Examination of Witnesses (Questions 12780
- 12799)
12780. CHAIRMAN: It is a CNIR point,
is it not?
12781. MS LIEVEN: Yes, I am told! The
other point I just want to stress, whether or not Mr Goodman is
raising it, is that since we received the Petition in the House
of Lords we have asked on a number of occasions that representatives
of the Society and the Mayfair residents meet us so that we can
put to rest concerns about settlement, dust, lorry routes or any
other genuine concerns they may have as people affected by the
proposal and they have not been prepared to meet us. Every time
we have said this the response has been that they will only meet
if we give them further information or send them further reports
and so on. The end result is that we have not been able to meet
them since their Petition has been submitted. In my submission,
whatever Mr Goodman says about the Aarhus Convention, we have
provided every scrap of environmental information that could reasonably
be expected of us.
12782. I will turn now to the second of what
I understand to be the principal concerns, which is alternatives.
The position on alternatives is that the Society and the Mayfair
residents have very consistently throughout the history of this
Bill and indeed, as I understand it, back to the Private Bill
in the 1990s sought to advance alternative routes of which the
consistent principle is that they do not fall within Mayfair.
You have heard Mr Elvin's submissions on the approach to alternatives
and your Lordship has given a ruling on that. So far as the alternatives
that are relevant to the Society and the Mayfair residents are
concerned, the Environmental Statement at Volume 1, Chapter 6,
p112 to 127, goes through the main alternatives to the route and
assesses them in the Environmental Statement. As far as main alternatives
are concerned, that is done in the Environmental Statement entirely
in accordance with European law. The two main alternatives which
are most relevant here are a northern alternative that runs via
King's Cross and a southern alignment that runs under —-
It is confusing because there is a southern alignment in Whitechapel,
but the southern alignment we are talking about here runs under
the Thames. Both of those are assessed in the Environmental Statement.
12783. Unsurprisingly with something of the
size and scale of Crossrail, there are variants on these main
alternatives and one of the variants which has emerged on behalf
of the Society and the Mayfair residents increasingly strongly
as this Bill has gone through Parliament is what is called the
Wigmore Street alignment, which involves running north of Oxford
Street. Again, it has the "benefit" of not being within
Mayfair. On one variant of the Wigmore Street alignment there
would be a station at Cavendish Square, which effectively would
mirror the station at Hanover Square but be to the north of Oxford
Street. Mr Berryman can give evidence on this later. It was not
considered to be a main alternative. It has major transport disbenefits
overrunning south of Oxford Street. The only residential benefit
is that it shifts the line from Mayfair to the people who live
north of Oxford Street instead. In terms of overall environmental
benefits, we perceived there to be none which outweighed the balance
on our alignment and the major transport disadvantages. Mr Berryman
will tell you about that in more detail. Clearly that was not
a main alternative. The main alternatives are considered in the
Environmental Statement.
12784. The third issue that I want to touch
on in opening so that the Committee and Mr Goodman understand
our position is that of clause 21 and for this I just need to
put up the explanatory note to the Bill which was set out when
the Bill was introduced in the House of Lords.[4]
It says at the top, "These notes refer to the Crossrail Bill
as brought from the House of Commons on 14th December 2007".
I think this is the easiest way to explain what the issue is.
"Clause 21 provides that an Order under section 82(2) of
the Environmental Protection Act 1990 may not be made by a magistrates'
court in connection with noise emitted from premises, or from
a vehicle, machinery and equipment in a street, where the nominated
undertaker can show that they are used for Crossrail purposes
and the Crossrail works concerned are being carried out in accordance
with a notice or consent issued by the local authority under sections
60, 61 or 65 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974. These provisions
of the 1974 Act address the control of noise on construction sites
(section 60), consent for work on construction sites (section
61) and consent to exceed noise limits (section 65)." To
put it in ordinary terms, what clause 21 is saying is that if
we have gone to the local authority under section 60 of the Control
of Pollution Act and got the local authority consent to any of
these different works then a member of the public cannot go to
the magistrates' court and complain of nuisance. We are not trying
to get away with anything. We are just saying that if we have
the local authority consent then for the purposes of certainty
of the project, so we know what we can safely do, we can go ahead
and do those works.
12785. The point I want to emphasise in opening
is that this clause is fully precedented by the Channel Tunnel
Rail Link Act, which had the same clause, and is also precedented
in Transport and Works Act Orders where the clauses that have
been used in recent Transport and Works Acts actually go further
than this and provide that so long as the work is being done under
the powers in the Order then no application can be made to the
magistrates' court, so it actually goes further even than our
clause or the CTRL Act did. I have just touched on that in opening
because I wanted the Committee and Mr Goodman to understand our
position clearly so that Mr Goodman can deal it in his submissions.
12786. Let me explain the way we intend to deal
with this Petition. I do have Mr Berryman here and I think he
would positively welcome an opportunity to go into the witness
box for a short period and just explain to you why none of these
alternatives makes any good sense. We are not just relying on
EU law and what we have done in our ES. I think we feel it would
be useful for the Committee to understand why in substance—
12787. CHAIRMAN: We are not going to
spend very long on this because we have no powers whatsoever to
recommend those routes.
12788. MS LIEVEN: Quite, but I just wanted
to make that clear. I understand that we have now passed to the
Committee this note on undertakings and assurances which are relevant
to the Spitalfields area and I hope that this is at least a start
to what the Committee wanted us to provide. We will pass it to
Mr Goodman and his clients in the hope that it pulls together
the information that they had.
12789. CHAIRMAN: It looks like it. There
will be parts of the Environmental Statement also which no doubt
apply.
12790. MS LIEVEN: Yes. It is right to
remind the Committee that the Environmental Statement is also
available on the Internet, so it is easy for people to get information.
12791. CHAIRMAN: And has been for a long
time.
12792. MS LIEVEN: And has been ever since
it was lodged, which seems like a very long time ago but I think
was probably about three years ago. That is all I intend to say
at this stage.
12793. CHAIRMAN: Mr Goodman, what do
you want to do?
12794. MR GOODMAN: My Lord, may I begin
by making an apology that I am not wearing a tie this morning.
12795. CHAIRMAN: I saw that!
12796. MR GOODMAN: My clients told me
that on all accounts I must not make the mistake that their previous
junior counsel made in the House of Commons of coming unrobed!
I understand that he had a very difficult time unrobed and I hope
I do not receive the same treatment.
12797. I am instructed by my clients directly
today under a public access system and so I do not have direct
instructions from a solicitor which perhaps leads to these kinds
of very basic errors, but I hope you will bear with me.
12798. My client groups are two residents' associations
and their broad membership numbers in the thousands: it is the
Mayfair residents and the Crossrail Coalition of Residents and
Petitioners. What I want to impress upon this Committee today
is the fear that many of my clients feel about this project, not
only if everything goes to plan, but the fears of things going
wrong. These are real and, I would suggest to the Committee, quite
fair fears to be held, that the disruption to their lives by noise,
settlement damage, vibrations, dust and pollution will be disastrous.
What I am seeking today are some mechanisms that will apply some
safeguarding and reassurance to my clients during the construction
period in particular. You will have seen in the Petitions from
both groups that a whole range of topics are raised relating to
dust and noise and all the things that they are concerned about.
12799. CHAIRMAN: It was precisely for
that reason that I asked the Promoters to produce this list of
undertakings which we have and I hope you have too.
4 Crossrail Bill, clause 21 [Bill HL14 (2007-08)] Back
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