Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11660
- 11679)
11660. MS KHELA: 2004, I am afraid, but
we are moving on very shortly.
11661. CHAIRMAN: Good.
11662. MS KHELA: "The use of a major
part of Hanbury Street as the tunnel cutting head worksite for
the largest civil engineering project in Europe and the permanent
location of a giant tunnel mechanical ventilation extract fan
as well as a secondary spoil tunnel, emerging in Allen Gardens
on to a ramp connected with main rail lines out of Liverpool Street,
will be catastrophic to the livelihoods of local people both during
and after your construction process".
11663. The local MP, Oona King, said on 27 May:
"I understand that prior to the Crossrail public consultation
the Council secured changes to the route to minimise disturbance
to parts of the Borough ... Tower Hamlets Council have told me
that they are collating information on the project and their plan
is to consult local people when the Hybrid Bill is submitted to
Parliament". On 28 October she writes again: "At this
point Crossrail representatives were refusing to speak at community
meetings. The Local Authority has made clear that Crossrail is
responsible for its own consultation".
11664. On 25 May 2004, a letter was received
from the Mayor which implies that Crossrail are more concerned
about the consultation than even the Referee. The Mayor says:
"I understand that you have referred your complaint to the
Crossrail Referee concerning serious flaws in round one consultation
and that he has not shared your view that there has been inappropriate
consultation on this matter. However, it is true that a number
of organisations of which Crossrail was unaware when round one
consultations began were not contacted at the time. I know that
the Crossrail team are grateful ... "
11665. A letter to the Referee from Patricia
Jones dated 4 June outlines the continuing concerns about the
inadequacy of the consultation. She says: "I understand that
in support of safeguarding requirements Crossrail must submit
an affidavit that the consultation procedure has been adequately
followed".
11666. A further letter was sent by the WHRA
to Jean Lambert on 21 June. The Promoter's response that she received
had given a false impression about the consultation, the intervention
site and the kind of works that would be taking place in Spitalfields.
11667. Various exchanges took place with the
Referee in the interim period, but the WHRA now believe the Referee
was biased. Indeed, his responses show that no action was taken
to ensure that consultation on the route took place. The WHRA
complained that it believed the Referee was not providing any
remedy for the flawed consultation. The Society continued to correspond
and I attach a letter sent by Pat Jones of the Spitalfields Society
to the Referee which outlines some of the community's concerns.
11668. Crossrail held an internal inquiry into
failures according to Crossrail's Gordon Torp Petersen. The findings
have never been made available in public.
11669. The WHRA wrote to Crossrail, the Crossrail
Referee, the Department for Transport, MEP Jean Lambert, MPs and
the Council advising them that no consultation had occurred on
the route, the intermediate tunnel boring site, the spoil site,
the ventilation shaft, the emergency shaft or, indeed, Whitechapel
Station, and pointed out the inadequacy of the consultation and
the reasons why they felt the Referee's adjudication showed bias
and was unacceptable. It was made clear that the Referee had provided
no remedy for the failure to consult. No solution was offered
into reopening the flawed consultation on the route and works
in Spitalfields.
11670. On 16 June, the Department for Transport
wrote: "Ministers have not yet issued a new safeguarding
direction, as the Department understands that Crossrail is reviewing
a possible change to its preferred route alignment in the Spitalfields
area. Ministers have decided not to issue a safeguarding direction
in respect of this area before Crossrail has reached firm conclusions
about its preferred route alignment. I understand that Crossrail
are in close contact with the Spitalfields Society about such
a possible change to its proposed alignment. As regards the Crossrail
Referee, I am sorry you are not satisfied with his adjudication.
`If members of the public believe that they have not received
the information provided by this Code, they should be able to
apply to an independent person who has the authority to investigate
complaints. The Promoter would be expected to allow the appointed
person (or referee) access to all relevant documents. He would
assess the validity of the complaint and send a report of his
findings to the parties'. Ministers would be concerned if the
Crossrail Referee reported that Crossrail had failed to consult
properly. Parliament might be expected to take such a report into
account, should a Hybrid Bill be presented to Parliament."
11671. On 16 June, Donald Stark of the DfT says:
" ... ministers have not yet issued a new safeguarding direction
... " The route was safeguarded on 20 July 2004, at which
point Donald Stark says on 27 August 2004: "You may be interested
to know that round one and round two consultations are not formal
stages under the Code of Practice".
11672. The London Assembly Transport Committee
Scrutiny Manager, Paul Watling, became aware of these consultation
problems and invited groups who had complained of inadequate consultation
to submit questions and comment on the consultation at a panel
meeting on 22 July 2004. We will attach a summary of the concerns
raised by various groups across the capital, one of which was
the WHRA.
11673. The Transport Committee heard how the
communities, particularly those in the densely populated area
of Spitalfields, had been excluded. The Crossrail Referee, Professor
Tony Kennerley, appeared as one of the uninvited members of the
audience. Here is an extract from that transcript: "I am
Tony Kennerley, the Crossrail Referee, which is a sort of Ombudsman
that has appeals referred to him. Strictly my concern is the dissemination
of information, as Bernard Gambrill has outlined in the Code of
Practice ... As Bernard Gambrill has pointed out, much of the
detail that has been requested is not yet available ... The other
comment we have made on the basis of the representations to us
has been that possibly they might have tried to communicate directly
by writing to the people whose houses would be tunnelled under,
whereas they only wrote to those whose houses were going to be
affected on the surface. However, I do not think these things
negate the whole principle of the consultation process ... What
is now going to take place is the absorption of those concerns
and all the conditions affecting the railway will be looked at
again in much more detail. I know personally that in the last
few months many of the engineers have been working on alternatives
to things like the Hanbury Street site. In terms of the details
of the preliminary stage of why a particular route was chosen,
or why the Hanbury site was chosen as a worksite and so on, there
were technical reasons given for those cases". Mr Kennerley
makes no reference to the fact that the complaint was the failure
to reopen consultation on alternative routes or the failure to
provide details about the assumptions lying behind what was then
to become the Bill alignment route.
11674. John Biggs, the local Assembly Member
for the area said: "I broadly agree with Peter Hulme Cross's
deposition. I think the consultation has been flawed, and certainly
in the distant past as a local councillor I played a role in helping
to shoot down the previous Crossrail proposal because its consultation
in Spitalfields was so deeply flawed and it caused enormous damage
to the area. My question is a very simple one. Elsewhere in my
constituency, in Poplar, there were concerns and following those
concerns the alignment was changed. As I understand it, it was
changed because there were good engineering reasons for doing
so; that is to say, it suited Crossrail's interest to change the
route, and, coincidentally, it met some of the concerns on housing
estates in Poplar. In Spitalfields, there are alternative alignments,
which could be followed which would meet some of the residents'
concerns, but as I understand it, they would carry a cost and
they would not align with the priorities and objectives of Crossrail.
Do you undertake ... " this was to Crossrail, " ...
that during the consultation and when you place the Bill before
Parliament, you will place alongside that information about the
additional costs of alternative alignments so that there can be
a proper debate about these issues? If the cost of the peace of
mind of the Spitalfields'residents is an extra £5 million
or £100 million or £2 million then perhaps Parliament
should be aware of that so it could make an informed decision."
Bernard Gambrill replied: "You have that assurance. From
my experience of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Hybrid Bill I can
tell you that is exactly the material which has to be put forward,
although I have to say that cost is only one of the issues we
have to take into account in deciding the alternatives or the
option that is eventually chosen."
11675. The WHRA was encouraged by the Promoter
and various authorities to wait to hear about the consultation
on these route options that they were promised would occur. The
Transport Select Committee, unfortunately, did not report on the
consultation flaws. Instead, the Scrutiny Manager, Paul Watling,
wrote: "The purpose of the meeting was intended to give the
Committee an update on the current position of the Crossrail project
in terms of progress on the assessment of its value and affordability.
The recent round of public consultation on route options, issues
arising from the objections received and next steps for the project
... I believe Members of the Committee gained assurances from
Crossrail when the Crossrail Bill is placed before Parliament
there will be additional information on costs of alternative alignments
so there can be a proper debate about such issues and Parliament
is aware of these when it makes a decision on the Bill. This is
confirmed by the transcript ... The Committee I believe were then
content to see the second round of the consultation process progress
and then an opportunity for further scrutiny would be given to
Parliament when the Bill was submitted and when all interests
will have the opportunity to lobby Parliament."
11676. A letter dated 16 July 2004 provides
an example of how the consultation was also flawed in Richmond
which mentions that they received the help of Jenny Tonge and
Susan Kramer, a TfL board member. The Crossrail questions complain
about the consultation even though they had been aware of the
initial consultation and they say the public consultation process
is "incomplete and inadequate".
11677. On 15 September 2004 Darren Johnson asks
about the tunnel portal and he received the following responses
orally. The Mayor begins with a reference to fire safety regulations
for underground railways and goes on to say: " ... without
the use of an intermediate site, the programme would extend by
two years. Extending the programme this way would make the project
very difficult to fund and most probably not viable." Darren
Johnson asks, "Will you intervene as Chair of TfL, a stakeholder
in Crossrail, to look at alternative solutions and properly consider
the full impact on residential neighbourhoods and also the impact
on ethnic minorities in the area?" The Mayor said: "I
can say yes to that and people can respond by wondering if there
is going to be another solution. The people building Crossrail
have done their best to come up with the best solution. There
is not another option ... if we do not have this alignment as
I said we would be talking about another two years to build Crossrail.
The debt servicing of that would probably push it over the cost
benefit analysis."
11678. But the reality was, and subsequently
confirmed to be, that the Mayor's statements were incorrect as
they were statements without any evidential basis. The Mayor did
not intervene and rejected consideration of alternative routes
even though the WHRA attended a meeting with the Mayor on 22 June
despite having sight of a report produced by engineers Ove Arup
which questioned the Promoter's assumptions, the assumptions behind
the choices for the route alignments, removing the tunnel site
would push the project over the edge, the need for the Hanbury
Street shaft. They did not believe the tunnel alignment would
add another two years to the time to build Crossrail, and they
did not believe the information on the impacts and geological
assessments, they required proof. Indeed, as we can see, a revised
tunnel strategy removed the time for the works and the impacts.
11679. Could we have 32, please?[27]
These are some of the savings from removing the tunnelling site
which would have made the project unviable and would have pushed
the project over the edge. This is the sort of consultation that
we had to deal with.
27 Committee Ref: A62, Cost Estimate, Crossrail-Hanbury
Street Shaft Layout Options, Mott MacDonald, June 2006 (SCN-20080506-011) Back
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