Examination of Witnesses (Questions 2900
- 2919)
2900. With regard to the construction noise,
our position is that the residential properties referred to in
the Petitions are not going to be significantly impacted on by
construction noise carried in an airborne fashion. The latest
noise and vibration assessment for the Hanbury Street works required
as a result of the revised tunnelling strategy set out in SES3
came to the conclusion that 12 residential properties in Princelet
Street would be significantly affected by construction noise and
those are likely to qualify therefore for noise insulation. The
number of traffic movements which is generated by the construction
site at Hanbury Street is unlikely to have a significant impact
upon those noise levels. Again, Mr Thornely-Taylor can give further
details as to those assessments and what they mean in due course.
2901. It is also worth noting in this context
that as a result of the actions by the Select Committee in the
other place, we have been required to purchase residential properties
to the southeast boundary of the Hanbury Street shaft site, 61
Princelet Street and its neighbours. That will have a beneficial
effect of shielding other properties in the area, as indeed will
the retention of Britannia House, as Mr Thornely-Taylor will explain
those buildings provide significant noise attenuation for those
further away.
2902. I turn now to a rather more difficult
issue, as the Committee will have seen from the Petitions and
the response documents, which is the question of community liaison.
The Petitioners raised concerns about the quality and effectiveness
of consultation and information given to the local community in
Spitalfields about the project of the pre-Bill stages and during
the course of the Bill. We have set out the details of consultation
in the Petition response documents which have been circulated
to the Petitioners.
2903. CHAIRMAN: There was due to be a
meeting on 26 February, did that happen?
2904. MR ELVIN: Yes.
2905. CHAIRMAN: It did.
2906. MR ELVIN: Yes. The Select Committee's
concern, as my Lords will be familiar, was that in order to overcome
misconceptions amongst the local community and lack of information
on the true scale and extent of the proposed Crossrail work in
Spitalfields, that we should effectively facilitate community
liaison and we are putting up the first interim decision of the
Select Committee in the House of Commons and you will see in particular
the last two sentences: "We want the Promoters to set up
a monitoring body with Tower Hamlets Borough Council and representatives
within the community, especially those from local schools affected
by the works. This body must meet monthly in order to provide
up-to-date information to local residents about the project".[11]
The Promoter agreed with those requirements and sought to establish
a local body to perform the role described by the Select Committee
consistent with our Community Relations Strategy. As the Committee
will be aware from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets' Petition
last week, the Community Relations Strategy is in progress, the
framework document comes before the project's planning forum later
this month.
2907. The Promoter arranged for a meeting in
October 2006 in Whitechapel Art Gallery for the purposes of enabling
the establishment of the panel and invitations went out to a number
of Petitioners, local schools and community groups and representatives
of the community and of course to the Council. It was suggested
that the meeting should decide membership, terms of reference
and how the panel might operate and a broad range of the subject
matter, the panel's discussions and how future meetings were to
take place. As the Select Committee made clear in making their
decision, they were focusing particularly upon local schools.
As I have already made clear to the Committee, the local Schools
Panel has been set up and indeed it has operated separately since
then from the main Community Liaison Panel. To our knowledge it
has operated successfully and is not the subject of any Petitions.
It is fair to say there have been a number of difficulties establishing
the wider community liaison panel and we reported back to the
House of Commons Select Committee about this time last year. A
progress report was received, in fact it was 30 January last year
in the Select Committee below.
2908. Having had our report and heard further
information from the Petitioners, including those Petitioners
who will be appearing this week, in their further interim decisions
on 12 July the House of Commons noted that Crossrail had been
taking action to engage Planning Aid. We engaged an independent
body to set up and facilitate the meetings because part of the
difficulty seemed to be Crossrail having any input into running
the meetings. That seemed to generate difficulties within the
community. We agreed, therefore, simply to facilitate and pay
for the setting up of the meetings and leave it to the independent
body, Planning Aid, to set it up and to allow it to run itself.
2909. That approach was endorsed by the House
of Commons Committee. They said: "We are grateful to Crossrail
for the action taken to comply with our recommendation and we
are glad that the local Liaison Panel is to have an ongoing relationship
with Crossrail using the facilitation of the local authority.
We note that it is now for the Panel to consider how it wishes
to operate and take this forward."
2910. Meetings were facilitated on several occasions
in October 2007. Again, it is fair to say that matters have not
run smoothly. The committee of the Panel is still in disagreement
with Crossrail about its terms of reference, although as far as
Crossrail is concerned the terms of reference are those required
of us by the House of Commons Select Committee.
2911. When we were setting up the facilitation
of the planning dates, we wrote a letter to each of the Petitioners.
On the second page of the letter of 2 May, Planning Aid set out
in a series of bullet points, having read the requirements of
the House of Commons and our community relations strategy, what
it considered the remit of the Panel should be.[12]
The Panel, it is fair to say, are still raising questions about
what their remit is, even though the Committee below said it was
a consultation and monitoring body, and various questions are
being asked. We replied on 24 January and sent out a more detailed
response last week which could be made available should it be
necessary.
2912. Perhaps I could deal with two of the significant,
controversial areas which seem to be exercising the panel. Firstly,
it is suggested by the Panel that it should have a decision-making
role. For reasons which I hope the Select Committee will understand,
we are not willing or indeed able to confer on the Panel any decision-making
powers in relation to the project. This would not be consistent
with the view of the Select Committee in the House of Commons
as to the Panel's role. It is essentially a consultative community
role. The second point they raised, which is something we do feel
we are able to accept, is the Petitioners urged that we should
set up a working group on the model used in the King's Cross area
on CTRL, the members of the Cooper's Lane Working Group. That
was set up in connection with the CTRL works in St Pancras. We
investigated the Cooper's Lane Working Group with the London Borough
of Camden and there are letters of 22 February and 29 February
this year.[13]
The Cooper's Lane Working Group was effectively an informal consultation
group established for liaison and consultation purposes and improving
communications between the CTRL project, the local community and
the local authority. It was tripartite: it would consist of members
of the local community, the local authority and CTRL. It had no
decision-making function with regard to the works but it was a
means in which concerns could be discussed, information could
be passed backwards and forwards from the parties involved and
it generally met on a monthly basis. It was chaired, we are told,
by an officer of Camden Council. Let me make it absolutely clear,
if that is the model which the Community Liaison Panel wishes
to have at Spitalfields, it is a model which is perfectly consistent
not only with the House of Commons' recommendations but with our
own community strategy. If the model is of a tripartite group,
formed of community members chosen by the community themselves,
chaired by the local authority, with representatives from Crossrail
to attend to give information and hear views, that is one which
we are more than happy to facilitate.
2913. The last issue is the Environmental Impact
Assessment. As I have already mentioned, this has been the subject
of detail set out in Information Paper B8. The specific issue
which is raised and which the Committee may remember I touched
on in opening, the rather dry issue but the issue of alignments,
which I understand of course is important to those putting forward
these issues, as I said to the Committee in opening, the simple
position is this: the Directive requires us as a matter of law
to give an outline of the main options studied and essentially
a brief account of the reasons for selecting the project as it
is. That we have done. The Environmental Impact Assessment sets
out the main alternatives studied in chapter 6 of the main ES.
There are further details given with regard to Hanbury Street
and the southern alignments but it is not a freestanding obligation
simply to study alternatives. There is no obligation in the Directive
that says "You must study alternatives"; the obligation
is simply give outlines of "the alternatives which you have
studied". Our perception of that and our submission is that
is looking at the project as a whole. As the Committee can imagine,
the number of alternatives which are being considered for the
whole of the route of Crossrail have run into very many indeed
and, since we are only obliged to give an outline of the main
alternatives studied, this does not require micro-attention to
detail for each and every section of the route. That is why you
will find there is a broad consideration of the main alternatives
in chapter 6 of the Environmental Statement. Our position, therefore,
is that we have done what the Directive requires us to do. We
have gone further as a matter of fact and, as I mentioned when
dealing with Mr Carpenter's request, we have sent a large number
of reports to those in Spitalfields so that they have, in fact,
all the earlier reports looking at the alternative alignments
before the Bill scheme was settled on. Even though we have not
been required as a matter of law under the Environmental Impact
Assessment Directive to provide them with vast amounts of information
concerning the alternatives, they have in fact received in the
order of 20 or 21 reports, including the latest referred to, that
of October 2007, and the final draft of that which was provided
a little later. I showed your Lordships the letter that was sent
to Mr Carpenter a year or so ago which listed all the reports
he had.
2914. CHAIRMAN: But there is no remedy,
even if you failed.
2915. MR ELVIN: Parliament is the judge
of whether the Environmental Statement is satisfactory.
2916. CHAIRMAN: Is it we who are the
judge?
2917. MR ELVIN: Parliament as a whole.
Applying the analogy that the courts have advised in environmental
cases, it is the decision-maker who has the primary judgment as
to whether the Environmental Assessment is adequate and satisfactory.
The mere fact that there is disagreement between the objectors
and the Promoter and somebody does not like one aspect of the
Environmental Statement—if someone disagrees with the judgment
on noise impact or something of that description—does not
make it any less an Environmental Statement. Of course, that does
not mean to say it could not be fundamentally flawed, but to mere
disagreements over specific assessments the courts have taken
a robust approach. That judgment of whether this can reasonably
be considered to be an Environmental Statement is a matter for
the decision-maker and we take that to mean Parliament as a whole.
2918. CHAIRMAN: It is not, therefore,
a matter of the detail; it is a matter of whether the Directive
and the regulations which enforce it have been complied with in
principle.
2919. MR ELVIN: In a reasonable manner,
yes.
11 House of Commons Select Committee on the Crossrail
Bill, First Special Report Session 2006-07, Crossrail Bill,
HC 235-IV, paras 16575 (SCN-20080310-002) Back
12
Crossrail Ref: P23, Correspondence from CLRL to Spitalfields
Petitioners, 2 May 2007 (TOWHLB-XR5F-103) Back
13
Crossrail Ref: P23, Correspondence from London Borough of Camden
to CLRL, Channel Tunnel Rail Link-Coopers Lane Working Group,
29 February 2008 (TOWHLB-XR5F-002) Back
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