Examination of Witnesses (Questions 10780
- 10799)
10780. So you just have these automatic doors?
There is no filter or anything —
(Mr Andrade) There are automatic doors which open and close
at either end of the service corridor, and when a lorry locks
on there are moments when as it approaches the locking-on facility
it is still in the ambient temperature and there is an element
of the open air and the environment still impinging on it, but
we try and minimise those.
10781. And what are the chances of airborne
pollution outside penetrating into that service corridor?
(Mr Andrade) Significant.
10782. But you have not had any incidences of
closure through airborne pollution in recent years?
(Mr Andrade) We have never had airborne pollution being given
as a reason for closure. We do have problems with contamination
of different kinds. That has happened.
10783. For example?
(Mr Andrade) Well, in the lorry, for example, there might
be oil from the runners overhead that will drop on to the carcasses,
and if the inspector sees anything like that he will become very
active and we will have to take extreme measures to make the meat
fit, or have it condemned and pay to have it taken away.
10784. And the inspectors are also measuring
the airborne pollution in your service corridors and your general
site area?
(Mr Andrade) I have no doubt they will be.
10785. Are they?
(Mr Andrade) I have never seen that happening at the moment.
It does not mean it has not happened; I have not yet seen it.
I believe they will probably start doing that when it becomes
apparent there might be a risk.
10786. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: Thank
you.
10787. CHAIRMAN: Mr Mould?
Cross-examined by MR
MOULD
10788. MR MOULD: I have one point of
clarification on page 55 in the Petitioner's bundle.[17]
I want to be clear on the arrangements with regard to these sealed
bays. We have a plan of the layout of the market here, and I think
it is right that the hermetically sealed bays we have been talking
about are the bays on the northern and southern side of the building?
(Mr Andrade) Yes.
10789. So is this right, that carcass meat,
I think you said, must come in for delivery via the sealed bays?
(Mr Andrade) Yes.
10790. So any carcass meat that is coming in
after eight o'clock in the morning is coming in and being delivered
into the market through a completely sealed process on bays that
are located on the north and south side of the market?
(Mr Andrade) That is the theory, yes.
10791. And it is, as a matter of the legal requirements
placed upon you, the practice, is it not?
(Mr Andrade) We do our best to make it practice. Invariably
there are moments when the sliding doors open at either end. In
practice we do adhere very well to the notions of keeping it hermetically
sealed.
10792. So carcass meat is coming in. If we assume
that after the hour of eight o'clock in the morning there is work
going on on the Lindsey Street work site which is at source generating
some dust, that carcass meat being delivered during those hours
is coming in under what is, provided it works properly, intended
to be a wholly sealed process, as you have just described, and
on bays located away from that part of the road network which
is in the vicinity of the Crossrail work site?
(Mr Andrade) Yes, when it comes to the entrance of meat into
the market we are removed. The loading bays are not very near.
Obviously those two and the eastern part are closer —
10793. But they are, of course, sealed. We have
just established that. Insofar as carcass meat going out to customers
is concerned, is the position that the carcass meat is processed
within the market after delivery and then is boxed up to be taken
away by restaurateurs and so forth?
(Mr Andrade) No. We do not box up our carcass meat because
we are not allowed to let carcass meat be in contact with cardboard.
We have to put it in plastic bags which are licensed with a licence
number and tied up, so the meat that goes out—the carcass
meat, I must stress—does not go out in boxes; it goes out
in bags.
10794. So it comes in sealed and goes out sealed?
(Mr Andrade) It comes in as exposed carcass meat under conditions
designed to minimise contamination through those lock-ons.
10795. And it goes out in a sealed —
(Mr Andrade) It goes out in packages. Bags.
10796. And presumably it goes out sufficiently
sealed to be fit for use by the people buying it? The restaurateurs?
(Mr Andrade) Yes, of course.
10797. I think you said that customers do park
from time to time along the Lindsey Street bays?
(Mr Andrade) Yes.
10798. But, in practice, if it were felt, presumably,
that it would be desirable during the periods of particular construction
activity on the Lindsey Street worksite to the east here, that
customers should be encouraged at least temporarily to collect
their meat between the hours of seven and nine in the morning,
shall we say, or thereafter, from a more remote location around
the market complex, that would be something that could be arranged,
could it not?
(Mr Andrade) It was easy a generation ago, when the market
was intersecting thoroughfares, but with the refurbishment we
now have just one avenue down the middle and anybody with meat
would have to go round and round. Since the end of thoroughfares
there is just one flow of traffic, and I can imagine it being
havoc.
10799. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: Can
you show us the flow?
(Mr Andrade) Yes.
17 Committee Ref: A59, Smithfield Market-Masterplan
(SCN-20080502-041) Back
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