Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11420
- 11439)
11420. The Eastbourne Terrace traffic will be
a matter for the City Council, will it not?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, my Lord, it will.
11421. So will parking?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, all of those things,
parking, dropoff points, motorcycle parking, disabled parking.
11422. Bus stops?
(Mr Berryman) Bus stops, bus stands, of
course they also have to be agreed with Transport for London.
11423. Naturally, yes.
(Mr Berryman) As I am sure you will appreciate,
there are all kinds of people who need to accede to what we do.
11424. BARONESS FOOKES: We are talking
about the permanent arrangements after the work has been completed?
(Mr Berryman) That is correct, my Lady.
11425. CHAIRMAN: Are we, because surely
we are also dealing with the highway movements during construction?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, my Lord. As far as
the traffic movements and the highway arrangements are concerned,
we are talking about during and after construction. The final
layout is the time when the buses move back and all that sort
of thing happens, that is the time when we have to get not just
Westminster City Council but Transport for London involved in
that part and, indeed, Network Rail.
11426. BARONESS FOOKES: I have a personal
interest in this working well because I use the station a lot!
(Mr Berryman) So I understand, my Lady,
yes.
11427. MS LIEVEN: The final topic I want
to cover with you, Mr Berryman, is trees in Hyde Park. Can we
put up 001, please.[21]
I did not cover this in opening at all, my Lords and my Lady,
because I did not understand PRACT were going to raise it, although
we have discussed it with them in the past. Mr Berryman, can you
explain what we are doing in Hyde Park and how it has changed
since the Bill was introduced into Parliament?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, when the Bill was originally
introduced into Parliament this shaft in Hyde Park would be for
the purposes of intervention by emergency services and also for
ventilation. This shaft is unique in the set-up in that it is
closer to other shafts than is normal. Normally, we have one kilometre
between shafts. If we had done one kilometre between shafts in
this area, we would have finished up with a shaft in the middle
of a grassed area of Hyde Park and we were quite unable to come
to an agreement with the Royal Parks and other interested parties
about how that could be treated to make it look unobtrusive; indeed
it could not be treated to make it look unobtrusive. We settled
on a site for a shaft just here underneath the North Carriage
Drive and at that time it was going to be a ventilation shaft
and there was going to be an underground passageway that went
around to the back of the pet cemetery. I do not know if members
are familiar with that on the Bayswater Road. Subsequently, because
these shafts are close together, we established that we do not
need any ventilation capacity here at all under any scenario that
we can envisage. The shaft becomes purely for intervention and
the intervention will be from a sort of hatch in the floor next
to Bayswater Road through an underground passageway and then down
the shaft just here (Indicating). The reason for that is this
is the point to which the fire brigade can get with a fire appliance
all the time. Other times this road is closed and they cannot
get down it so that is why the entrance is arranged there. Because
we no longer have this adit which runs underneath the North Carriage
Drive, we have been able to reduce the number of trees we would
need to knock down. We think by refining the design further, we
can reduce the number of trees further. The trees which we do
knock down—there are bound to be some, we cannot get to
none—we will be reducing the numbers as sensibly as we can.
When we do have to fell a tree, we will replace it with a semi-mature
tree which I understand is better than replacing it with a mature
tree because they grow more quickly.
11428. BARONESS FOOKES: That is right.
(Mr Berryman)
That is the position at Hyde Park.
11429. MS LIEVEN: I am going to ask call
Mr Thornely-Taylor after Mr Berryman to deal briefly with the
groundbourne noise issue.
11430. LORD JAMES OF BLACKHEATH: Could
I put a question to Mr Berryman, please. Mr Berryman, did you
look at the possibility that within Hyde Park there are still
some of the subterranean workings from World War II that could
have been reactivated and extended so you would not need to sink
an access tunnel at all?
(Mr Berryman) Indeed, we did look at that,
my Lord, but not in the context of using them for ventilation.
We looked at them in the context of making sure we did not collide
with anything.
11431. You said that you are not using it for
ventilation access, and I am saying would it not have provided
a ready-made access route if you had sunk it deeper? The trees
could have lived in peace.
(Mr Berryman) We come back to the same
problem, my Lord, that any ventilation or, indeed, fire brigade
access at some point has to come to the surface and it is finding
a location at the surface which is the fundamental problem. Once
we get underground we are out of sight, out of mind, so to speak.
11432. There are some very deep access points
in and around that park.
(Mr Berryman) I understand there are,
my Lord, but I believe they are further south in the Hyde Park
area.
11433. LORD JAMES OF BLACKHEATH: I cannot
comment on that. I know there are some very deep ones.
11434. BARONESS FOOKES: You also have
this problem of the fire appliances getting through at all times,
have you not? That is a constraining factor, I presume?
(Mr Berryman) That is another constraining
factor, my Lady, yes, and it is finding the best balance between
appearance, accessibility and so on, and obviously by any stretch
Hyde Park is going to be a difficult site.
11435. LORD JAMES OF BLACKHEATH: Given
the big appliances have to go through, could you not have taken
a tunnel extension through from the Park Lane underground car
park and gone straight through into the park from there? After
all, you would have plenty of room for the vehicles there.
(Mr Berryman) That is very well to the
south, my Lord. That is quite a long way from the site.
11436. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: Are
you saying that the fire authorities do not have access to the
park?
(Mr Berryman) Apparently they cannot always
get into North Carriage Drive. There are gates across it which
are shut at night. There are no buildings in Hyde Park, but in
the normal run of things the fire brigade would not ever need
to go in there.
11437. It would a save an awful lot of money
if they had a set of keys and they could open the gate rather
than having to go along the tunnel there.
11438. LORD JAMES OF BLACKHEATH: You
could leave the keys with Her Majesty and call to her to get the
keys out!
(Mr Berryman) We have a case, my Lord.
11439. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: We
have a ton of these helpful suggestions!
(Mr Berryman) I am sorry, my Lord, I did not catch that.
21 Committee Ref: A61, Hyde Park shaft-worksite layout
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