Examination of Witnesses (Questions 8360
- 8379)
8360. Please do not be modest! It is not a virtue
that is widely recognised in this place!
(Mr Berryman) I know a little bit about
that scheme because I was involved in the third platform at Manchester
Airport and I do know, though this was after the event of course,
but I do know that the traffic that they expected on there just
has not materialised and it has been a very big disappointment,
whereas the traffic going the other way into the centre of Manchester
and over to Yorkshire and the north-west of England has held up
very nicely. Obviously this is not a like case. There would not
be no demand for a curve that way as there obviously would be
significant demand, but it would be very questionable whether
that was sufficient to justify building a cord like this. Of course,
if BAA felt there was demand there, there is nothing to stop them
doing that. The Crossrail scheme that is before the House is not
the end of the world; there will be life after Crossrail, although
in my case I am beginning to wonder what it will be. There would
be nothing to stop future generations building such a connection.
It is also worth mentioning that there is another scheme being
promoted by BAA called Air Track, which takes a line out from
the end of Terminal 5 but instead of turning north, here, it turns
south and goes down to Staines. From Staines it connects to the
south-west set of lines, one of which actually goes to Reading.
So it is likely, or probable, I think, in future years that there
will be a connection from Reading to the airport; it just may
not be this way.
8361. Again, given your extensive knowledge
of railway matters, is it not equally bizarre that there should
be a project at some unspecified time in the future using what
I think will be called the London and South West line from Reading—a
two-track, heavily-used railway at the moment—into Heathrow,
and yet for a four-track Great Western Main Line, according to
you, there is no case for putting in a western access to Heathrow
on the lines suggested by Mr Francis? Is that not contradictory
and bizarre?
(Mr Berryman) Not at all, my Lord, because
the line down to Staines is justified by three possible destinations
or starting points, if you like. Some of the trains will go back
into Waterloo, through Richmond and those places, some of them
will go out towards Reading, and there is a third branch—I
am sorry, despite my extensive knowledge of railway matters I
have forgotten where it goes.
8362. MR ELVIN: Everybody is shouting
"Guildford".
(Mr Berryman)
That is very attractive to BAA and BA because many of their staff
live in Richmond and that kind of area. So the cost of building
that southern link is split between three possible originating
points, whereas if you were to build this one there is only one
point. It is interesting that the line they propose—
8363. LORD SNAPE: It is not only one
point, is it, we are talking about south Wales, the South West
and Bristol as well as the commuting area around Reading?
(Mr Berryman)
I am counting Reading as a point.
8364. I see. You stop at Reading.
(Mr Berryman) If you are coming from south
Wales or Bristol you can still change at Reading.
8365. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: It
is a sort of western hub.
8366. LORD SNAPE: With respect, that
is the point that Baroness Fookes made this morning, that a considerable
number of people do, which means they have got to take a coach
from Reading for the rest of the journey to Heathrow.
(Mr Berryman)
That is right, my Lord.
8367. Again—I am sorry to labour this,
my Lord Chairman, but it seems bizarre, to say the least, that
the biggest international airport in the world cannot generate
enough traffic to put a double-track cord from the Great Western
Main Line into that airport.
(Mr Berryman) I think what BAA would say,
as they are the operator of the Heathrow Express and the Heathrow
Connect, is that they would expect travellers to go forward to
Hayes and Harlington and then change on to the existing railway
there.
8368. Reverting back to your earlier point about
the line to Reading on the other routes that you mentioned, that
scheme would have the additional advantage, from BAA's point of
view, that it would not abstract traffic from their extremely
lucrative Heathrow Express.
(Mr Berryman) Actually, it would, my Lord,
because part of that would go forward to Waterloo, and so people
coming from the southern part of London would probably find that
much more convenient. Paddington is not an easy place to get to,
and one of the great things about Crossrail is it will enormously
improve access to Paddington, so it will improve access to Heathrow
Express. There are large parts of London from which Paddington
is not an easy place to get to, and the fact that they will be
able to get a train from Waterloo into the airport will be a great
advantage. Of course, this relies on BAA bringing forward a Transport
and Works Order for this and actually building it, which I know
they are keen to do but they have not actually got round to yet.
8369. Which, given your extensive railway experience,
would be, I would have thought, a good reason for you to look
with some degree of disfavour on a fragmented railway system,
where BAA are interested only in serving the airport itself with,
I repeat, their lucrative monopoly of the Heathrow Express, rather
than passengers from the South West and Reading going straight
into the airport on the cord suggested by Mr Francis.
(Mr Berryman) I doubt if it is appropriate
for me to comment on the fragmented nature of the railway industry,
my Lord, but you are talking about passengers who will be going
from Reading to the airport, so they are no different, in principle,
to passengers going from anywhere else to the airport. It is still—
8370. Except they cannot get there direct.
(Mr Berryman) They cannot get there direct,
as things stand, no.
8371. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: This
is based on the assumption that BAA continues in its present entity.
(Mr Berryman) I certainly would not like
to comment on that one, my Lord.
8372. Could I ask a current question, in the
light of what is happening with BAA and its investments in this
project? Is there a question mark starting to be raised about
the financial investment that BAA might now make?
(Mr Berryman) If there is I have not heard
it, my Lord.
8373. BARONESS FOOKES: Mr Berryman, you
repeated again this afternoon that people could get from Hayes
and Harlington to Heathrow, but that does not deal with the point
I raised this morning when you confirmed my belief that if you
are coming from any part of the West Country through to Reading
you really cannot use that Hayes line satisfactorily. You suggested
that people should go straight into Paddington and come out on
the very expensive Heathrow Express, which people do not do because
I have seen them not do it.
(Mr Berryman) Unfortunately, one of the
facts of life is that when you get to things like this people
do not always realise what is the quickest thing to do. It is
counter-intuitive to go to Paddington and come out again, notwithstanding
the cost. People probably do not do that very much.
8374. LORD SNAPE: One last question on
this, and, again, I am sorry to labour the point, but it does
seem very odd to me. Can you envisage, when the M25 and M4 interchange
was built, some road engineer saying: "Well, it's far too
expensive to provide direct access into Heathrow; we will have
to knock lots of buildings down; therefore go 15 miles beyond
your destination and do a U-turn at the first available road junction
and come back again"? Anybody suggesting such a thing would
be locked up, and yet here we have a perfectly good railway system
and that is exactly what we are suggesting.
(Mr Berryman)
My Lord, I think what happened in the case you are referring to,
of the interchanges off the M25 into Terminal 5, I suspect—
8375. Indeed.
(Mr Berryman) Those are paid for by BAA,
they are not paid for by the Highways Agency.
8376. I do not care who pays for them. It is
common sense to provide them. Yet what is common sense so far
as the road network is concerned is evidently regarded as beyond
the pale so far as the rail system is concerned.
(Mr Berryman) I do not think that is true,
my Lord. I think it is a question of traffic on offer, and the
number of people who would be likely to use—
8377. With respect, you cannot keep hopping
from "economy" to "traffic on offer". It is
either the economics or it is not. It is traffic on offer, or
it is not.
(Mr Berryman) They are two sides of the
same coin because the economics of railways, as you know, is determined
by the traffic that is on offer. If there is not sufficient there
to justify a certain connection then it is hard to build it.
8378. Presumably, those economics were proven,
were they, as far as the road interchanges were concerned? I know
you say it was not your responsibility, but presumably the economics
of that particular alternative stood up, whereas the economics
of this one do not.
(Mr Berryman) This is not my specialist
subject but, as it happens, my previous boss was the project director
for the Terminal 5 project, so I spent many happy hours talking
to him about it. They paid for the cost of the road connections
as part of the overall cost of building Terminal 5. It was all
assessed as a piece, not as different elements, and it was felt
by BAA that they were justified in building that, and that is
why they built it.
8379. Because they did not have a lucrative
alternative, as BAA does with the Heathrow Express, perhaps.
(Mr Berryman) Perhaps.
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