Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11144
- 11159)
11144. CHAIRMAN: Are you going to make
a statement, Ms Lieven?
The Petition of City of Westminister Council
11145. MS LIEVEN: The first Petitioner
this morning that we are dealing with is Westminster City Council.
Now, the position on Westminster is that we have, in substance,
agreed everything, except for one minor point that I am awaiting
instructions on. What is going on in the corridor, as your Lordships
may have noticed when you came in, is huge excitement in drafting
up the terms of this agreement because we are very concerned that
everything be written down today and signed off so that there
is no misunderstanding. What I have agreed with Mr Clarkson, who
is here on behalf of Westminster, is that I make a relatively
short opening to the Committee about the issues around Paddington
Station, and that will cover in the generality both Westminster,
but also Paddington Residents Action Concern on Transport, who
are coming on after Westminster, and also touch on the concerns
of Westbourne Park Villas Association, so I will do a comprehensive
opening of this bit of the route and then I was going to ask the
Committee if you would be prepared, my Lord, to adjourn for perhaps
45 minutes for us to finish the writing up of the agreement with
Westminster so that we can then make a very short statement on
what we have agreed and they can go.
11146. CHAIRMAN: So you are going to
deal with all the things that we saw last Monday?
11147. MS LIEVEN: Yes, my Lord. I will
do so briefly, but I am conscious that one or two members of the
Committee were not on the site visit and also it might be helpful
to see, with the plans, what we went through last Monday, but
I will keep it short, if that is acceptable.
11148. CHAIRMAN: That is fine, you go
ahead and do that.
11149. MS LIEVEN: Perhaps we can put
up Exhibit 029 please.[1]
This is Paddington Station and, as those who were on the site
visit last week will be conscious, this is probably one of the
most complex and difficult aspects of the entire Crossrail scheme,
and it is so in a number of different respects. Here in the centre
we of course have the existing Paddington Station, designed by
Brunel. The Crossrail station is to be constructed underneath
Eastbourne Terrace in the area which is shown green on this plan,
so that is going to be the station and I will show your Lordships
a more detailed plan in a moment, but effectively the main entrance
into the station is going to be in what is the existing Network
Rail train-operating company ticket hall within the main building
and then there will be escalators down to the Crossrail platforms.
Also, as you can see in the light blue, kind of turquoise colour,
there is going to be a cross-passage underground linking into
the Bakerloo Line across here (indicating) and there is going
to be another passage underneath Eastbourne Terrace and Praed
Street going into the Circle & District Line station there
(indicating). For the Committee who are familiar with Paddington,
this is obvious, but, for those who are not, it is a rather spread-out
existing station by which the Circle Line station is on Praed
Street and on the other side, the east side of the existing station,
is the Hammersmith & City Line here (indicating). That is,
as it were, the brief outline of where we are going to be. The
issues which arise at Paddington are as follows:
11150. First of all, as the Committee are aware,
at the moment the road which runs down, which you can see on the
plan, Departures Road, runs down under a canopy at a lower level
and the taxis use that to pick up and drop off at the station.
Now, in order to build our station, those taxis have to move because
we cannot dig all that up with the taxis there; it is simply impossible.
Therefore, the very first stage of the works that we propose is
to build a new facility for taxis on what is always called for
some reason the `east side' of the station, but it seems to me
to be the north side, but over here anyway (indicating). There
is an existing deck called the `Red Star deck' which is roughly
here (indicating) and what we intend to do is to build a ramp
down off the bridge which, as some members of the Committee know,
was reconstructed a couple of years ago and closed for a long
time. There is going to be a ramp down there so that the taxis
can come down off the bridge and then have a completely isolated
circulation space around the Red Star deck and then go back off
the way they came onto the bridge up the ramp. There are complicated
issues to do with the construction of that ramp and the interrelationship
between the Hammersmith & City Line and the landowner's development
proposals, that is Hammerson's, but I am not going to say anything
more about that now because we are hopefully very close to agreement
with Hammerson's. That is, as it were, the first stage that happens
and then the taxis are moved out of Departures Road to this new
facility. As far as the Crossrail proposals are concerned, the
taxis stay in the new facility, so that is not for the construction
phase, but that is the long-term operation phase. There is a significant
traffic advantage to that because it means that the taxis serving
Paddington come on and off the bridge and can go directly on to
the strategic road network, which some members of the Committee
will be familiar with. There is the Harrow Road gyratory here
(indicating) and the Westway goes over the top, so it allows the
taxis to get in and out of Paddington without getting tied in
to either Eastbourne Terrace or to the residential streets of
the Hyde Park Estate, so that is one area of complexity and longstanding
negotiation. We have reached agreement with BAA, who are very
concerned about the taxis that the ramp and the provision on the
Red Star deck is sufficient.
11151. The next issue I want to touch on is
the residential block of Brewers Court. As the Committee may remember,
we stood at the top of Eastbourne Terrace.
11152. CHAIRMAN: Is that Brewers Court?
11153. MS LIEVEN: This is Brewers Court
here (indicating) and there is at the moment a large building
here, I think the number is 4-18 Bishop's Bridge Road, which has
to be demolished under our proposals because the Crossrail tunnel
coming into the station intersects with its piles, its foundations,
so it has got to be knocked down. The proposal at the moment is
that we will use the area of the demolished building as a service
deck. The way that Paddington works is that platform 1A comes
all the way round here (indicating) underneath the bridge and
down here (indicating) and during the time when Departures Road
is being dug up, that is where servicing presently takes place,
and what we are proposing is to move the servicing for the station,
that is, the catering facilities, the deliveries, all that kind
of stuff, on to a constructed deck here (indicating) on the site
of the demolished building. Now, the problem that arises from
that is the impact on the residential property of Brewers Court
which is a number of flats. We are exceptionally close to, or
I think we have, in substance, reached, agreement with Westminster
as to the construction of a canopy over the deck in order to mitigate
the noise impact of using the deck for servicing lorries during
the period when the works are going on, so that is one aspect
and the next aspect of issue which your Lordships need to be aware
of.
11154. Then moving round, because we are doing
this major piece of work in Eastbourne Terrace, there is going
to be a prolonged period when Eastbourne Terrace is reduced to
one lane in each direction. Your Lordships may be aware that at
the moment there is a large number of buses that not just use,
go up and down, Eastbourne Terrace, but which also stop there
and effectively that would be unworkable while the works are going
on because there is just not space for them. Therefore, what we
are proposing to do is to move the bus stops, and I do not think
I need to show your Lordships this in detail, but to move the
bus stops and the eastbound bus stops are going to move into Westbourne
Terrace which is the road parallel to Eastbourne Terrace, so there
is a fairly major movement of bus facilities in this area being
proposed.
11155. The next thing I should touch on is that
there have been different proposals during the course of the Bill
through Parliament as to the precise configuration, the form,
of the final station in Eastbourne Terrace, and all of these configurations
fall within the limits of deviation, but what we are now proposing
is a somewhat shorter and narrower box than that which was proposed
when the Bill started its life through Parliament, which overall
is a good thing because it leaves more space for traffic at the
end, more space for manoeuvring and more space for buses. There
is an issue about the height of Eastbourne Terrace when the works
are completed. The Committee will be aware at the moment that
Departures Road is at a lower level than Eastbourne Terrace itself
and this is an aspect of the scheme which has been problematic
and which is continuing to be the subject of design development,
but what we can confidently say is that, because we have this
shorter, narrower box than was previously the case, there will
be more room, whatever the final configuration of the above-ground
part of the station, for buses and other traffic than there was
in the original scheme.
11156. I think that is probably all I need to
say at this stage. There may be more detailed issues that we need
to go into when we get to the PRACT Petition, but I think that
is all your Lordships need to know for the generality.
11157. I then move on to a related issue which
has been of concern to Westminster which is the boundary of the
Congestion Charge Zone and perhaps we can put up 007 please.[2]
Paddington Station appears in the middle in brown and you can
see Eastbourne Terrace there (indicating). The yellowy-orange
is the area within the CCZ, the Congestion Charge Zone, and you
can see that Eastbourne Terrace is the boundary street at the
moment. Now, it has been suggested that, given the works that
are going to go on at Paddington, the boundary should be moved
so that Eastbourne Terrace is no longer the boundary. That was
to some degree supported by the House of Commons Committee who
asked us to go away and discuss the matter further with TfL. TfL
are in the process of considering what to do about this issue.
They have carried out a study and further work is ongoing, but
at this stage no final decision has been made one way or the other.
11158. CHAIRMAN: And it will not be this
week.
11159. MS LIEVEN: I am not sure whether
your Lordship means that it will not be by your Lordships or it
will not be by TfL this week; I suspect both are true. It is the
subject of ongoing discussion and we know that Westminster have
strong views on the subject and PRACT are interested in it. It
is not in the control of the Promoter, but we are doing what we
can to facilitate discussions between the appropriate stakeholders,
if I can use the jargon, so that is the position on that.
1 Crossrail Ref: P76, Paddington Station-Crossrail
proposals (WESTCC-56_04-029) Back
2
Crossrail Ref: P76, Paddington Station area-Congestion Charging
Zone boundary (WESTCC-6-04-007) Back
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