Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
60. The Bill includes powers to construct a
new station at Woolwich.[21]
The section is effectively on the area of the car park of the
Royal Arsenal which I am indicating to your Lordships now. The
construction of the station box is dependent on the successful
completion of a binding agreement between the Department of Transport
and Berkeley Homes, who are the major residential developers in
the area. The subsequent fit-out of the box is dependent on receiving
sufficient funding from businesses and developers in the area
that stand to benefit from the station.
61. If we then go back to the route map for
the southeast, the southeastern terminus is at Abbey Wood, where
there will be new tracks, new platforms and a newly rebuilt station
to allow 12 Crossrail trains an hour to terminate at Abbey Wood.
At Abbey Wood there will be cross-station interchange with existing
lines coming from Dartford further in the southeast.
62. The whole route section is proposed to be
subject to overhead line electrification and powers are being
sought to do that. Along the surface section portal masts will
be erected to cover the electric lines approximately every 50m.
63. On the service pattern, once Crossrail is
constructed and operating it is expected that there will be, unsurprisingly,
a considerable level of demand, and so 24 trains an hour will
be run in the central section—that is through the deep tunnel.[22]
To the east that splits equally into 12 trains an hour to Abbey
Wood and 12 trains an hour to Shenfield. The western section,
which the Committee will remember, only has the one limb, the
Great Western Line, with a branch off to Heathrow. This means
that only a proportion of Crossrail trains will run west of Paddington;
in the peak hour up to ten trains run west of Paddington, four
of which run to Heathrow, four to Maidenhead and two to West Drayton.
64. The Crossrail line to Abbey Wood will only
take trains going through the central tunnel; but on the line
to Shenfield Crossrail services will share the slow lines, or
"E Lines", with suburban passenger services, some of
which are not subsumed into Crossrail and which are designed to
be complementary to the Crossrail service. The longer distance
passenger trains and freight trains which use the fast lines will
continue to do so during normal operation.
65. On the Great Western Mail Line Crossrail
services will share the slow or so-called "relief" lines
with freight and again with complementary passenger services going
on to Reading. The InterCity lines, that is the Great Western
lines going out to south Wales and to Bristol, run on the fast
lines and they will continue to use those lines uninterrupted,
unaffected by Crossrail during normal operation.
66. Greater capacity on the existing network,
both west and east, is achieved by means of longer trains and
fitting more trains through investment into the infrastructure,
which is part of the Crossrail project, and also through further
design work on the timetable.
67. At this point, my Lords, I hand over to
Mr Mould to speak to you about the delivery mechanism.
68. MR MOULD: My Lord Chairman, my Lady,
my Lords, I am going to say a very few words indeed about delivery,
covering the basic funding components and the briefest outline
of the proposals to the management of the project through construction.[23]
69. Most of these matters, of course, are strictly
outside the scope of the Bill in legislative terms but it may
be of assistance to the Committee just to have a brief understanding
of how we intend that the project should be successfully delivered.
70. The total project cost of Crossrail is expected
to be about £16 billion in cash terms—in other words,
in "money of the day" over the period of construction
of the railway. That figure of £16 billion includes a prudent
allowance for inflation during construction, and for the risk
of other cost escalation; it is fully inclusive of all project
costs, such as land acquisition, compulsory purchase and contingencies.
This figure has been subject to external, independent review.
71. The package of funding for the project was
announced on 5 October of last year by the Prime Minister, and
indeed is set out in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review published
in November of last year. In the briefest terms, funding of the
project will be shared equitably between central government, the
private sector and future Crossrail fare payers and, indeed, Transport
for London as the transport authority for the capital.
72. As regards management, the position is that
the Department for Transport and Transport for London have a 50:50
joint ownership of the company Crossrail London Rail Links Limited,
which is the company established for the development and planning
of the railway project. The Department and Transport for London
are co-sponsors of the project, and the proposal is that CLRL
is to become a subsidiary of Transport for London in order to
take the project forward once powers have been granted, but with
the necessary degree of independence to enable proper procurement
and provision to be made for the efficient construction of the
railway.
73. Turning then to summarise the position as
regards consultation and information.[24]
There has been very extensive consultation and exchange of information
with statutory bodies, commercial occupiers and individuals affected
by the project, both before the deposit of the Bill and continuing
through the parliamentary process where there have been changes
to the project. I just set out on the slide the main categories
of bodies consulted with: local authorities, key environmental
and other statutory bodies, railway industry bodies, other government
departments, the business community and, indeed, landowners and
occupiers.
74. In the course of the parliamentary proceedings
in relation to the Bill the Promoter has sought to inform those
affected by the Crossrail scheme about the proposals and how they
will be affected.[25]
We have produced over 70 Information Papers on a wide variety
of subjects, such as compensation rights, environmental protection
and Bill powers; and these Information Papers have been updated
as matters have changed, and indeed have been republished in up-to-date
form for the benefit of proceedings before your Lordships' House.
Your Lordships I believe have been provided with copies of those
documents. They have been made available on the scheme website
and, indeed, updated. We also have written to every property owner
or occupier who petitioned in the other Place, drawing attention
to the various generic undertakings and assurances that have been
given and which relate to their petition, as we were asked to
do by the Committee in the other Place. We have also written to
all petitioners in your Lordships' House setting out the key information
sources for the project.
75. The project has a website, and this is a
copy of the homepage.[26]
All the Information Papers are to be found there, together with
all other relevant documents such as, for example, the background
technical reports to the scheme. The website has been operating
since the deposit of the Bill in February 2005, so well before
the hearings in the select committee proceedings in the other
Place which of course started in January 2006. The documents shown
on the website have been added to as they have been produced and
updated where necessary. Further information about the consultation
arrangements and information rounds can be found in the F series
in the Information Papers, which you have in front of you.
76. I turn to the Bill provisions, and a short
summary of the main provisions of the Bill.[27]
First of all, we make it clear that in drawing up the Bill, and
the concepts set out within it, we have taken a great deal from
the experience with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act which, as
my Lord Chairman mentioned in his opening remarks, I think was
the last hybrid bill process that went through Parliament. That
experience has proved valuable in drawing up the current proposals.
77. The Bill seeks a range of powers to build
and operate the railway. Amongst other matters the Bill, if enacted,
will have the effect of: firstly, conferring power to construct
and maintain Crossrail and associated and enabling works; secondly,
the Bill will grant deemed planning permission for the construction
of the railway and associated and enabling works; thirdly, as
you would expect, the Bill would confer powers of compulsory purchase
or temporary possession of land where such land is needed in order
to construct the railway and for other associated and enabling
works; fourthly, the Bill removes the need to obtain specific
listed building consent or conservation area consent for demolition,
alteration or extension of listed buildings and other structures
specified in the Bill, and an alternative arrangement is laid
out for those matters in conjunction with English Heritage and
the local authorities; fifthly, the Bill authorises the stopping
up or closure of highways and other public thoroughfares.
78. An important point to draw to the Committee's
attention is the role of local authorities under the Bill scheme.[28]
The Bill confers on local authorities along the route a significant
number of local planning, highways and environmental controls
over the detailed design and construction of Crossrail. By way
of example, I mention that the Bill would provide for the deeming
of planning permission for the scheme, but within Schedule 7 of
the Bill are a substantial number of detailed controls which are
conferred upon planning authorities in relation, for example,
to detailed design matters for the control of lorry routing and
other matters of that kind which will therefore be the subject
of local consideration and approval under the Bill scheme. The
provisions of Schedule 7 therefore contain conditions requiring
various matters of detail to be subject to the approval of the
relevant qualifying local planning authority; that is to say,
one that has given an undertaking to the Secretary of State about
the way in which it will handle applications for approval of details.
Plans, specifications and detailed construction arrangements are
an example of that.
79. Where the works affect highways the Bill
provisions also provide for certain matters to be subject to the
approval of the highway authority, including for example seeking
to minimise the disruption, detailed access arrangements and the
process for stopping up of highways where that is required.
21 Crossrail Ref: P1, Aerial view of proposed site
for a station at Woolwich (LINEWD-OPN1-018) Back
22
Crossrail Ref: P1, Service Pattern (LINEWD-OPN1-019) Back
23
Crossrail Ref: P1, The Delivery Mechanism (LINEWD-OPN1-020) Back
24
Crossrail Ref: P1, Consultation and Information (LINEWD-OPN1-021) Back
25
Crossrail Ref: P1, Information to Public (LINEWD-OPN1-022) Back
26
http://www.crossrail.co.uk Back
27
Crossrail Ref: P1, Bill Provisions (LINEWD-OPN1-024) Back
28
Crossrail Ref: P1, Role of Local Authorities (LINEWD-OPN1-025) Back
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