Examination of Witnesses (Questions 4060
- 4079)
4060. My Lord, even if there were a problem—and
I am not saying there is and I have given you at least five reasons
why my learned friend is wrong—the final flaw in my learned
friend's approach is to say that if you are with him you have
to hear the evidence about the alternatives. You do not. The flaw,
if there is one, is that we did not properly report Option B as
a main alternative. What it would require is a short addendum
to the Environmental Statement which referred to the consideration
of alignment Option B and why it was rejected. That is all that
the duty would require because that would have assumed your Lordships
accepted that there was a main alternative, that that was Option
B and we had not studied it and given an account of it as required.
So all that would be required, I suppose, would be a further Environmental
Statement, as I have already mentioned. That would have procedural
and timetabling consequences but it does not require your Lordships
to depart from the principle of the Bill because the analogue
to the planning authority considering alternatives, as I have
already mentioned, is the question of the principle of the Bill
and whether Parliament has chosen to accept the principle of the
Bill or to look at alternatives which lie outside the principle
of the Bill.
4061. CHAIRMAN: "Main alternatives"
is what the Directive talks about, and we would therefore be able
to consider whether this is a main alternative.
4062. MR ELVIN: Yes but you would then
have to decide that against whether or not it was part of the
principle of the Bill for you to consider it.
4063. CHAIRMAN: It is quite different
from the Bill, it is whether now it is a main alternative.
4064. MR ELVIN: So far as the Environmental
Statement is concerned, of course that is absolutely right, my
Lord.
4065. CHAIRMAN: I hope it is because
this is the way that my mind is working at the moment and I want
to try to have as much clarity on this as possible.
4066. MR ELVIN: Absolutely, but all I
am saying, my Lord, is that all it requires the Committee to do
is to say, if it is a main alternative is there a flaw because
you have not considered it or have not reported it? And, as I
have already said, there are several answers to that. It does
not require you, though, to go on and consider matters lying outside
the principle of the Bill as you may be asked to do tomorrow in
terms of another Petition. It is simply a question, as your Lordship
has put it, of deciding whether or not the main alternative was
studied and whether it was incorrectly omitted from the Environmental
Statement.
4067. CHAIRMAN: I think that is right
but as effectively the planning authority Parliament is still
capable of looking to see whether it is a main alternative, are
they not?
4068. MR ELVIN: Of course, my Lord; of
course it is.
4069. CHAIRMAN: But that would be on
the facts as they are to date?
4070. MR ELVIN: Indeed, and can I just
remind your Lordship, of course, that it is not only a main alternative
but a main alternative studied by the developer.
4071. CHAIRMAN: Yes, but we know you
have studied it.
4072. MR ELVIN: Yes.
4073. CHAIRMAN: But whether it is a main
alternative may still be open to question.
4074. MR ELVIN: And that is entirely
a matter which can be dealt with outside of detailed consideration
of what the alignments actually were and such like; it is a point
of principle which your Lordships can decide on the material that
your Lordships have had to date.
4075. CHAIRMAN: But it is a different
point from what is within the principle of the Bill.
4076. MR ELVIN: Of course it is, my Lord.
I am sorry, I was simply responding to Mr Horton's proposition
that simply because your Lordships have to consider this issue
it somehow means that you then have to consider all the evidence
of fact of the alternative which Mr Horton and his other client
may wish to put before the Committee—the one does not lead
to the other.
4077. CHAIRMAN: Not necessarily, unless
we ask for it.
Spitalfields—Settlement Issues
4078. MR ELVIN: Indeed, and it is a matter
for the Committee to decide having regard, at that stage, to the
issue of the principle of the Bill, but that is a separate matter
we will have to deal with tomorrow.
4079. My Lord, I will reduce these submissions
into writing so that your Lordships have them in as clear a possible
form as I can give them, although I did, I think, rightly foresee
that this would arise in the last section of my opening notes
on Monday; so that does also provide the structure of my submissions
as well.
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