Examination of Witnesses (Questions 12420
- 12439)
12420. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: Could
I ask you, Lady Bright, if you have had any conversations with
Westminster City Council about their likely reaction to you advocating
that there should be an increase in the size of the wall or there
should be some changes in the nature of the panels between houses
and so on?
12421. LADY BRIGHT: We have not had detailed
conversations about the panel changes, etc, and that would be
with the Conservation people. There are panels already between
some houses of not a great height but a little bit higher than
the wall and certainly closer to where the noise is felt, and
those seem to be okay. So although I cannot prejudge what they
would say I would say that, in general, the local authority has
been very supportive of us, so if they can they will.
12422. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: Do
they know about the line you have been running on the wall?
12423. LADY BRIGHT: Yes, and they have
a great deal of experience in large civil engineering projects.
Mr King, who is in charge of dealing with the Crossrail Bill from
Westminster, has just built the new Bishop's Bridge, which is
a massive, multi-million pound bridge. He also knows about how
difficult it is with public works; if people do not want to do
something they will find a million reasons for not doing it. Therefore,
at this stage, where we are getting so much objection to even
thinking about the wall, which is a Network Rail structure, we
have not got any further with detailed discussions there. I cannot
really give you too good a steer, but it is not ruled out at all.
I think they would encourage that it could be done at some reasonable
cost. Obviously, that is a factor and that is partly behind what
you are saying as well. We do have costings from mainland Europe—Holland—on
noise barriers and structures supporting them etc, and their costings
are several orders of magnitude lower than the ones we are hearing
from the people who do not want to do it. I would simply leave
it at that.
12424. CHAIRMAN: Lady Bright, I do not
think you have answered Lord Brooke's question. Have you discussed
with the Westminster City Council the question of heightening
the wall?
12425. LADY BRIGHT: I am sorry, I did
not answer it clearly enough. We have discussed it with them and
they are not giving a clear answer until they know what is proposed.
They are not against a noise barrier in principle, as far as I
can understand.
Re-examined by MS
LIEVEN
12426. MS LIEVEN: A couple of questions
in re-examination, Mr Thornely-Taylor. First of all, as far as
the eligibility criteria for noise insulation and re-housing,
which are set out in D9, are concerned, have those been agreed
with the local authority?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor)
Yes, they have.
12427. I then want to turn to this issue about
the construction railway that seems to have come up rather late
in the day. First of all, noise from the construction railway:
is that taken into account when the noise study is carried out
and the assessment for eligibility for noise insulation during
construction is assessed?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) It is part of the
plant required for construction, and it will be taken into account
in that process.
12428. MS LIEVEN: My Lords, there is
one point I want to raise at this stage. There seems to be some
possibility floated that we should be required to use one kind
of construction locomotive rather than another. Now, that is not
a matter we came here prepared to deal with, and I am getting
various different notes about different kinds of trains and different
noises. If the Committee are interested in that matter—and,
clearly, it is something the Committee are perfectly entitled
to be interested in—what I would like to do is do some work
overnight and produce a very short note that sets out what the
different kinds of construction trains are and what their noise
at 7.5 metres, or whatever, would be. I would much rather not
do it on the hoof because I want to make sure we have got it right.
To be frank with you, I am getting slightly conflicting messages
on conflicting points. So I do not want to relay them to the Committee
and then have to pull them back tomorrow.
12429. CHAIRMAN: You do that.
12430. MS LIEVEN: If I could do it that
way I would be very grateful. Thank you, my Lords. Those are all
my questions for Mr Thornely-Taylor.
12431. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much,
Mr Thornely-Taylor.
The witness withdrew
12432. CHAIRMAN: What is going to happen
about Mr Payne?
12433. MS LIEVEN: I think Mr Payne is
here and Mr Mould is ready to go ahead. Do your Lordships want
a short closing from me?
12434. CHAIRMAN: Yes. I wanted to make
sure that we have got our plans organised.
12435. MS LIEVEN: Yes, Mr Payne is here
and Mr Mould, I think, is here.
12436. CHAIRMAN: You close on this one
and I will invite Lady Bright.
12437. MS LIEVEN: Thank you, my Lord.
I think I can deal with the points very quickly. As far as the
footbridge is concerned, I think the position is agreed, effectively,
between ourselves and the Residents' Association now, so I do
not think I need say any more about that, save to remind the Committee
that the footbridge, at the end of the day, will be fully-Disability
Discrimination Act compliant because it will be fully accessible
at both ends and there will be no step in the middle. We have
agreed to light it (we have seen the Network Rail letter) and
further work in terms of painting it or whatever may be undertaken
by Network Rail, and we have said we are happy to work on a scheme
with Network Rail.
12438. As far as the batching plant is concerned,
the batching plant itself has not been raised by Lady Bright,
so I am not going to say any more about that. So far as trains
to the batching plant are concerned, in my submission what has
become very clear today is that there is going to be a major improvement
to Westbourne Park Villas in respect of the trains to the batching
plant from this proposal. At the moment there are two or three
trains a week in the middle of the night going to the batching
plant but, as Mr Berryman explained, once the Crossrail scheme
is completed those trains will not go anywhere near as far east
as they do at the moment. So they will not go past the majority
of houses in Westbourne Park Villas any longer. That is going
to be a major improvement by reason of the project. In terms of
noise reports, which Lady Bright was very concerned about, it
is clear from Mr Thornely-Taylor's evidence that there has already
been considerable work to draw up the Environmental Statement;
there will be a detailed noise study which will take into account
both cumulative noise effects and background noise in the location.
So that work will be done as part of the assessment process for
the construction noise insulation eligibility. So, in my submission,
that meets a number of her concerns.
12439. So far as construction noise eligibility
is concerned, it is important that your Lordships understand that
the criteria are agreed with the local authority. They have come
together and they have been agreed, holistically, across the route.
That is a universal standard that can be applied to residents
up and down the Crossrail route. It is also important to understand
that that takes into account all the construction effects, including
the conveyer, the construction railway—all construction
elements.
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