Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1060
- 1079)
1060. That would raise another issue which I
had not thought of and that is that you would then have the issue
that the station which came earliest would have an unfair priority
over the stations which came later in the take-up of the available
space.
(Mr Berryman) Yes, that would be true. However, the number
of wheelchair-users that we anticipate is actually quite low.
1061. The whole point of my concern here is
to work out whether we are talking about an issue which is impractical
because of other issues and whether it has to find a solution
within its own terms or whether it has to look for a solution
in a wider context.
(Mr Berryman) I think the matter you have raised
would not be a limiting factor.
1062. Bear it in mind if we come to any other
points on it and try and guide us through, then, please.
(Mr Berryman) I certainly will.
1063. MS LIEVEN: Can we come back to
that, my Lords, because when we have this note we will talk about
the percentage of PRMs that we believe to be likely, and I will
ask Mr Berryman to talk about lift capacity and how much spare
capacity there is in the lifts. It probably is more really an
issue for the central stations where there are far larger numbers
of people but we will come back to that, if we may, my Lord.
(Mr Berryman) I was just getting on to costs. Of all these
stations the most difficult ones to fit lifts, the most expensive
ones, are actually Manor Park and Forest Gate. Each of those would
cost about £12 million in outturn prices to fit this kind
of kit in, and this is significantly higher than any of the other
stations where we are not doing significant works. Stations like
Abbey Wood we are completely rebuilding anyway, so lifts will
be put in there. We need to rebuild the station to accommodate
the trains that would use it but of the stations we are not rebuilding,
Forest Gate and Manor Park, which are adjacent, as it happens,
would both be expensive at about £12 million each, and you
can see that Forest Gate has quite significantly more passengers
than Manor Park and we would expect that that would also reflect
through into the proportion of people who needed PRM access. Four
stations are very close together, Forest Gate, Manor Park, Maryland
and Stratford, and so when we looked at which of the more expensive
stations should be chosen to go through the links with other stations
were important, as we will see later on. Manor Park has quite
good links with the Stratford station by means other than railway.
1064. Shall we move on, then, to look specifically
at Manor Park, exhibit 12, Mr Berryman, and can you just take
us through what we were originally proposing at Manor Park, what
we are proposing now, and why we have changed?[8]
(Mr Berryman) Yes. The original proposal was
that this loop line which runs around the back of the station
would be closed, or, in fact, shortened, by another connection
being put in, and that the platforms would be extended through
the position of the existing loop line and widened at the western
end of the platform. The reason for that was that earlier we had
been under the impression that because this is a new railway the
selective door opening would not be allowed and we would have
to extend all the platforms to be long enough for ten cars. As
a result of the work we did with Newham Borough on Maryland we
established with the Railway Inspectorate that they would not
treat these stations as new but as existing stations, and therefore
selective door opening, subject to the safety case of course,
would be permitted. What that meant was we did not need to close
this loop, and you will be hearing later from railway petitioners
who are very anxious we do not take away any existing infrastructure,
and we have had confirmation from Network Rail overnight that
they would be extremely anxious not to lose this loop, and therefore
as we now have approval in principle to use selective door opening
we do not need to extend the platforms here, so we will not be
closing this loop and not be extending these platforms. There
were no other works planned for this station other than those
platform extensions.
1065. Can we then move on? If we were going
to propose step-free access at Manor Park, can you explain how
it would have to be done and the difficulties that would be involved,
and I do not know whether it is better to use this exhibit or
exhibit 10.
(Mr Berryman) Let's put exhibit 8 up, please.[9]
This is a photograph of the station as it now is and these are
the two lines which will be used by Crossrail and this line behind
is the freight loop. Now, the idea of putting in PRM is quite
difficult because the platform is very narrow at the end. You
can see at the back of the platform there is a wall so the loop
line runs behind a wall on the back face of the platform and the
platform is so narrow, the staircase comes down and occupies almost
the whole width of the platform and there is no room to get wheelchair
access between the edge of the platform and that stair tower,
so you would have to rebuild the whole area bringing a lift down
somewhere, but it would be extremely difficult to do without demolishing
the whole of the bridge and rebuilding it in total.
1066. Just to give a further impression of that,
can we put up the next photograph, photograph 9, looking the other
way?[10]
(Mr Berryman) This is the same view looking
the other way. The walkway comes down, the station building you
can see, and there is a long walkway at high level across and
down to platform 1. You would have a similar problem on this platform
(platform 2) as well although possibly not quite so intractable,
where you would have to find room to bring a lift down behind
that staircase and find a way of fitting the lift and the staircase
in what is still a relatively narrow platform.
1067. How much of that existing structure, walkway
from the ticket hall, would have to be demolished?
(Mr Berryman) This would have to be completely demolished
if we were to put that kind of facility in and rebuilt in the
new style.
1068. Just looking at the effects of that demolition,
first, what impact would those construction works have on existing
users of the station?
(Mr Berryman) Well, the station would need to be closed while
this was done, and I think this is part of the cost equation.
We obviously have a monetary cost but there is a cost in terms
of disruption to passengers using this station and also disruption
to train services through the station, because we would need to
do some of this work in possession, long weekend possessions probably,
which would be, I would imagine, five or six long weekend possessions
of these tracks and possibly one long weekend's possession of
all four tracks.
1069. How long would you expect the station
would be likely to be closed if this work was to be done?
(Mr Berryman) Probably about three or four months.
1070. What is your assessment of the likely
costs of providing PRM accessibility at Manor Park?
(Mr Berryman) It might be worth saying a few words about
cost now because I am sure cost will come up during these proceedings
many times. Our actual cost base on which our estimating is done
obviously has to be kept at a common base, and that is at Q1 2002
prices, but obviously when we build it it is no good offering
the contractors some 2002 pounds because they will not be very
much use to them. What we have worked out is what the total outturn
cost will be and the figure which is quoted by ministers in evidence
for the outturn cost, which is the figure we have calculated,
is £16 billion. On the same basis that that £16 billion
is calculated, in other words outturn costs, this modification
will cost about £12 million.
1071. BARONESS FOOKES: That is on building
costs only as opposed to the loss of revenue that comes from disruption
to passengers? The £12 million is purely the building without
taking into account extra costs, as it were, incurred because
the station cannot be used for three or four months?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, that is correct, although we would expect
that most passengers would divert to adjacent stations. As we
keep saying, these stations are very close together.
1072. MS LIEVEN: So additional to the
£12 million do we have the cost of any compensatory payment
to the train operating company? Is compensation payable for the
possessions as well?
(Mr Berryman) Compensation is payable for the possessions.
I think we are in discussion with Network Rail at the present
time as to how that will be calculated. There are things called
Rules of the Route which allow you a certain number of possessions
every year on each route, and we would be obviously attempting
to use as many possible rules of the route possessions as we could,
but in reality there would be some long weekends needed which
fall outside that. That is another issue which will come up a
lot in the future, possessions, how they are used and planned,
and when two pieces of work can be done with one possession obviously
that is a very important thing to do, but we are not at the point
yet where we are in the sufficient detail of the planning to know
how that could be done. Clearly if we were doing work at, say,
Stratford, the same weekend we could be doing work here and making
use of the same possession.
1073. LORD BROOKE OF ALVETHORPE: Could
I just ask a question, please, on £12 million? How much of
that is the cost for the lift itself? Is it a standard lift that
you now apply to each station or are there variations on the theme
between expensive lifts, gold-plated ones, and very small lifts
that would probably only take one or two people --
(Mr Berryman) There are no gold-plated lifts -- I hope there
is nothing gold-plated anywhere on the railway but certainly no
gold-plated lifts. The kind of lifts used depends on the layout
of the building you are serving. For example, do you have the
door at one side or the kind of lift where you go in on one side
and come out the other? I am sure you are familiar with that kind
of structure you get sometimes. There are also issues with lifts
and the power supply to the lift, how easy it is to get power
supply, and foundations required for the lift tower, so there
is not really a standard answer to the question. It depends very
much on the circumstances.
1074. What proportion of the £12 million
would be spent on the lift itself?
(Mr Berryman) Off the top of my head it would probably be
under half a million on each lift, so a million on the two lifts,
on the actual lift mechanism and car and so on.
1075. CHAIRMAN: Half a million per lift?
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
1076. BARONESS FOOKES: Would it be two
lifts?
(Mr Berryman) Two, yes. Can I just say that these lifts are
relatively low rise, so the figure for lifts in the central stations
which are high rise lifts would be different.
1077. LORD JONES OF CHELTENHAM: Can I
take you back a step? You said that if you did have to produce
step-free access here you could do it at the same time as you
were upgrading, say, Stratford.
(Mr Berryman) That is not quite what I said, my Lord. What
I said was that during the possession work you may be able to
overlap possessions and use the same possession for two bits of
work and that really related only to the actual interruption of
the line rather than rest of the works.
1078. You said it might take six weekends to
do this work. How many weekends have you planned to take the line
for upgrading the other stations?
(Mr Berryman) We do not have detailed plans for that just
now.
1079. But there will be some?
(Mr Berryman) It will be a significant number. The main works
on the Great Eastern are at Stratford, making the connection between
the existing lines and the new ones, where we will probably need
one very long weekend which will be Christmas or an Easter break.
On the Great Eastern side there are not too many possessions required
because the works here, as we will see later when we get on to
the Great Western, are much more modest than they are on the Great
Western, simply because we plan to take over the railway more
or less as is and just use it for a very similar train service
to that which runs now.
8 Crossrail Ref: P8, Manor Park Station-Extent of
demolition (NEWMLB-53_04-012) Back
9
Crossrail Ref: P8, Manor Park Station-Platform level facing west
(NEWMLB-53_04-008) Back
10
Crossrail Ref: P8, Manor Park Station-Platform level facing east
(NEWMLB-53_04-009) Back
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