptable, sir. Perhaps then we can put up the Sound Barrier Solutions letter and I think it is probably more appropriate if Lady Bright reads it.

20755. LADY BRIGHT: It should be attached to the Van Campen letter. Is it?

20756. MS LIEVEN: No, we just have it in the normal exhibits, I am afraid.

20757. LADY BRIGHT: Unfortunately, the chap at Crossrail who sent the exhibits through to me yesterday is off sick today, so that is why we have had some problems. The letter from SBS is simply that there is another point of view on sound barriers in this location and Mr Thornley-Taylor has said that it would have to be completely unrealistically high to work. I just wanted to read you this letter from the expert we had to look at it.

20758. MR BINLEY: I need to be clear. Lady Bright, are you going to read the letter in front of us into the record?

20759. MS LIEVEN: That is what I believed was going to happen, sir. Beyond that is beyond my control.

20760. MR BINLEY: Would you do that then, please, Lady Bright.

20761. LADY BRIGHT: It should have come up earlier and, because of the technical problems, it did not. It says:

20762. "Dear Margot, First of all, I would like to thank you for our visit yesterday. I would have to say that, from a noise perspective, the potential scheme at Westbourne Park Villas is both a very interesting one and acoustically of clear benefit.

20763. "The existing wall - The primary issue is whether the 2.75-metre-high existing wall is capable of supporting the increased load of a noise barrier structure attached to the top. Certainly a structural engineer or a competent noise barrier installer would be able to confirm the integrity of a design. However, from first examination, we believe that even a low barrier system would provide a perceptible reduction in noise and it therefore should be considered as a viable option.

20764. "Potential noise reduction - It is apparent that a suitable noise study has not been carried out. As such, an informed judgment has not been presented as to whether a noise barrier would be of benefit. In our opinion, it should therefore be pursued. We have carried out an indicative examination of the location taking into account the existing wall, the position of the houses in Westbourne Park Villas, the basic topography and spread of rail tracks. From this we have deduced an estimate for the performance of barriers of differing heights."

20765. These are that the potential noise reduction from the ground floor faēade with a one-metre barrier is two decibels, a two-metre barrier of four decibels, a three-metre barrier, six. From the first-floor level, a one-metre barrier would be three decibels, a two-metre barrier, five decibels, and a three-metre barrier, seven. For the second-floor faēade, it would be a three-decibel reduction with a one-metre barrier, six decibels with a two-metre barrier, and nine with a three-metre barrier. It goes on:

20766. "This has assumed that the barrier has been installed to rest on top of the existing wall and that the barrier is absorptive in design. We would recommend that it is absorptive on both sides to reduce back reflections from the houses in Westbourne Park Villas. Normally, a 3 dB drop in noise is regarded as not only perceptible but retainable. In other words, the noise reduction is noticed immediately and at a later stage. With this in mind, we would expect even a 1-metre-high absorptive barrier to give a moderate reduction in noise. The added load of a 1-metre high barrier would not be too onerous.

20767. "We would expect a 3-metre-high absorptive barrier to give a substantial reduction in noise at ground, first and second floor. This would clearly make a large difference to the quality of life for residents in Westbourne Park Villas. Our concern would be regarding the capability of the wall to support such a structure. Once again, we would emphasise that this is not our field and that it is a question to be put to a suitable structural engineer. However, Crossrail have confirmed that the wall is solid and well constructed in the environmental statement.

20768. "We would therefore view a 2-metre-high absorptive barrier as a possible compromise that still is expected to give a healthy reduction in noise.

20769. "Dimensions and Costs - We estimated the span between wall pillars to be about 4 metres. There are about 90 spans between the two rail bridges giving an estimated overall length of 360 metres. Assuming normal ground conditions, the cost of supplying and installing a 2-metre, high-performance, absorptive noise barrier would be in the region of £250 per linear metre. This would make the total cost of such a system to be only £90,000. This gives an indication of the order of magnitude of cost since the existing wall would most likely make the installation more complex.

20770. "This estimate is based on the installation of a typical zero maintenance metal absorptive noise barrier system similar to the Van Campen deisgn."

20771. I think perhaps I do not need to read the bit where they are offering to do a detailed study. Thank you very much for your patience on that. It was supposed to go with some photographs of which are quite unlike the sort which you will have seen Network Rail erecting, solid pieces of timber, on the West Coast Main Line. Is it possible to show those photographs or not?

20772. MR BINLEY: Do you think it will help us?

20773. LADY BRIGHT: Yes, if you have not seen any, because you will not have seen barriers like this much in the UK, certainly not in railway settings.

20774. MR BINLEY: Are they included in this portfolio of photographs?

20775. LADY BRIGHT: There is only one at the end.

20776. MR BINLEY: I think members of the Committee are okay with this. Any concerns? No, I think we are okay.

20777. LADY BRIGHT: You have seen enough barriers.

20778. MR BINLEY: Before we move on and thereafter you might cross-examine Mr Thornley-Taylor, can I just for the record state that the letter which you have just read out will be entered into the record as A237.

20779. MS LIEVEN: Sir, perhaps I could just ask Mr Thornley-Taylor for his comments on that letter.

20780. LADY BRIGHT: Do you need the qualifications of the author?

20781. MR BINLEY: We have a copy of everything, I think.

20782. MS LIEVEN: Mr Thornley-Taylor?

(Mr Thornley-Taylor) Yes, I have studied the letter and the predictions appear to be appropriate for the location which we saw earlier on in the cross-sections, an example being 14-16 Westbourne Park Villas, and that was the exhibit number 17. The only problem with the numbers is that I think they all assume the rail noise source is down at rail level. If you take into account the fact that with high speed diesels the noise sources falling to above ground level, the numbers come down a little bit, particularly for the higher barrier. Let us, for other purposes, assume they are broadly right for this cross‑section. Here, of course, we have the case where Crossrail is done in a cutting and, however much one might wish for Westbourne Park Villas residents the reduction in noise from the main line, it could not be said that the Crossrail project there merited the introduction of a noise barrier against the Network Rail traffic. The important thing is the other exhibit number, 18, which represents the cross‑section for the terrace to the west, the short terrace that remains on the north side of the road and immediately backs onto the railway. Even the noise barrier company we have just been hearing from would say that above ground floor level there is no effect from the three barrier heights that they have considered, because on the upper floors of the houses, where we have heard people sleep, they would simply be seeing all the trains over the top of the noise barriers, and no noise reduction is possible there. In the location where Crossrail is at grade and does contribute a small amount, as was mentioned this morning, to the total railway noise environment, that is the place where noise barriers would have no effect at the floor levels concerned.

20783. MS LIEVEN: Thank you, Mr Thornley‑Taylor.

20784. MR BINLEY: Lady Bright, would you now like to cross‑examine Mr Thornley‑Taylor's evidence?

 

Cross‑examined by LADY BRIGHT

 

20785. LADY BRIGHT: To pick up on what you mentioned about the terrace on the north side of the few houses there, they were not be included in this assessment because Crossrail has already offered them insulation because they are way above the trigger levels and they know that. Would it be right, Mr Thornley‑Taylor, to say that a sufficiently‑detailed assessment to make sound predictions has not yet been made and cannot yet be made because you cannot feed in all the data you need for that site until you know what is going to be there?

(Mr Thornley‑Taylor) That is not the reason. A detailed noise prediction would be carried out if the Crossrail project had an effect which merited the possible inclusion of the noise barrier. It does not require a detailed study to see that noise barriers would have no effect to the terrace to the west, and Lady Bright appears to accept that. To the east where the Crossrail alignment in diving down in the cutting the effect does not merit looking in detail at the benefits of the noise barriers, so while, indeed, if it were in somebody's powers to put noise barriers against the existing Network Rail noise sources that is something quite separate from the Crossrail process.

20786. You accept the only difference to the west is only to the houses sitting on the tracks, I am referring to, not the west end of Westbourne Park Villas, just to clarify. Would you accept that the screening 125s are being phased out, and would you also accept that there is no point making the best the enemy of the good?

(Mr Thornley‑Taylor) I too have read the announcements that have been made about the phasing out of the high speed diesels and I think it is quite possible by the time Crossrail comes into operation they will be no more on that section of the track. There is a general principle that one should not make the best the enemy of the good. Unfortunately, we are offered neither good nor best nor anything worth doing at all from the point of view of mitigating the effect of the Crossrail project.

20787. Would you agree that your dismissal of the efficacy of the noise barriers in this situation does not stand up if the high speed diesels with the noise on the top are no longer there?

(Mr Thornley‑Taylor) Two things will happen. The overall noise level goes down, so the severe effects that we have heard in evidence of having high speed diesels going past your window at night will be greatly improved. It is quite true that then the remaining rail vehicles which operate on that end of the track will probably still be diesel, but I have not seen plans to rectify the main line. The formal method of prediction always says when there is a diesel locomotive the source is four metres above rail level, but I do accept that future cars on diesel or mainline stock may well have lower noise levels. On the bottom, things may get better, but the noise barrier company I think followed the formal statutory calculation procedure ‑ it is called the "Calculation of Railway Lines" ‑ published by the Department for Transport and that tells you, whether you like it or not, if it is a diesel locomotive the sources all need upgrading so they would produce the same letter in the year 2012, or whenever it happens to be, even if the high speed diesels have gone.

20788. Do you recall saying in your evidence, and there was a great deal of discussion and questions from the Committee, on 27 June that there was a great deal that could be done to improve the noise environment there if Crossrail had the power to deal with Network Rail's noise?

(Mr Thornley‑Taylor) Yes, I have not said that I disagree with the letter from the noise barrier company. It is possible to reduce the noise from the main line in that area.

20789. But you did come up, indeed, with some very helpful suggestions of other things that could be done if we were dealing with Network Rail and not Crossrail last year, you recall that I am sure?

(Mr Thornley‑Taylor) Yes, there are other issues. We heard evidence about noise from the Heathrow Express coming over there and there may be some form of mitigating that, I do not know. It is not within Crossrail's power or the area for which we are concerned for these purposes.

20790. LADY BRIGHT: Again, we wish to make the point we will be dealing with Network Rail on Network Rail's property and we will come to that. Thank you.

20791. MR BINLEY: Thank you very much, Lady Bright. Ms Lieven, would you like to re‑examine?

 

Re-examined by MS LIEVEN

20792. MS LIEVEN: There are two little points of fact to cover, Mr Thornley‑Taylor. First of all, if we could put up the photograph 001 to explain the position to the Committee. I am going to lead you on this, Mr Thornley‑Taylor, as a matter of fact. We have got the footbridge there and the farm is over here. I think it is correct that these are the properties you were talking about, which have been retained and are on the north of Westbourne Park Villas and I think it is right that Crossrail starts going down into cutting just to the west of the footbridge. Is that right?

(Mr Thornley‑Taylor) Approximately there, yes.

20793. MS LIEVEN: The only other thing which we should have picked up earlier is we heard that the Heathrow Express continues to go across jointed track; as far as Crossrail is concerned will it be a continuous welded track in this location?

(Mr Thornley‑Taylor) I understand it will be.

20794. MR BINLEY: Do you have any other witnesses?

20795. MS LIEVEN: No, sir, I cannot think of any other witnesses that would be relevant.

20796. MR BINLEY: We are not encouraging you!

20797. MS LIEVEN: Just checking.

20798. MR BINLEY: Would you like to proceed to your final statement then?

20799. MS LIEVEN: Yes, and I will keep it short. The first issue is the footbridge, sir, and the simple point to emphasise is that we are making it DDA compliant, we are providing disabled access on the south side which means that anybody with mobility impairment problems will be able to get across that bridge where they cannot do at the moment and where it is important to emphasise neither Westminster City Council nor the Academy have seen fit to upgrade the south side of the bridge. We have heard a great deal from Lady Bright and Mr Kelly about the real need to upgrade this bridge is the Academy students, but the Academy has not felt that need. It is prepared to live with the situation where the north side is DDA compliant and the south side on any analysis will not be DDA compliant for a number of years until Crossrail comes along, so, sir, it is difficult to see that the need is quite so great for the Academy, as has been suggested. The point to emphasise is that once Crossrail comes along it will be a fully-compliant DDA bridge. As far as the width across it is concerned, that width is acceptable within the Department for Transport's standards; it is not ideal but it is expressly acknowledged in that document I showed you earlier to be an acceptable width. It is plain, sir, that there is sufficient space for, for example, two wheelchairs to pass on the vast majority of the bridge. There is plenty of space for a wheelchair and a double-buggy, say, to pass. So one does have to approach this with just a touch of reality; the number of times when two wheelchairs need to get past each other, or indeed a double-buggy and a wheelchair, is not going to be a huge number. So the fact that one may have to wait for a few seconds for the other to manoeuvre past is, in my submission, not really a tremendously great disadvantage.

20800. The final point, sir, is that I would stress, and I know I have said this on a number of occasions in the last 18 months, and maybe I will say it once or twice more, but there is a need to keep some hold on what is Crossrail's responsibility in London, and what is other people's responsibility. It is no part of the need of Crossrail for this bridge to be DDA- compliant; it is not for Crossrail passengers, it is not for Crossrail's operational purposes; it is a bridge owned by Network Rail, a Network Rail operational track where the need appears, if there is one, to stem from Westminster City Council education and the Academy proposal and use. I do suggest to the Committee that there is a moment to say that Crossrail cannot solve a vast array of problems that really have absolutely nothing to do with it. That is the bridge.

20801. On noise, I split this into two parts. The batching plant. There are two major advantage, as Mr Berryman explained, to our proposal in terms of noise from the batching plant. The first is that the freight trains will not go anywhere near so far east. You saw that from the photographs; they cannot physically go beyond point Y. There is no question of detailed design there; there is no space. So residents living at the western end of Westbourne Park Villas will have a major advantage in terms of noise from freight trains there. The second advantage is that the new batching plant will be enclosed - you saw the photograph of the King's Cross plant - and for those who went on the site visit you will remember the existing batching plant is entirely open, so there will be a major benefit there by the enclosure in terms of the noise that comes from the aggregates being dropped into and out of vehicles. So two big advantages.

20802. In terms of should we just wipe out the batching plant, sir, I gave quite a long submission on this back in June, day 45A and before, on planning policy. The London Plan is entirely clear that rail-served plants such as this must be protected. The reason is obvious: if they are removed then it is highly likely that there will be a transfer of traffic from rail on to road which is wholly contrary to the sustainability principles in the London Plan. So the idea that, really, it would be better to wipe it out is, in my submission, a non-starter. Sir, the idea that it is acceptable for Crossrail to go along and remove businesses such as Tarmac in order to assist local residents - if we did that we would have Tarmac here, who were Petitioners earlier, protesting in the strongest possible terms that it was simply unjustified for Crossrail to wipe out their business at this location because there was a perfectly feasible plan to put it back.

20803. Finally, sir, on the batching plant and the suggestion of sending it to Old Oak Common, there is neither the space at Old Oak Common and it involves significantly longer journeys by road for the concrete, which as Mr Berryman said is neither good for the concrete and is likely to involve more of it being rejected, but also is contrary to the sustainability principles in the London Plan, again.

20804. Finally, on noise barriers, the point to stress is that Crossrail causes virtually no appreciable difference to noise at this location because the new trains will be quieter than the existing trains and for a significant proportion of this section they will be going down into cutting. The real noise here, and Mr Berryman was asked this something like nine times, is from the high-speed diesels coming along; not Crossrail. I quite understand Lady Bright's desire to seek this opportunity of Crossrail to gain a noise improvement, but it is important to understand the cause of the problem here, which is the high-speed diesel. So far as putting up the noise barrier is concerned in terms of limiting Crossrail noise, you have just heard Mr Thornley Taylor's evidence that it would have a minimal to non-existent effect on Crossrail noise because of the location, and even to impact on the high-speed train noise, because the noise is coming out of the top of the train, at something like 4 metres high. It would be exceptionally difficult to build a barrier high enough to have any real impact on the bedrooms. As you have heard from the witness earlier, it is the bedrooms at the upper level of the house which are suffering noise at night, and in order to protect those you are talking about a monumental barrier. So, sir, in my submission, it is just not Crossrail's problem. The answers just do not lie in the proposal.

20805. Sir, that is all I was going to say in closing, unless there are any other matters you would like me to cover.

20806. MR BINLEY: No, thank you. Lady Bright?

20807. LADY BRIGHT: The bridge and wheelchairs rushing about. We spent half an hour waiting outside and we saw two wheelchairs pass twice in the corridor, while we were sitting there, and it is a nice, wide corridor. So it is not that rare. The bridge that we need there has to be done properly; there is no point in doing it if you are not doing it properly.

20808. The Committee was helpful in its questioning and seems to have taken the point very well, so I do not want to hammer it all too hard. The difficulty is that the Academy which Ms Lieven has just blamed for not doing the southern end has not even been born yet; it opens in September, so it is a bit rough to blame the Academy for not making plans that work better on Network Rail's bridge. I say that Network Rail is really the ghost at the feast today; there are so many things we would like to have been able to say to Network Rail or asked Network Rail about. I think we are right in assuming they will be the nominated undertaker; they have, at some point, to pick up responsibility for what is their bridge. What we have asked Crossrail for is to abide by and stick to the recipe they were given in Inclusive Mobility for standards, which would mean doing a proper job and to have broadening consultation to include Westbourne Neighbourhood Forum and the various local residents groups, the police and the disabled. The later part of the Disability Discrimination Act which has just come into effect, at the end of the year, says that you do actually now have, as a public body, to have a disability equality policy. There is time to phase it in but that means including them in consultation. So I do hope for the support that we are asking you to sign up to and which Crossrail finds difficult. Obviously, Network Rail will be part of the consultation.

20809. Noise barriers. Thank you to Crossrail for clarifying and tightening up and all the work you did on those drawings for the freight side. It clearly will make a lot of difference. I am sorry we were a bit sceptical to begin with but thank you for doing that. We still do not think the concrete plant should be there and, just for the record, we would not call Old Oak Common a place with no space - it has 33 acres and not much happening there. Also, it will have Crossrail's own concrete plant, but will leave that subject at that point.

20810. Noise barriers. I hope you accept there is an alternative view. I hope you accept that by the time Crossrail trains start running the high-speed trains should not be there any more. So that makes a difference to all the calculations. I hope you also accept from Ms Hessenberg's evidence, that you may have gathered that it is quite a complex noise environment and it would require a much more detailed study before anyone could say with any certainty what the noise effects of Crossrail's trains are going to be, bearing in mind that the initial baseline measurements were taken at the nosiest location and only one on the north side where the houses sit on the track. Also, the projections do not account for Crossrail starting later and there being high-speed trains there. So we have to repeat, as we said before, we find it quite incredible that anyone can run 48 trains an hour and that sometimes they will be passing so that will amplify the noise, and have a siding there so close to the houses with nothing but that low-ish wall between us and them, and that we will not hear an appreciable difference. What we are asking for is certainly no material worsening from Crossrail. As for improvements in the rail noise environment, we would refer you to last week's publication of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's latest report on the urban environment, some of you may have read it, some of you may at least have heard what Sir John said that "The commissioners were absolutely astonished that on the eve of a new phase of urban generation and expansion we lack an overarching urban environment policy to co‑ordinate the provision of housing, transport, energy and other vital services".

20811. Ms Lieven referred to the Greater London plan on losing rail serve batching plants, we are not going to go into that argument again, but what about planning PPG24, that equally important planning guidance note, which says, "You should not give planning permission where the day time noise level is higher than between 66 and 74 decibels and the night time level between 59 and 66", if that were applied you would not be building anything around us. That is one reason why we have only got office blocks in the Paddington development where they are immediately adjacent to the railway. I think this picks up the point that the Royal Commission was making, we do need some joined‑up thinking here and we would be very grateful for any help that the Committee can give us in pushing that forward because we do believe, not just for our own narrow interest, that the time is now. Thank you very much.

20812. MR BINLEY: Thank you very much. That ends the deliberations at this stage on this particular item and it is time for me to relinquish this rather comfortable chair to the dually appointed Chairman of this Committee and resume my place on a less comfortable chair over there.

Mr Alan Meale resumed the Chair

20813. CHAIRMAN: The next petition will be the Marriot Hotels presented by Mr Allan Leddon. I understand that you are representing two cases including the West India Quay Development?

20814. MR LEDDON: That is correct, Sir. If I can give you a bit of background about the matter.

20815. CHAIRMAN: Before you proceed, Ms Lieven, would you like to outline?

20816. MS LIEVEN: Yes, I will give you a very quick factual outline of where we are, Sir. We are moving from the west side of London to the east side of London, it is one of those days. Isle of Dogs; you will remember the station lies in the dock and the Marriott Hotel and the West India Quay apartments are in this block here (indicating) on the north side of the dock in this tower here (indicating). I do not know the disposition between the hotel and the apartments, but I do know they are all in the same building.

20817. Very briefly, Sir, I understand the Marriot's concern is that the Committee may remember, and I am afraid I have not checked who was here when, but the construction of the Isle of Dog station, there are two potential construction scenarios and that was explained to you by Mr Berryman two or three weeks ago. Under scenario two the proposal is to place the cut‑off wall from roughly outside the Marriott across to a little insert here (indicating) which is known as Wren Landing and the proposal is that the cut-off wall there, and Mr Berryman will explain it to you in far more detail, the silt from the east side of the dock is brought over and deposited at the west side of the dock under water on the west side of the dock and on the east side of the cut-off wall the dock is drained in order for the construction to go ahead and the Marriott's concern is that they are not very happy about the loss of the water view in front of the hotel through the period of the works and they would like us to move the cut-off wall further to the east and Mr Berryman will explain to you in technical engineering, and I will not attempt to pre-empt him on that, why moving it east is really not a feasible or sensible alternative so that gives you a very brief overview of where we are. As I say, the station itself lies in here and ultimately will be under the water and you will remember there are two station entrances that pop up out of the dock.

20818. MR LEDDON: Sir, if I can briefly explain why we are here. The Marriott Hotel is owned by West India Quay Development Ltd which is the second largest freeholder in the Canary Wharf area. The hotel itself is operated by Marriott Hotels Ltd and there is a management contract between the two whereby the freeholders, West India Quay Development, have an interest in how well the hotel is doing and operating. To that end, it is our intention to address both the petitions before you today. I am calling one witness who is Paul Downing who is the General Manager of the hotel and who is the person, if you will pardon me saying so, at the sharp end of the receipt of these proposed works by Crossrail. I think I can do no more than ask Mr Downing to address the Committee and tell them a little bit about himself and the operation that goes on onsite and perhaps I can ask him to do that, Sir.

MR PAUL DOWNING, examined

Examined by MR LEDDON

20819. MR LEDDON: Mr Downing?

(Mr Downing) Good afternoon. I have been in the hotel business for 25 years and I have been with Marriot International for that length of time, and I was with other companies ten years previous to that. I have opened and operated in eight different countries. Marriot International has 2,700 properties worldwide and operates in 63 countries. Marriott has a management contract, as we have just heard, with the West India Quay Development company who is owned by the Yianis Group. I have worked at the London Marriott West India Quay Hotel and executive apartments since June 2003, one year before it opened and in June of this year the property will be open three years. The hotel is positioned as a fresh take on London and it is five star property. The annual occupancy for the hotel last year was 78 per cent and for the serviced apartments 86 per cent. Our main source of business is from the international business guests, Sunday through Thursday. We sell out most nights. On the weekends the customer profile changes totally as it is the leisure customer, mostly from the UK and Europe. Canary Wharf and West India Quay is one of the largest areas for Al fresco dining in London and our customers love relaxing outside by the water for both business and pleasure. We have spent thousands of man hours and advertising pounds letting people know that there is an alternative to West London, that our property represents a fresh take on London and our point of difference is being on the water. We also recommend that our guests use water commuter boats to experience the river and the different perspective it gives to our great city. The Quayside and Canary Wharf area is growing steadily to becoming viewed as a brilliant destination for the leisure traveller.

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. 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 declined 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. 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 offsite 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 of 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 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 (indicating) 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 (indicating) 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?

(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.

20840. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr Leddon?

 

Cross‑examined by MR LEDDON

20841. MR LEDDON: Can I, first of all, try and understand how we got here? As I understand it these proposals form part of the Third Amendments to the Bill?

(Mr Berryman): That is correct.

20842. So originally you were going to have a different method of construction of the stations?

(Mr Berryman): That is correct.

20843. What did that entail?

(Mr Berryman): That entailed driving two rows of sheet piles in the form of a cofferdam around the whole of the station site. The two rows would then be tied together with cross ties and filled with soil or granular material to form a cofferdam around the site. The reason that was rejected was because it would have been a very, very noisy method of construction. It is the way that Canary Wharf have constructed a number of buildings in the past, but as their estate has become more occupied it has become more and more difficult for contractors to get permission to drive the piles in that way, and the number of piles involved in that would have been very substantial.

20844. But in terms of it being an optimal engineering solution to the problem, is it one that Crossrail still stands by?

(Mr Berryman): What, the original scheme?

20845. Yes.

(Mr Berryman): No. We have dropped that scheme in response to Petitions by almost all the owners around the edge of the dock, and I think your own hotel would have been very severely impacted in terms of noise impact by that scheme.

20846. I suppose what I am trying to get at, Mr Berryman, is whether or not Crossrail got the original engineering wrong, or they have changed their mind in view of the level of compensation claims that may be made against them?

(Mr Berryman): No, compensation is not really an issue. There is nothing wrong with the engineering and, as I said, many of the buildings around Canary Wharf have been built in that manner, but with more recent experience - since we deposited the Bill, in fact - Canary Wharf have been building buildings considerably to the east of where your hotel is and on the south side of the docks, but they have only been allowed to pile for two hours a day, and with the immense amount of sheet piling that would have been involved in the original scheme we would have been there for years just to get the sheet piles in.

20847. You can imagine the comfort my client takes from the fact you have changed your mind once about the engineering solution because of Petitions received in respect of it, and this is what we are asking you to do again, to re‑look at your engineering solutions, but can we go back and look at the two engineering solutions that you have actually proposed in this particular matter, the first being scenario 1, AP3‑11‑04‑001. This is the construction of the sand bund, is it?

(Mr Berryman): Basically, to simplify, what this involves is lowering the water to about half the current level, building a kind of island in the middle of the dock where the station will be, and then constructing the station from the top of that island. That is scenario 1, yes.

20848. Is that a scenario which Crossrail still intends to have as one of its two options?

(Mr Berryman): It is. We would be perfectly happy with that option.

20849. But strong preferences have been made for option 2, have they not?

(Mr Berryman): We would be perfectly happy with option 2. Option 2 does have a number of advantages over option 1, in particular in reducing the amount of fill that we would need to bring in. As I just remarked, with option 1 we have to build an island in the middle of the dock and that requires an immense amount of material. Option 2 would probably let us get out of the way quicker. We are thinking in terms of a period of about three and a half years between when we pump the water out of the dock and when we let the water back in, so it will be significantly quicker than option 1, because when we have finished option 1 and have built the station we have to dredge out the island and take the island away, so it is quite a heavy task. If there are reservations about option 2, they are more to do with the stability of the Banana Wall and such like than anything else, and that may be the tipping factor, but if we can solve that problem, which we are confident we can, option 2 is a preferable option.

20850. But, so far as scenario 1 is concerned, it retains half the level of the water directly in front of the Marriott Hotel throughout the construction period?

(Mr Berryman): That is correct.

20851. Is that something that you would take into account at all in coming to your decision about which of the two options you wish to pursue?

(Mr Berryman): Certainly that would be a factor that would be taken into account. The interest of all the riparian owners is significant. You are not the only people who are affected. The Museum of Docklands and all the other people have views on these matters as well, of course.

20852. Yes. And so in coming up with scenarios 1 and 2, and in particular scenario 2, what consideration, if any, has been paid to the visual impact of the proposed works of draining the dock for five and a half years?

(Mr Berryman): Well, as I just said a moment ago, it probably would not be five and a half years but I suppose that is slightly academic. We do take into account visual impact, as you will see from the Environmental Impact Statement, but obviously it is only one factor amongst many that have to be taken on board.

20853. Yes, but if we actually look at the Environmental Statement and in particular the impact on visual amenity, there is no reference in there to the impact it will have on the hotel guests at the Marriott Hotel, is there?

(Mr Berryman): Obviously there is no permanent impact, as you know, because the water comes back again afterwards.

20854. But even when it lists the temporary impact that is not one of the temporary impacts that is listed?

(Mr Berryman): It is not listed as significant, no.

20855. And in terms of retention of existing water courses, the retaining of the water there, I think your Environmental Impact Statement says: "Whenever reasonably practicable interference of surface water features will be avoided". Is that something you have taken into account in coming to these two scenarios?

(Mr Berryman): Yes, but it hinges on the definition of what is reasonably practicable.

20856. But you have already indicated there are three, or have at least to date been three, possible different ways of carrying out this method of construction, so the range of what is reasonably practicable here seems fairly wide, does it not, Mr Berryman?

(Mr Berryman): There are many things which are practical in engineering. A lot of it is about finding the best balance between the different options which are available.

20857. And in terms of considering what the impact may be of carrying out scenario 2, what account will Crossrail take of the possible financial impacts on the businesses in that area, and on my client's hotel in particular?

(Mr Berryman): Well, there are financial impacts on some other Petitioners who we will hear shortly, the commercial boat owners, which we have taken into account, of course. I feel bound to say that my view of the impact on your client's business is very much less pessimistic than theirs. Having stayed in many hotels around the world, the quality of the view is far less important than the quality of the service, and I know that the service in this hotel is very, very good.

20858. I hear what you say, Mr Berryman, but have Crossrail undertaken any kind of cost benefit analysis to analyse what the impact of the proposed works under scenario 2 might be to my client's business, and other businesses in the area?

(Mr Berryman): No, we have not done that.

20859. So, as it stands before this Committee, the only evidence that we have is from the general manager of the hotel, which seems to be unchallenged?

(Mr Berryman): Yes. I would not put it quite like that myself.

20860. Well, unfortunately nobody seems to have asked him any questions in cross‑examination.

(Mr Berryman): I think the question of what makes a hotel successful or not is a very complex one which I am not competent to answer, but I would just say that the view out of the window is in my experience rarely the deciding factor.

20861. You appreciate that this building is a purpose‑designed and built building for hotel use, taking into account the water views?

(Mr Berryman): Yes, I do.

20862. And removing those for five and a half years do you think might have an impact on that?

(Mr Berryman): Well, three and a half years. Frankly, I doubt it. I am not the right person to ask about the impact of hotels but the Marriott Hotel there is situated in an area where heavy construction has been going on for a number of years and will continue for a further number of years, and I do not imagine that is something which really deters potential customers very much.

20863. But unfortunately is it not true to say that none of those other construction projects are proposing to remove the water view from the site?

(Mr Berryman): Yes. Of course it is true.

20864. Of course it is, yes. Can I move quickly to the issue of the storage of the silt? I think you indicated in your examination‑in‑chief that you are not too sure exactly how deep the silt is in the dock area, is that correct?

(Mr Berryman): That is correct, yes. As I mentioned last week, we have a further programme of site investigation for this area to be carried out.

20865. So you have no real idea of the volume of silt you are going to have to move and store?

(Mr Berryman): Well, it is not as if we have done no work on this. We have a number of discrete locations where we have established the thickness of the silt, and we have interpolated from that and we have allowed quite a significant margin of error in calculating the volume that we need to retain, so insofar as it is possible to be confident at this stage of design I am reasonably confident that we can achieve that.

20866. But you have no idea exactly what the material will be made up of, or how much, for example, gaseous releases may be released in the event of the silt being moved, have you?

(Mr Berryman): We have obviously ideas of what is in the silt in the areas which we have sampled, which I will be happy to concede are very few sites, but we do have the experience of the Canary Wharf Group to rely on who have given us valuable advice in this matter, and you saw the letter which Jim Berry wrote to us based on their very substantial experience of dewatering parts of these docks.

20867. But the Canary Wharf letter relates to their experience of storing silt elsewhere under a covering of water, is that correct?

(Mr Berryman): No, it is more than that, is it not? Can we pull it back up again?

20868. KELVIN HOPKINS: Just to confirm, is the base of the dock concrete?

(Mr Berryman): It is not concrete, no.

20869. It is just clay, is it?

(Mr Berryman): Yes. There you see it says: "Subsequently Canary Wharf has constructed cofferdams around... Barclays,... State Street and... Heron Quays. In all cases, water was removed from inside the cofferdam and the silt was exposed, and thereafter removed both from the body of the cofferdam..." - which is exactly what we are proposing to do here. "On carrying out the work, odour was not raised as a significant issue". Of course on an issue like this there can be no guarantee because you can always find something, but there is no guarantee if we do scenario one that there will not be silt disturbed and gas released.

20870. MR LEDDON: But leaving aside the issue of the silt to be stored when removed from the dock, what about the bottom of the dock itself? Once that is exposed to the elements for, I do not know, three and a half to five and a half years, what effect will that have on odours or smells coming out of the dock over that period, or do you not know?

(Mr Berryman): Well, based on experience with other projects in the docks there will not be any odours. The bottom of the dock is, generally speaking, puddle clay, which was a Victorian or Georgian technique for waterproofing structures of this sort, and it is a material which we are very familiar with. It is used on all the canals and things round the UK.

20871. Finally, going back to 11‑04‑003, scenario 2, which is a point my clients have put on a number of occasions of moving the dam further down, you have explained that there are problems with piles under Messrs Clifford Chance's building. Would it make any difference if it was not occupied by a firm of solicitors, Mr Berryman?

(Mr Berryman): We always try to disturb the members of the legal profession as much as we possibly can, of course!

20872. I think my client's request was to move the dam further down towards the DLR bridge. Is there any particular reason why the dam has to be amongst the piles of the bridge? Could it not be put either side and, therefore, avoid the problem with the piles?

(Mr Berryman): The buildings there come very close to the edge of the DLR viaduct structure, very close indeed. I believe we have got the piling drawings for this building although I do not have them to hand, but I believe there is a row of piles along the edge, and then the next piles for the viaduct are only just outside that row.

20873. So is there any reason why the dam could not be put the other side of the DLR bridge, which avoids the piles?

(Mr Berryman): Well, you have another building there, and, again, we do not have a drawing of the piles there at all but we do know they will be very similar to all the other buildings in that area. These three buildings are all suspended over the dock.

20874. And going back to your earlier comment, Mr Berryman, that in terms of engineering solutions usually there is one if you throw enough money at it, surely it is physically possible to put the dam in a different location taking into account the existing piling, if you throw enough money at it?

(Mr Berryman): Yes, it would be but I think the kind of money you would have to throw at it would be very, very substantial.

20875. Would that be a matter that you would have to balance against the cost of any compensation claim being brought against the company as a result of damage to my client's business?

(Mr Berryman): Well, it would. You are asking me quite a detailed question off the top of my head. As Ms Lieven said I do not actually often use the word "impossible", but you are getting very close to the impossible in trying to get something under here.

20876. Impossible without throwing enough money at it?

(Mr Berryman): Well, yes, and I do mean enormous sums.

20877. MR LEDDON: Thank you.

20878. CHAIRMAN: Ms Lieven?

20879. MS LIEVEN: Just a couple of points, sir.

 

Re‑examined by MS LIEVEN

20880. MS LIEVEN: Looking at the aerial view again so we can see the buildings that Mr Berryman is talking about, at 10 Cabot Square Wren's Landing comes in so the cut‑off wall would be coming across North Dock, is that right?

(Mr Berryman): That is right.

20881. And I am told by a thoroughly reliable source, Mr Berry, that it is not in fact Clifford Chance; it is an advertising firm, a financial firm?

(Mr Berryman): That is all right then!

20882. But one can see, is that right, the substantial building with the piles you are concerned about underneath?

(Mr Berryman): Yes.

20883. And the Financial Services Authority building is the building on the other side of the Great Wharf Bridge, is it?

(Mr Berryman): No. On the other side of the DLR bridge.

20884. Asking you about odour, it was suggested to you that there might be odour from the silt. First, have we carried out any sampling, to your knowledge, of the silt in order to discover whether it is contaminated or not?

(Mr Berryman): Very, very limited.

20885. And, so far as the management of the silt is concerned, and if there are odour problems, is that a matter which is covered by the Environmental Minimum Requirements?

(Mr Berryman): Yes, it is.

20886. And I know this is not really your area of expertise but I do not desperately want to call another witness to deal with this specifically: if the silt does have more contamination than we anticipate and than Canary Wharf have found elsewhere and there are odour problems, what kind of steps can the project take to minimise odour?

(Mr Berryman): The main thing to minimise odour is to keep the silt under water, so the more quickly you can get it covered over by water the better it is in terms of minimising any odour that might arise. The other thing we can do is stabilise it by soil mixing and mixing with cement.

20887. And would it be right that, to the degree you have to take it out of the water for any period of time, you can spray it with water to keep it wet?

(Mr Berryman): Yes, indeed. It is very similar in a way to dealing with a dust problem. You just keep it wet, keep it under water as far as possible, and just keep it moist.

20888. MS LIEVEN: Thank you very much, Mr Berryman.

20889. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr Berryman.

 

(The witness withdrew)

20890. MS LIEVEN: Just to close briefly, sir, in my submission where the evidence gets us is that under scenario 2 there is no realistic alternative but to put the cut‑off dam where we are proposing, diagonally across the North Dock. Of course, there is always an alternative, sir; one could knock down 10 Cabot Square or the Financial Services Authority building and do it that way, there is virtually always in life an alternative, but in terms of balancing the inconvenience to residents of the hotel looking out of their window on a drained dock for something between three and a half and five and a half years or knocking down one of two massive office blocks, I would suggest the choice is pretty straightforward. So, sir, the only issue is should scenario 2 be there at all?

20891. Now, Mr Berryman took you through the advantages of scenario 2, and I suspect that those from Canary Wharf might well wish to reiterate them as they are strong supporters, as I understand it, of scenario 2. The advantages are that we do not have to take silt out of the dock, which itself has major both carriage and potentially odour advantages; we do not have to find another home for the silt, which is by no means straightforward given the landfill constraints which exist in south east England; and we do not have to bring in anywhere near so much fill in order to fill in to build the island and construct the station under scenario 1; there is the strong potential for short construction time and a benefit in terms of noise because we are working on the bottom of the dock and not halfway up. So, sir, those benefits will be balanced against disadvantages.

20892. Sir, I did not cross‑examine the witness from the Marriott Hotel because there probably will be residents and guests of the hotel who will be less enthusiastic about looking out over a work site than about looking out over the water. The degree to which that will impact on revenue is so difficult to predict that there is really little benefit in the Committee wasting its afternoon debating it, although there probably will be such impact and we will take that impact into account. Ultimately, sir, this is a bit of hard capitalism. We will weigh up the various financial consequences of the different choices and the various environmental consequences and come to a conclusion, but, in my submission, it would be completely wrong for the Committee at this stage to rule out a scenario which has the potential to be of significant benefit to a number of interests in the vicinity. There is a difficult balance to be undertaken, and the other material consideration which Mr Berryman brought in was of course, which one always forgets, the Grade I Listed banana wall which is going underneath all of these buildings, which also has to be put into the balance, so there is a difficult balance to be made. It is one that you, in my submission, can have complete faith in the Secretary of State and CLRL doing appropriately and taking into account all the different interests and considerations, but it would be quite wrong, as I have said, for the Committee at this stage, having heard one Petitioner with one set of interests, to rule out an option now. Thank you, sir.

20893. MR LEDDON: Sir, as you will have heard from my cross-examination of Mr Berryman, there are three potential solutions to the engineering problem here. In the first instance, it would appear that, bowing to pressure from third parties, scenarios one and two are now to be put forward as being the ones that they wish to pursue. Sir, it is for that reason and that reason alone that my clients find themselves before you today making these representations as there appears to have been little or no consultation with them at the time that these two different scenarios were put forward.

20894. Sir, Mr Berryman indicated that, so far as he was concerned, he was happy to go with either scenario one or scenario two. There may be some advantages to scenario two, but they would have to be balanced by the disbenefits that we have identified. It is clear that there has been no cost:benefit analysis of the impact of the removal of the water from the north dock in front of this purpose-built, five-star hotel built between three and a half to five and a half years ago or the impact it may have on other businesses in and around the area, a number of whom I understand are going to come and address you separately on these matters.

20895. Sir, the other point that came out of Mr Berryman's cross-examination is that it is quite clear that there are a number of different, alternative engineering solutions that are possible here so long as enough money is thrown at it. There could be a different position for the cofferdam, for the dam to keep the water in the dock throughout the construction process, either going one side or the other of the DLR bridge.

20896. Sir, it is these sorts of matters that we would ask you to comment on and to give your direction on when you write your report and for it not to be left in Crossrail's hands as to who they believe wields the most influence in the Canary Wharf area. My clients' interests and those of the other businesses in the area will be very materially affected and that is the unchallenged evidence of Mr Downing before you today and we ask you to make sure that those matters are properly taken into account and that you recommend they do not pursue option two. There is another option they can follow and that is the one that they should pursue in these circumstances.

20897. So far as the odour problem is concerned, it was nice to hear it acknowledged that there may be an odour problem that comes up. Where that quite takes my client with up to 80 clients sitting on the terrace outside, having to put up with an empty dock and smells coming from it is a completely different matter. At the end of the day, I suppose we would have to pull back with our public nuisance or private nuisance obligations, but that is a very unsatisfactory position for a world-class development, such as this, to have to fall back on in these circumstances. It seems a very high-handed and cavalier attitude for someone like Crossrail to take in these circumstances. Sir, unless there are any other matters on which I can assist you, that is all I have to say. Thank you, sir.

20898. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. That concludes that Petition and we now move on to the final Petition of the day which is the Canary Wharf Group plc, represented by Sharpe Pritchard.

 

The Petition of the Canary Wharf Group plc.

Sharpe Pritchard appeared as Agents.

MR ALASDAIR LEWIS appeared on behalf of the Petitioners.

20899. MS LIEVEN: Sir, I shall do a short introduction. Sir, as I think the Committee have probably gathered by now, if they did not know already, the Canary Wharf Group are very significant landholders in the vicinity of the north dock and the Isle of Dogs generally. The particular concern they have come to talk to you about today is North Quay, which I will show you on a photo and then I will show you on a plan. It is the site between the Marriott Hotel and Billingsgate Market, so you can just see it here (indicating). At the moment, it is largely used as a car park, and the witness will tell you more about it, and it is intended for a very large development at some point in the future. If we can put up the plan, the scenario one plan, here is the DLR bridge you have just been hearing all about and here is the Marriott Hotel, here is Billingsgate Market which you have heard about a couple of weeks ago and here is North Quay. It is needed by the Crossrail project under both scenario one and scenario two, so you do not need to worry about the scenarios, as a worksite for the construction of the Isle of Dogs Station in the dock. I do not believe that the witness is going to argue or that the Canary Wharf Group are going to argue that it is not needed, so I am hoping at this stage not to need to call Mr Berryman on this one.

20900. The issue between us is that the Canary Wharf Group are concerned about the time that North Quay will be needed for the Isle of Dogs for our works. Their concern really turns on the detail of the Bill powers, so I think this is probably the first time in this Committee I am actually going to take the Committee to the Bill powers.

20901. Under clause 6 of the Bill, the CPO powers last for five years from Royal Assent, but there is in clause 6(7) and 6(8) of the Bill a power to extend that time by the Secretary of State. Such a power is well precedented. It existed in the CTRL Act and it has existed in other Bills. It is important to stress, indeed very important to stress, that, in order to use that power, the Secretary of State has to go through an extremely rigorous parliamentary procedure, and I will tell you far more about it in closing, but it involves both a public inquiry and a special parliamentary procedure which involves a joint committee of both Houses, so it is a very difficult thing to do. The Secretary of State cannot just say, "Oh, I'd like to keep the powers going for longer".

20902. It is also important to stress at the outset that, under Schedule 6, paragraphs 18 and 19 of the Bill, it gives any affected landowner or lessee the power to require the Secretary of State to acquire their land if the Secretary of State chooses to use the power to extend. In other words, we cannot extend and continue to sterilise the land. If we choose to extend, then Canary Wharf Group have the right to say to us, "Okay, buy North Quay now", so they can get their compensation at that stage if we go down the extension route.

20903. Sir, I think there are two points I want to make in opening. First of all, this power to extend, which Canary Wharf Group will ultimately ask you to excise from the Bill certainly in respect of their land, is only exercisable after a very rigorous parliamentary procedure and scrutiny.

20904. The second point I would like to emphasise very strongly in opening is that I understand that the Canary Wharf Group and the witness are going to ask you to get into the details of the funding of Crossrail and the negotiations that are going on between the Secretary of State and the Canary Wharf Group about how Crossrail is funded, which is partly tied up with issues around this site, the value of this site and whether or not some deal could be struck, but the Committee will know, not from anything that has been said here because funding is nothing to do with the Committee, but from its general knowledge of this project that funding is a huge issue and is subject to a great many discussions and negotiations outside this Committee. I would very, very strongly urge this Committee not to start trying to get involved at Canary Wharf Group's behest in one particular aspect of that because one can see that it would be easy to see one little part of what is a much bigger and much more complicated jigsaw. Sir, I will leave it there and obviously say more in closing, if that is appropriate. Thank you.

20905. CHAIRMAN: Before we continue, Mr Anderson, can we just put on record our gratitude to you for the time you afforded to us last week on our site visit. We are most grateful and it was very informative. Mr Lewis?

20906. MR LEWIS: Sir, what I am going to do is simply introduce Mr Anderson who will give you his evidence.

 

MR PETER ANDERSON, Sworn

Examined by MR LEWIS

20907. MR LEWIS: Mr Anderson?

(Mr Anderson) Good afternoon. My name is Peter Anderson, the Managing Director of Finance at Canary Wharf Group plc. I understand that it might have been expected in these proceedings that counsel represent us, but I would prefer to make my remarks by myself, if that is acceptable to you. I also have some pictures to accompany my remarks. Canary Wharf Group is a very strong supporter of Crossrail and I would not want any of the issues that we raise today to be misconstrued as a lack of support for Crossrail; quite the contrary. Crossrail is vital for London, vital for its future growth and vital to ensure its continued competitiveness globally. As counsel for the Secretary of State said, the reason I am here is the impact of the construction of Crossrail, or rather the potential for its delay, on our North Quay development, and I want to illustrate the impact of transport improvements on the Canary Wharf district. This first picture is a picture of Canary Wharf in 1987 before any such work started, and you can see the docks, you can see the water on either side of the central spine, and the building on the central spine is the Limehouse Film Studios.

20908. CHAIRMAN: Could we list all these photographs in a group as A239.

(Mr Anderson) If we look at the second photograph, this is a photograph in 1991 showing the first phase of Canary Wharf. This phase was supported by the Docklands Light Railway and, as you can see, it is a grouping of seven buildings surrounded by Cabot Square and, as I said, it was supported by the DLR station. The next diagram shows Canary Wharf pretty much as it stands today. What is shows is around 15 million square feet in ten different ownerships, as Canary Wharf is not the sole owner of Canary Wharf district, and with a working population of 90,000 people. This level of development was supported by the Jubilee Line. We can build another five to seven million square feet with the upgraded Jubilee Line capacity coming on line which will occur in 2009. If we can put up the next diagram, this picture shows the potential for the future post-2014 which dramatically expands the Isle of Dogs business district in and around Canary Wharf, including the build-out of Wood Wharf, which is majority owned by the British Waterways Board, the Billingsgate Fish Market, which would be the area here (indicating), so Wood Wharf is over here, Billingsgate Fish Market there, and the Millennium Quarter to the south of Canary Wharf, which is that area there, all in different ownerships, including such developers as Ballymore, Hammerson and Fidelity. Without Canary Wharf London would not have been as successful a financial centre as it is today. I say that for two reasons. First, Canary Wharf provided large floor plate buildings required to house large financial services firms. We provided a large quantity of the type of space these firms needed to operate efficiently. Secondly, the supply we created and the price at which we created it was a moderating influence on rents across London, making London an affordable place in which to do business. Without Canary Wharf it would have been very difficult for London to provide the quantum space demanded and rents that would have very likely become uncompetitive globally. Crossrail is vital because it will enable a continued supply of space to be created and enable a workforce from a very wide catchment area to work in the three financial centres in the City, the West End and Canary Wharf. In fact, it will increase the catchment area for these districts by one million people. Canary Wharf has strong credentials in supporting transport improvements. To date Canary Wharf has contributed £369 million to the construction and subsequent improvements to the Jubilee Line and Docklands Light Railway.

20909. CHAIRMAN: Mr Anderson, could I ask one question. You said it employs 90,000. If this futuristic plan occurs how many people will it then employ?

(Mr Anderson) Two hundred thousand and that statistic, or that number, comes from the Mayor's Transport Plan and has also been reiterated recently by Ruth Kelly and the Thames Gateway plan. What I would like to show is the area of North Quay. This is a similar diagram to which you were shown earlier and the site is right here. This is a picture of the site itself and the intention here is to use this as a worksite for Crossrail, as counsel mentioned earlier. I would like to move on to the next picture. This is a picture on the left and we put in in red where the Crossrail station will be and the buildings we are talking about is this development here on the diagram. If you could go to the next photograph, this shows in schematic what the development is. We have planning permission for this development and the market is currently very strong for these types of buildings. We want to be in a position to develop these buildings as soon as possible and were it not for the Bill we could start tomorrow. Our issue, and the reason we wanted to address this Committee, is that because of the Bill we may not be able to develop this site for ten years or even longer. The time limit on compulsory acquisition under the Bill is five years from Royal Assent but that is extendable theoretically to an unlimited degree. Similarly, the planning consent enjoyed by Crossrail under the Bill is subject to a time line of ten years, again extendable by statutory instrument. If Crossrail is delayed and extensions to these time limits are secured we could be excluded from the site for many years, and even then there is no assurance that Crossrail will be built. The only way that is provided in the Bill for Crossrail to acquire the site is through compulsory purchase. Given the planning permission and value of the site, this would be a costly and unnecessary expense to the taxpayer for the project. Because of our strong support for Crossrail and our desire that it should be built, and built expeditiously, we have made an offer to the Department for Transport that we will give Crossrail a licence to use the North Quay's site for free with no compensation, provided the work begins within five years of Royal Assent and that the site is returned to us within five years after commencement of the works subject to force majeure. We think this is a very fair offer. It would mean that potentially we would be agreeing to the sterilisation of our site for ten years with no compensation. It will also save the public purse in excess of £300 million of compensation for the compulsory purchase of the site or for lease payments. Our principal concern is to get the site back to develop it and we believe that ten years is a sufficiently long period for a site of this magnitude and value to be blighted. Given that the Secretary of State is unwilling to agree our proposal for a compensation‑free licence, we would like to see the Bill amended to provide that the compulsory powers of acquisition over North Quay will expire five years from the date of Royal Assent and that there will be no possibility that the period be extended under the Bill. I confirm to you now that our side of the bargain is that we would enter into a licence arrangement of the type just described, saving the project, we say, hundreds of millions of pounds. If, once the Bill has attained Royal Assent, the Department considers that to be an unreasonable offer, then they could still acquire the site compulsorily under the Act, but only in the first five years. Obviously we do not want that to happen, and I am sure the Secretary of State does not either, given the vast expense in doing so, but at least it would give us some certainty. Our lawyers have prepared amendments for your consideration, which is document six. Chairman, when you and the Committee visited Canary Wharf last week I made some comments on how Crossrail might be funded. I would be happy to repeat those comments and let others on the Committee hear what I said and put it on the record.

20910. CHAIRMAN: We would be happy to hear that.

(Mr Anderson) On Crossrail we began our thinking on how private sources of funding might be raised in 2002 when we produced this document with CBRE and it is entitled "Funding Crossrail: could property help?" In this study we advocated two ideas. First was an increase of two to three per cent in the business rates hypothecated and specifically directed to funding Crossrail. This idea has developed support in the business community in the form of a three per cent increase and we believe that the concept has also gained traction in the Treasury and the DfT. We are also waiting imminent publication of the Lyons Review that will hopefully offer some ideas and support along these lines. The second idea we advocated is that office developers should contribute as well. Put simply, for every new building started, once the decision is made to proceed to build Crossrail, we have suggested that office developers should contribute £30 per square foot of net lettable space via a hypothecated section 106‑type payment directly to Crossrail. Our thinking on this is as follows. The entire existing public transport system is at or beyond capacity. At some point, and we believe we are very close to that point, the lack of growth in the public transport infrastructure is going to limit the growth of London. Once that occurs, incremental development cannot be supported by the current infrastructure. London needs to grow and London needs to continue to be competitive globally. To do that, we will need to constantly upgrade and expand its office stock and transport infrastructure to accommodate that growth. All development in central London will benefit from Crossrail. Based on office development economics developers in the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf districts could afford a £30 per square foot payment. Rents and building values per square foot are higher in the City and even higher in the West End and so developers in those areas could even more easily afford such a levy. Developers are used to section 106 negotiations and they occur at the point in time when the developer has a strong incentive to successfully obtain planning permission. Under this scheme they would pay once the project is started and at the time the funding is being put in place for their project. We believe that such a funding mechanism has the virtue of simplicity and a very high likelihood of raising substantial sums for Crossrail. I would like to illustrate why we would want to create a system that requires contributions from all developers. Put up the next slide. Even in an area as concentrated as the Isle of Dogs and surrounding business district you have multiple ownerships. This is a diagram I showed you earlier, but this time it is colour-coded to show the Canary Wharf Group ownership in grey and other owners in colour. Go to the next diagram. Here is another diagram I showed you earlier, the post‑2014 scenario, again with Canary Wharf Group ownership in grey and other owners in colour. As you can see, the vast majority of new development will be done by others and all developers will benefit from the provision of Crossrail. Of the total potential developments on the Isle of Dogs, Canary Wharf represents approximately a third of that development. The Mayor's plan, Transport 2025, projects employment growth across London will increase by 360,000 jobs in central London and 565,000 jobs outside the central area for a total of 925,000 jobs by 2026. Based on an average of 172 square feet for every person, this could generate a demand for new office space across London in the order of 159 million square feet. At £30 per square foot this could generate a contribution of up to £4.7 billion. We believe this type of mechanism could be extended to residential developers as well because they benefit significantly from additions to public transport. The Jubilee Line and the residential development that has occurred along that corridor is a clear example of public transport benefit. We are mindful that residential developers must also make significant contributions for affordable housing. The Mayor's plan projects a population increase of some 800,000 people by 2026. This could generate 550,000 to 720,000 households. Conservatively, assuming an average unit size of 400 square feet, this generates between 220 and 288 million square feet of new residential development. For example, taking the conservative end of the range, at £5 per square foot of contribution would generate up to £1.1 billion of developer contributions over time, and at £10 per square foot it could generate contributions of £2.2 billion. We provide this background because we want to make clear that we want Crossrail to happen, we are trying to contribute to the debate as to how it can happen and mechanisms to capture significant private sector contributions that are fair and equitable for all stakeholders. Thank you very much.

20911. CHAIRMAN: For the record, could we list the two documents described here as A241 and A240. Ms Lieven?

20912. MS LIEVEN: No, sir, I do not want to ask any questions. I said a number of the points in opening, but if I could encapsulate them in different words in closing. It is very interesting to hear Mr Anderson's thoughts on funding and those of the Canary Wharf Group. I am sure that those behind me will have listened with great interest but, sir, what the Canary Wharf Group is seeking to do here is to get the Committee involved in funding negotiations which are going on with the Secretary of State at the present time and, in my submission, that would be quite inappropriate for the Committee.

20913. CHAIRMAN: We well understand the boundaries. What members who attended the site visit thought was that it was important to place on the record, because it was an interesting scenario and that is what we have made sure of today and we are very grateful for that.

20914. MS LIEVEN: We are very grateful for the Canary Wharf Group having attended, made their support for Crossrail very clear and shown so clearly how important Crossrail is both to the Isle of Dogs but also to London more generally; all sentiments that we wholly agree with, of course, but so far as the issue about funding is concerned, as I have said, those sitting behind me will have listened carefully - I suspect much of it they will have heard before in other forums - but in terms of asking the Committee to get involved, which is ultimately what the Canary Wharf Group is doing, I would very strongly urge you not to do so because the issues around North Quay and how that fits into a deal with Canary Wharf as to funding and how that fits into a much, much bigger funding package as a whole, are ones not for this Committee but also have some very sensitive negotiations which are going on at the present time.

20915. So far as the specific issue about the extension of time for Crossrail in Clause 6, and whether that should be excluded in respect of North Quay, first of all, as I said, such an extension is clearly precedented; it existed on the CTRL Bill and it existed on other Bills. In my submission, it is wholly appropriate for Crossrail, which is an exceedingly complicated project for a whole variety of reasons, and having such a power is quite right and proper.

20916. Then, sir, in terms of how that power will be exercised, there are a number of safeguards. The first one is that of general public law. The Secretary of State has to act reasonably and he has to take into account material considerations in deciding whether or not to seek such an order under Clause 6 in any event. Then, if he does seek the order, as I said, there is a two-stage process by which, first of all, if there are objections, the Secretary of State has to appoint an Inspector to hear a public inquiry and objectors can attend and make representations and call evidence before that Inspector. The Inspector then reports and if the Secretary of State decides to proceed to seek an order he then has to go to Parliament and there is then a process, not wholly dissimilar from this Committee, by which if there are petitions to the extension of powers then a joint committee is set up of three Members of Parliament and three peers and they hear petitions, rather like this Committee, and then they produce a report.

20917. So, sir, in terms of protecting Canary Wharf Group's interest that the Secretary of State will not simply sit around, do nothing for five years and then seek an extension of power, this Parliament has every power and control to ensure that the Secretary of State acts properly and with proper justification in those circumstances.

20918. Can I say, finally, sir, that so far as the arguments about deleting Clauses 6(7) and (8) are concerned, it is difficult to see why, if the Committee went down that line, a very large number of other landowners along the route would not pose similar arguments. They may not have developments quite as big as North Quay but they are likely to have developments which are just as close to their heart as North Quay and which may be just as important to their finances. So it is important to see that this is not specifically just about North Quay. In my submission, sir, this is territory which it would be a major mistake for the Committee to get involved in, because of the links then to other issues which, really, nobody in this room is fully appraised of and are better left with the Secretary of State.

20919. MR LEWIS: Sir, if I could just clarify one issue, going slightly off my prepared script, in relation to the finance, I just want to make it quite clear that I think you summed up the position correctly in terms of why we mention finance today. It is not because we want the Committee to get involved, it is because Mr Anderson made some points to you when you made a visit and here we are to explain them and put them on the record.

20920. CHAIRMAN: I am grateful, Mr Lewis, but we do not need protection.

20921. MR LEWIS: Of course.

20922. CHAIRMAN: The reason why we accepted Mr Anderson coming along to actually put this on the record is because Members did find it interesting and it was a new concept. We realise where our boundaries lie and I think it is important to put it on the record because other people who read our evidence are people actually affected by the line (?) and we thought it appropriate that they should have the benefit of that.

20923. MR LEWIS: Thank you, sir. You have heard evidence from Mr Anderson and there is nothing which I can usefully add to that as regards the detail of what Canary Wharf Group is offering. I do, however, want to say a few words about what it is they want in return, namely the amendments to the Bill that we have put forward today. I want to demonstrate to you that what we are asking you to do is not unusual, by any means. In fact, I want to leave you with the impression that it is what the Promoters are asking you to do under this Bill that is unusual, and I will do that with a short history lesson, if I may.

20924. I want to take you back to the 19^th Century when private railway acts were coming out of this place's ears. Sir, by way of example, and examples do not get much better, the Great Western Railway was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1835. As you would expect, the Act contained powers of compulsory acquisition of land from Paddington to Bristol. There was a time limit on the exercise of those powers; it was two years with no powers to extend. Never mind that, it took Brunel less than three years from Royal Assent to complete the line to Maidenhead, and another three to finish the job. The Act gave the Great Western Railway seven years to finish the construction of the whole railway. The Crossrail Bill gives deemed planning permission for the works if they are started within ten years, and even then there is a power to extend the limit.

20925. Sir, it would be wrong for me to suggest that things are the same now as they were in Victorian or pre-Victorian times, so I move on to more modern examples to illustrate what the normal practice is nowadays. I have looked through every railway and tram act and transport and works order since 1980. It was an interesting job, sir. These included 21 promoted by British Rail and Network Rail, 15 by London Transport, eight for the London Docklands Railway, 15 for the Greater Manchester Tram, seven for Midland Metro, three for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and 16 others, making a total of 84. All of them contained powers of compulsory acquisition but not one of them allowed compulsory acquisition to take place later than five years after enactment, and certainly none of them allowed the Secretary of State to make an order extending the period allowed. They did not, of course, all authorise projects of such scale as Crossrail, but they do include some substantial projects such as the whole of the DLR, the Jubilee Line extension, both of which, of course, go to Canary Wharf, Thameslink 2000, the whole of the Manchester Tram system, and the West Coast Mainline upgrade.

20926. Ms Lieven mentioned that the extension provision in this Bill is well-precedented. I have not mentioned Hybrid acts yet, and there you will find the precedents for the extendable period. I found two. The first was the Channel Tunnel Act and the second the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act. They both contain a five-year period extendable by order of the Secretary of State. As far as I am aware, the powers to extend under those two Acts were not exercised. One asks why they were needed. Other Hybrid acts, such as Cardiff Bay Barrage, the QE2 Bridge and Severn Bridges did not allow an extension to the five-year period.

20927. I would like to just mention, if I can, briefly, sir, as well, Special Parliamentary Procedure. Please do forgive me if I have got this wrong but I think you have got some experience yourself of an SPP joint committee; an order that my firm promoted for Barnsley. I am sure that you may well have been on the joint committee which heard that, and if I have got that wrong I am sorry.

20928. CHAIRMAN: I think you might be wrong.

20929. MR LEWIS: Okay, I am sorry. I have you mixed up with someone else. In any event, it goes to demonstrate on that particular committee that, yes, I agree with Ms Lieven this place does have power to knock out orders made which are subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure, because in that case the joint committee did. I would like to take it one step further because I know that there is a case, and I am afraid I do not know the detail, which involved a bypass at Okehampton in Devon, which was a compulsory purchase order for a highway which was subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure, presumably because public open space was taken. I believe the facts to be that the compulsory purchase order came before the House, a joint committee considered it and the joint committee decided that the order should not be confirmed. So joy all round, presumably, for those who supported the open space. I believe that despite that and because the Secretary of State wanted the road to be built so badly he then promoted an Act of Parliament, which basically overrode the decision of the joint committee.

20930. So, sir, it is not necessarily the end of the road, I do not believe, if Special Parliamentary proceedings are used. I must admit that particular case was pre-Human Rights Act, so whether that particular act would receive the approbation of the joint committee on human rights now, I do not know, but I just wanted to make clear that insofar as I am aware it is not necessarily the end of the road, and if the Secretary of State wants to have his way then he could promote another Bill.

20931. There is one more part to the history tour, if I may, sir, and it is perhaps the most important one. As you know, sir, this is not the first Crossrail Bill to come before the House. The Private Bill promoted by British Rail and London Regional Transport, which was thrown out in the early-1990s by a Select Committee in the House of Commons, contained a time limit of five years, and there was no power to extend. Sir, the current scheme is not so dissimilar from the old one, so as to bring it into some exceptional, new category, and all we are asking you to do is to alter the Bill so that it is in line with nearly every recent precedent. We would ask you to support these new provisions and make the amendments requested.

20932. MS LIEVEN: Sir, given that Mr Lewis raised legal points in closing, can I claim a very short right to reply? Three points, sir: first of all, he is quite right to say that precedents are in Hybrid Bills, but the two Hybrid Bills where the precedent arises, the Channel Tunnel Act and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act, are the only railway Hybrid Bills in anything like the recent past. So those are the two precedents we rely on because those are the two that apply here.

20933. Secondly, I am instructed by Mr Irvine, our Parliamentary Agent, that it is standard in Scottish Bills now to have a power to extend up to ten years. What weight the Committee gives to that is up to the Committee, but there we have a similar form of legislation and a standard provision of up to ten years.

20934. Finally, Mr Lewis is quite right to say that the Secretary of State can go through a Special Parliamentary Procedure and then ultimately not accept the joint committee's recommendations. However, if he chooses not to do so then he has to promote a Bill to achieve the same end result. Self-evidently, that has to itself be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny, or it does not get past. So the point comes back to the same place, which is that for any extension of these powers to take place this House has control over what can and cannot happen. Thank you, sir.

20935. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. That concludes today's hearings. The Committee will next meet on Tuesday 20 March at 10 am.