Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11960
- 11979)
11960. MR ELVIN: If I can remind your
Lordships, as my Lord, Lord Snape has already mentioned, he asked
me several questions about this on Day 11, 12 March, and it is
in the transcript between 3735 and 3748. What I said was that
it was not a statutory consultee but that it would be available
to receive the information. The local authority would be a statutory
consultee and there was therefore a means by which all the information
could be passed through for all the applications and there could
then be consultation both between the local authority and the
local community and Crossrail on all of those particular matters.
I hoped I had made that clear to my Lord, Lord Snape, at that
time.
11961. CHAIRMAN: Yes.
11962. MS KHELA: Unfortunately we cannot
rely on our council because they were originally the reason why
we were not consulted because they apparently forgot to supply
the names of local groups until almost a year later. We need to
have some protection and we do not think what we are asking for
is unreasonable. "Crossrail undertake to direct the nominated
contractor to submit all section 61 and schedule 7 applications
with supporting documents through the Spitalfields and Whitechapel
Community Liaison Panel six weeks prior to the submission to the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. This is in order that the community
representative members can have full knowledge of all applications,
assess the potential impact that all applications ... "—
11963. LORD JAMES OF BLACKHEATH: My Lord
Chairman, this is now going to open up the reading of seven subclauses
which I think we can take as read, surely? It is all down on paper.
11964. MS KHELA: That would be wonderful.
The other thing is we do not want any lorries going down a road
where two children died and there were a number of protests which
led to the road closure. We think the recommendation for that
road by Tower Hamlets Council is completely unacceptable to the
community.
11965. CHAIRMAN: We are getting towards
the end of this session. I think we know the strength of feeling
in Spitalfields. We know that you wish Route B had been adopted,
but it has not been and as far as we are concerned it cannot be.
The next best thing seems to us to be that, as happened with the
Camden Liaison Group and is happening elsewhere in relation to
this particular scheme, there is a system of consultation with
people, your colleagues and neighbours, who live in the Spitalfields
area so there could be a proper consultation scheme with the Promoters.
We would support that.
11966. LORD SNAPE: And did.
11967. CHAIRMAN: We have supported it.
The difficulty about it is that there does not seem to be any
machinery which gets it on foot.
11968. MS KHELA: Will this Committee
then—
11969. CHAIRMAN: It is no use just talking
about undertakings. It requires people; people to discuss it with
Crossrail.
11970. MS KHELA: I think a good way to
build trust is to provide legally enforceable undertakings so
that people do feel they have some form of protection.
11971. CHAIRMAN: Unless you have a lot
more about this you want to say, we all want to hear from Mr Elvin.
11972. MS KHELA: Yes.
11973. MR ELVIN: My Lords, on the issue
of consultation, it is correct to say there were concerns about
the earlier stages of the consultation, 2003-2004, and the correspondence
which has been drawn to the Committee's attention was examined
over a lengthy period before the Committee in the other place.
It was the subject of lengthy submissions. It led, if I can have
this put up, to a recommendation as to how to take matters forward
which was the Liaison Panel and your Lordships have heard about
that.[30]
So whatever the position was in the past, and I acknowledge that
the Commons Committee found there were problems, I do not seek
to traverse what the Commons Committee said, but the way forward
was the liaison body, and I cannot do any better than to repeat—and
I do not mean literally repeat—what I said on Day 11 at
paragraphs 3736 to 3737, that we would be delighted if the panel
got itself up and running but it is dependent on co-operation
from the local bodies and the local people to make it work.
11974. My Lords, without the willingness of
local people to make it work, we can facilitate until we are blue
in the face but we need engagement in order to take matters forward.
We do not seek, as you know, to run any local body; we are simply
facilitators. We set up an independent body, Planning Aid, which
attracted suspicion as you have heard from other petitioners in
the week and a half prior to Easter. We have done what the Commons
asked us to do and we continue to abide, so far as we are able
within our power to do, to comply with the undertaking to the
House of Commons.
11975. My Lord, other issues are simply by the
way. The important thing is how to take matters forward and I
have made our position, I hope, perfectly clear in response to
my Lord, Lord Snape's questions on the same day in the following
paragraphs.
11976. With regard to the alignments issue,
this is, however one dresses it up, no more and no less than a
re-run of the point your Lordships rejected at Easter. It is no
use saying it was not about alignments: your Lordships will have
somewhere amongst the volumes of paper the written and closing
submissions I put in in support of our position which start out
by setting out what the argument by the Spitalfields Small Business
Association was and it referred to the issue of the alignment.
It was all tied in to looking at the alternatives to the alignment
and your Lordships made the ruling you did.
11977. However, can I put right a number of
misapprehensions by the Petitioner. It is not true to say that
Option B was ruled out because of the Heron Tower. Can I remind
your Lordships of what I said to your Lordships when dealing with
that matter, and I have the transcript here which we will put
up. This is Day 12, 13 March, paragraph 4520.[31]
I said that Option B was rejected in March 2001: "There were
two difficulties. One was the incidence of the route with deep
pile foundations of buildings along the alignment and proposed
new buildings (which now include the Heron Tower ... )"—it
clearly was not there in 2001 and Ms Khela is right that the application
came forward later—" ... and also because it gave rise
to difficulties with connecting into Whitechapel Station."
The fact is, the Heron Tower was not the reason for rejecting
it in March 2001. The Heron Tower represents one of the current
reasons why that reasoning is still good; it is because of deep
pile foundations, but that was not the reason in 2001.
11978. As for all of the other reasons which
have been raised, whether they were raised precisely in the same
language or not, the document presented to the Commons at Second
Reading, if you will recall, Command 6603, includes as I said
in my submissions to you against Mr Horton, which you have in
writing, copious written submissions about the alternative alignment
and whether the position should be changed. The points which are
being made today were made prior to Second Reading and were reported
to the House in this document—if you start at Document 17,
it runs through at least to Document 25 or 25 in Command 6603.
11979. As for the other arguments about EIA,
the Heron Tower, all the matters which have been advanced today,
they were laid before the House of Commons for Third Reading in
the document my Lord, the Lord Chairman, has referred Ms Khela
to today: the Government's Overview, Command 7250. It includes
the submissions I made on behalf of the Promoter; it includes
copious correspondence with Mr Carpenter and those representing
him and his Association; it includes the Bindman letter of 2 June
2005. The points which are being made now were thoroughly aired
before the Commons in Third Reading.
30 House of Commons Select Committee on the Crossrail
Bill, First Special Report of Session 2006-07, Crossrail Bill,
HC 235-I, para 93 Back
31
Para 4520 [Mr Elvin] Back
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