HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE - Parliament · Mr Tim Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport...

PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Thursday, 10 December 2015 (Morning)

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Mr Mark Hendrick

_____________

IN ATTENDANCE

Mr Tim Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport

WITNESSES

Father James Elston Father Paschal Worton

Mrs Dorothea Hackman Reverend Anne Stevens

Ms Amber Massie-Blomfield Ms Frances Heron Ms Louise Fletcher

Mr Pat O’Neill Ms Maria O’Shea Ms Zamzam Ali Ms Jane Warren Ms Linda Eager

Ms Agueda Furtado Mr David Turner Mr John Fletcher _____________

IN PUBLIC SESSION

2

INDEX

Subject Page Parish of Old St Pancras Introduction from Mr Mould 3 Submissions by Father Elston 3 Father Worton, examined by Father Elston 4 Response from Mr Mould 9 Closing submissions by Father Elston 17 St Pancras Parish Church Parochial Church Council Introduction from Mr Mould 21 Submissions by Mrs Hackman 22 Submissions by Reverend Stevens 24 Further submissions by Mrs Hackman 27 Response from Mr Mould 29 Closing submissions by Mrs Hackman 33 Camden People’s Theatre Introduction from Mr Mould 34 Submissions by Ms Massie-Blomfield 34 Response from Mr Mould 37 Ampthill Square Tenants and Residents Association and others Introduction from Mr Mould 38 Submissions by Ms Heron and Ms Fletcher 40 Evidence of Mr O’Neill 45 Further submissions by Ms Heron and Ms Fletcher 48 Response from Mr Mould 52 Statements read by Ms Heron 56 Maria O’Shea Submissions by Ms O’Shea 59 Submissions by Ms Ali 61 Submissions by Ms Warren 62 Linda Eager Submissions by Ms Eager 64 Response from Mr Mould 66 Agueda Furtado Submissions by Ms Furtado 67 David and Barbara Turner Submissions by Mr Turner 71 John and Louise Fletcher Submissions by Mr Fletcher 75 Response from Mr Mould 79

3

(At 09.30)

Parish of Old St Pancras

1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee. Good morning to

everybody. Mr Mould, have you got a map so we can see where the church is?

2. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. St Mary’s Church is on Eversholt Street. I’m just

pointing it out now with the arrow. It’s this building just here. That’s it. Very briefly

to set the scene, we have utilities works required on Eversholt Street which are

essentially a gas main diversion, and also in Polygon Road possibly needing to do some

work to a concrete sewer. It’s on Polygon Road here. There’s a worksite here which is

the Royal Mail sorting officer site where we demolish the existing building and provide

bus stands later in the construction process.

3. Eversholt Street is a traffic route and the prediction we have is that traffic along

that route is likely to be of the order of about 39 heavy construction vehicles a day

during the fourth phase, so fairly late in the process of constructing the Phase 1 station

in the early 2020s; rising to a peak of 80 during the course of that phase.

4. In terms of noise, our prediction is that there will be noise from the demolition of

the Royal Mail compound building and there will be noise obviously from the utilities

works. Our prediction is that the noisiest period of activity will be limited to a period of

about one month, and then the noise will be at rather low levels. So that’s the basic

scene.

5. CHAIR: Okay. Welcome, gentlemen. If you’d like to introduce yourself and

present your petition, please? So it’s 468.

6. FATHER ELSTON: Thank you very much for seeing us today and taking this

time to hear us. My name is Father James Elston. I’m the team rector of the Parish of

Old St Pancras which consists of four churches in the Camden Town area. It’s an urban

priority area and we serve some of the poorest people in London and in the borough of

Camden. One of my churches is St Mary’s, Eversholt Street, which has just been

referred to, and that’s the church we’re going to be talking about today.

4

7. My colleague is my team vicar, Father Pascal Worton, who is the parish priest of

St Mary’s, Somers Town. St Mary’s sits within Somers Town. I’m sure you’ve heard

lots about Somers Town already. It’s dense social housing. It’s been subject to many

changes. It’s going to be subject to many more changes over the coming years with

Crossrail 2 and the Somers Town plan and rehousing development.

8. The history of the church briefly. It’s been there since the 1820s. It’s a Grade II

listed building. It’s very much the heartbeat of the community. It’s the oldest building

in the community and it’s open daily as a place of prayer and quiet in a very, very busy

and stressful place to live in London. We have many outreach projects from the church

for young people, children, older people, homeless people and those suffering with

mental health problems.

9. So our first slide shows the… I don’t know who’s doing the slides. Lovely.

That’s our blurred logo; we’re very low tech. So we’ll move on to the next slide and

you can just see a picture of the church and how it sits on Eversholt Street. So here we

have the left. You can see the church is right on Eversholt Street. The Royal Mail

building opposite is the building that will be demolished, so you can see with the

building being demolished in that close proximity it’s not going to have an

inconsiderable effect. And of course, as Mr Mould says, there’s going to be a bus

station with buses turning and an increase of lorries going in and out of that site of

Barnby Street taking detritus from the site. So that’s where St Mary’s is located in

relation to the demolition works and the access route to the HS2 works.

10. So I’d like to call Father Paschal as a witness and I want to ask you, Father,

whether you could tell the Committee about how the access limitations might affect the

church.

11. FATHER WORTON: One of the regular occurrences – there are three in the next

eight days – are funerals. And for the people of Somers Town, funerals are not only a

time of grieving for personal family losses but it is a time for cohesion as a group, as a

local community. So we have hundreds of people coming to the church for funerals.

And, as you see from the slide there, this spill-out onto the road, and hearses need access

to draw up in front of the entrance to the church. So my main concern is for that to

continue. Also when you have large Somers Town funerals with horses and plumes and

5

all that goes with it, that again, they would be hampered I think by the noise and the

traffic. Already it’s a very busy road, as we know, with buses, ambulances, police

charging up and down from the Euston Road up to Camden. So it can be quite stressful

for the families when all this is going on. So my concern is an increase of traffic and

noise during these funerals.

12. Also, if you go to the next slide please, if it’s possible, you’ll see turning into the

left a hearse there. Now, there’s two reasons for doing that: one is that because one of

the local things is that they kind of do a procession near the blocks of flats where they

live and it’s highly important to the families that the body of the deceased goes near

where they used to live. They also circulate the pubs as well. But actually one of the

practical reasons is that the funeral corteges need to turn left in order to get back round

to go north to the cemeteries and the crematorium. If this is Polygon Road that might be

affected, then they would have to go right down to Euston Road and try and get back up.

And, as you know with funerals, with crematoria and burials, there is a time factor

involved.

13. CHAIR: Half-an-hour?

14. FATHER ELSTON: Half-an-hour to 45 minutes, yeah.

15. FATHER WORTON: Yeah. So that would be another one of my concerns there.

Also access with weddings. Wedding couples coming out on their day and just coming

in to seeing the demolition right opposite the church and how that will affect their

wedding. So I’m concerned about that as well.

16. Also near us is the school: St Mary and St Pancras Church of England Primary

School. And over 200 children and staff come regularly into the church building for

services, but also sometimes for teaching. Although the school itself will not be

affected so much by the changes in Eversholt Street, managing the children round from

the school and then along Eversholt Street, they normally have to go left because

another school comes out at the same time so my concern is for their safety and the

process of the children to and from the church.

17. Also, our hall, our little hall, is attached to the church and the entrance is, again,

onto Eversholt Street. And, as Father James has said, we do a lot of activities for the

6

elderly, for mums and toddlers, for the homeless, for other charitable groups. And my

concern is, again, will this lack of access, or will there be boards, will it stop people

from coming to the hall? Will they be put off, people who are elderly or mums with

buggies? Will that be a distraction?

18. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is the hall part of the church?

19. FATHER WORTON: The hall is part of the church.

20. FATHER ELSTON: It’s right next door.

21. FATHER WORTON: It’s attached to it.

22. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: On Eversholt Street?

23. FATHER WORTON: Yes. It’s sort of between that Polygon Road and the

entrance to the church. If we go back –

24. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If we look at 12489(2).

25. FATHER WORTON: Yes.

26. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If you put your finger on the corner where it is.

27. FATHER ELSTON: Just there. The hall is the recess bit. If you look at the

building on Eversholt Street, the entrance to the hall is that recess bit on the right. That

little corner that’s cut off. That’s the entrance to the hall.

28. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Thank you.

29. FATHER ELSTON: And the hall runs down the side of the church, the south side

of the church.

30. FATHER WORTON: One of my concerns is not only for the people but also the

hall is a source of income for our church. We’re not a rich church and, again, if people

don’t want to use our hall then our income will be severely reduced. Paragraph 14 and

23 in our petition states some of the finances that would be involved. We’ve also

managed to get charitable help of £23,000 because of our social projects, and so that

might stop. So income from the hall.

7

31. Also income from people coming into the church to pray. As Father James has

said, it’s a very open church. People come in, light candles, have a sense of peace and

put donations. And we do depend on those donations daily to help keep the church

going. So those are some of my concerns around access.

32. FATHER ELSTON: Thank you, Father. And I wonder how you felt… whether

you could tell the Committee something about the noise and the effects that might have

on your home, the vicarage, which is next door to the church? It’s built above the

church hall and the church itself.

33. FATHER WORTON: Yes. My little dwelling is 1960s with a box attached to the

hall. Again, my bedroom looks straight onto the post office building. I see the big sign

as I look out of my bedroom window. And the noise already is quite bad from buses

and lorries going up and down Eversholt Street so my concern is for the noise that will

come into the clergy house where I also see people on an individual basis regularly as

well. So it’s a house not just for my dwelling but also for ministry.

34. Also the noise, of course, when things go past the church; we feel the effects of

noise already. So my concern is to do with how that would affect our services, our

funerals, our sense of calm that’s there. And also the groups, young children, babies; all

of that is quite a concern of mine.

35. FATHER ELSTON: Thank you. And how about increased dirt and dust? Could

you just tell us about your worries there?

36. FATHER WORTON: Yes. Well already, as you know, in London there’s lots of

dust around and the doors being opened regularly for people coming in and out, dust

comes into the church regularly. My concern is that, with this added addition of dust, it

will affect the organ. Organs are very sensitive instruments and we don’t have money

regularly to repair them or to clean it, and so I think it will affect the workings of the

organ.

37. Also over the door is a 19th century copy of a Della Robbia Madonna, and I think

that will be affected not only by dirt but also perhaps by some shaking or things like

that.

8

38. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Vibration.

39. FATHER WORTON: Vibration, thank you; that’s the word. Vibration.

40. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: In church, when one’s affected by the service, it can

be ‘shaking’. But I think for these purposes it’s ‘vibration’.

41. FATHER WORTON: Yes. Also the brickwork which is 1830s brickwork.

Already it suffers from the effects of pollution and so I worry about that.

42. If I might just say, I deal with residents of a community who feel that their

existence has been blighted by construction work and development in the area for over

25 years. Some of it has been very helpful in rejuvenating the area. But whilst there’s

been various buildings happening at the Crick Centre, St Pancras Station, St Pancras

Hotel, the British Library – all good things – but within that area is a group of people

who feel that they are in a kind of island. And despite regular meetings and chances for

their voices to be heard, many people still feel that they have no choices so they feel that

they are sacrificial lambs who will suffer on the altar of national progress.

43. So my concern is basically for the people, for this place of stability, for believers

and non-believers alike who seek identity and nourishment from this church. And I just

hope it can be valued and be protected. Thank you.

44. FATHER ELSTON: Thank you very much, Father. As Father Paschal says, it

really is the heartbeat of the community and it resonates with lots of the community as

the only permanent structure that’s been there through our change. And of course, as

I’m sure you’re aware, in the 1930s it was a priest who helped clear the slums of Somers

Town and built some of the first social housing in this country. And so the church is not

only there as a spiritual place but people look to it as somebody who can speak up for

the people and act as well, rather than just speak. So that’s the kind of ministry –

45. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Community leadership and community service?

46. FATHER ELSTON: Yes, thank you. That’s a very good phrase to put,

absolutely. Thank you. What happens next? You ask us questions?

47. CHAIR: What happens next is we ask the promoter to respond.

9

48. FATHER ELSTON: Oh, right. Thank you.

49. CHAIR: Then you have the final say.

50. FATHER ELSTON: Oh, lovely.

51. CHAIR: Okay. Mr Mould.

52. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Thank you. It seems to me that the key to meeting the

concerns put by the church is that we should be in close engagement with them well in

advance of the start of works here, and continue to be in close engagement with them, I

think particularly in the light of what’s just been said about the role that the church play

as a voice for the community, because it will help not only to provide advance notice of

the works closures of roads, so far as there are any and that kind of thing, but also will

help to provide a route through to information to the local community in Somers Town.

53. So what I would propose is this: that after this meeting, after this session, that we

should speak to the petitioners. We can explain the arrangements that will be put in

place in advance of the works to give notice of particular phases of work such as, for

example, when works are going to begin for the demolition of the Post Office building,

when the utilities works are likely to start their duration and that kind of thing. Notice

of the traffic control arrangements that are going to be in place in relation to

Eversholt Street to allow street works to take place. All those matters. And also to

enable a dialogue in relation to concerns about the possible impact of demolition on the

church itself.

54. I should say straight away, our assessment is that the church is not at risk of any

physical damage, nor indeed the organ and that kind of thing from the demolition works.

The demolition… it’s quite a substantial building but the demolition of substantial

buildings in London is not an unusual thing. This is a mercantile city; it refreshes itself

almost on a daily basis if you look at the number of cranes there are in the skyline. And

our contractors will be very well aware and will be bound, as you know, to observe the

best practice in relation to those matters. Equally, street works in London streets is a

common feature of living in a society which is as dynamic as ours and they will be

controlled under the Code of Construction Practice as well.

10

55. But the important thing is that people who are affected by these works – and this is

a good example of that – should be given proper advance notice of what is happening

and kept informed; and that is what the community relation strategy is designed to

achieve.

56. Just to give you a very quick context on our prediction as to what is going to

happen on traffic, if I can just put up P11315(34) which gives you a sense of the

predicted incidents of HS2 traffic on Eversholt Street during the course of the works.

You can see that, as I said briefly in opening, there’s a spike of up to about 80 vehicles

during Phase 4. But other than that essentially we’re at or around the 30 to 35 vehicle

mark throughout the works.

57. And if you look at A11316(14), that will give you an idea of the scale of HS2

traffic within the predicted baseline. If you can just orientate yourself to links A and B

and C and D, which are south and north I think respectively of the church. And if we

can just blow up so that we can have a look at the numbers on the left, you can see A

and B. As you would expect, Eversholt Street carrying quite a substantial number of

both ordinary and heavy traffic in both directions through both those points. And then

the amount of HS2 traffic is relatively small. As I say, there is a small but significant

number of HGVs being routed along the street but that’s in a mix which already

includes some hundreds of HGVs as you would expect on Eversholt Street, knowing

where it is and its relationship to Euston Road and so forth.

58. So that’s the position there. And on noise, if we can just show P1249(2). Sorry,

P12491(2). Again, the type of property is non-residential so this is referring to the

church. Likely to be, during 2017, a period of one month during which adverse noise

impacts will occur. No significant effects predicted during the night. And then no

significant vibration effects, mitigation, through the Code of Construction Practice. So

that’s the prediction.

59. Coming back to where the petitioners started off with the particular concern about

the management of funerals, that’s exactly the sort of thing where, with sensible and

effective engagement, we can hear from the church when a funeral is planned and that

can be reported to the contractor and the contractor can take steps to try and keep any

disturbance of that to the minimum. It’s just about good planning, and that’s what we’re

11

committed to doing.

60. CHAIR: The ability of vehicles to turn to go northward, is that something you

want to build into the plan for the construction site?

61. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, it is. And, again, with proper advanced notice

from both parties we can –

62. FATHER ELSTON: Well, people don’t give notice of dying so it’s usually a

week’s notice so as long as that’s –

63. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, that’s what I mean. I appreciate that. I’m aware of

the realities of human existence so, you know, they can be built into this programme.

This is not the first time, I’m sure, that a church in London has had to accommodate

funerals, weddings, that kind of thing with fairly major construction activities going on

in the immediate vicinity. And it is possible to manage these things effectively, and

that’s what we’re committed to doing.

64. MR BELLINGHAM: I’ve got a suggestion here, Mr Mould. I certainly take on

board what you’ve said. I think the important point to bear in mind here is it’s very easy

in the Committee for these assurances to be made, but you have a site manager and

you’ve got part of a construction project that may be running behind and there’s

pressure on the guys on the ground, and the church then puts in a perfectly reasonable

request but it may not be possible to meet it in the way that you’ve just said. So would

it make sense to have a proper service level agreement with the church specifically

about this part of London so that there could be an annex to the Code of Construction

whereby each site manager involved has to accommodate the wishes of the church.

That’s the least we can ask for. It is a massive construction project, this.

65. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Following on from Henry Bellingham, who I think

has raised a very good point, the critical point I think is: will it be absolutely certain that

this church, and any others that may be affected in a similar way, can ring somebody up

and say ‘in a week’s time or in two days’ time we have a couple exchanging vows and

they don’t want to hear, especially during the demolition of the Royal Mail depot’,

which is the crucial thing. Most of the work is on the other side of the station so that’s

not so much of a problem. But I think it’s the demolition particularly that month which

12

matters.

66. I’ve actually watched major buildings in South London being demolished and

they’re nibbled away at and they come down very fast and then they’re cast away.

There are times when the noise is significant. I think that what is critical, whichever

way it’s done – whether it’s the way Henry suggests or some other way – that the church

can actually say ‘we have these things coming up and we do have funerals at 10.30 and

at 3.30’ or ‘we do have a wedding on a Tuesday or on a Saturday’ – I imagine Saturdays

are more likely than weekdays – and during particular periods no adverse noise matters.

And I think that’s the critical point in terms of the effect you’re trying to achieve, which

is no significant disturbance.

67. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That’s what I said, yeah. I mean, that would be the

practical purpose of the engagement process that I have just indicated.

68. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And then if we look at 12489(2), which you may be

coming to, which has some construction traffic; I imagine it’s utilities works on Polygon

Road and Aldenhan Street.

69. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah, that’s the concrete sewer in Polygon Road.

70. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay. So those are temporary things?

71. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yup.

72. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So outside those periods, the project shouldn’t be

interfering with traffic movement?

73. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That’s right. And the works in Eversholt Street itself

are also confined to utilities. There will be some vehicles going up and down Eversholt

Street but, you know, what you’ve said and what Mr Bellingham has said, I mean, I

think I would certainly… What I was about to say – I’m not sure I can commit to

directly – is the notion of a service agreement. I think what we would expect to do is, as

I said yesterday, is we would expect to be written into the contracts for these jobs

commitments by the contractor on engaging with people who are going to be affected,

particularly institutions such as the church, and they would be expected contractually to

ensure that they set up arrangements of the kind that you have mentioned.

13

74. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: One is the planning bit, giving reasonable advanced

notice, and the second is the hotline if someone’s drilling with a pneumatic drill in the

middle of something that’s sensitive to the people in the church.

75. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah.

76. MR BELLINGHAM: Your assurances certainly are appreciated but I’ve been

involved in situations in my own constituency where the residents have said ‘we have a

contractual right against you but it’s all very well if that can be exercised months or

years later’. I’m talking about spur of the moment situations when you have a site

manager and a team who are under pressure where the key deliveries from the day

before haven’t arrived, they’re under pressure, and you’ve got contractors who are under

a time penalty and the poor church are trying to get some sense out of this.

77. I understand you don’t want to commit to a service agreement but I would like to

see a commitment for HS2 to write to the church in the next week to underline, to

reinforce, the points that you’ve made. Because with that letter the church management

will be able to, when this all starts if it does start, has something to fall back on.

78. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m happy to do that. And I want it to be understood

that the theme that I have been pursuing over the last 24 hours – it almost is the last 24

hours – is that I give sensible – you might say ‘bleeding obvious’ – commitments about

actually keeping people properly informed about when things are going to happen and

how they’re going to happen, that those will be followed up by letters to the petitioners

concerned relatively quickly so that people can have something in their papers that says

‘the Council says this and I’ve got a letter that records that’. So the people behind me

are going to have to do that and I’m sure they’re already planning that.

79. MR HENDRICK: Will they have a hotline?

80. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, there will. We’ve said that there will be points of

contact, hotline, call it what you will, in these local areas. And we’ve given

commitments to Camden – I won’t show you them again – about making sure that

because of the overall scale and duration of works at Camden that there will be effective

local points of contact that people can go to. And, you know, you know that we’ve got a

complaints service. That’s a route-wide commitment. But that will have to be reflected

14

in practice at a local level. It’s not going to be a single point of contact for the whole

route; there will be points of contact for individual areas. And obviously those points of

contact will be focused on areas where there is a particular intensity of activity.

81. Another point I wanted to emphasise yesterday is that not every person who

comes to this Committee will be experiencing direct effects from every piece of work

throughout the whole period. This church will not be experiencing the works directly

which are going to take place at the Camden Cutting. Park Village East are not going to

be experiencing directly the works that are taking place in Eversholt Street. I’ve

focused on the demolition of the Post Office building and the utilities works.

82. MR HENDRICK: I accept that but I think the point that Sir Peter’s making about

not just being a means of redress should things not go as planned or something happen

that shouldn’t, but there’s actually an immediate way that something can be addressed

quickly if something gets out of hand like pneumatic drills halfway through funeral.

83. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah, we’re furiously agreeing with each other. I

accept that.

84. MR HENDRICK: But it’s about how you do it, not just whether or not there’s a

process for redress.

85. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The one thing I can’t do now is tell you exactly how

something will be done in two or three years' time.

86. MR HENDRICK: An example.

87. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah. But I can tell you that those points that you make

I receive on behalf of the project sympathetically and constructively. And we will

respond to those in like fashion.

88. CHAIR: We’ve had some discussions with farmers and members of the farming

community before us and they have a number of legitimate specific concerns which are

difficult to address because one hasn’t got to the point of the detailed design. And the

project is producing, as I understand it, a document which gives them a pathway or

template for how the project will deal with the farming community as it deals with these

issues. I just wonder whether or not, beyond a letter to the petitioners, one could just set

15

out on a page of A4 the approach the project would take with the faith community up

and down the line, repeating some of the things you’ve said to the Committee today so

that in effect there’s a pathway for how the various churches and other religious

organisations deal, when at the particular point they have construction impacting on

them, how the project will handle that.

89. MR MOULD QC (DfT): We can do that.

90. CHAIR: Okay.

91. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I also ask, Mr Mould, were you coming on to the point

regarding mitigation? The junior father was asking about his situation with the house in

the church and that struck me as a very reasonable request because his bedroom is

overlooking the demolition works.

92. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Given the predicted noise effects which I’ve shown you,

which are generally at low level save for that one month, at the moment the project’s

position is that that wouldn’t be necessary. But that doesn’t mean that we’re committed

on that point. We will continue to review the likely noise effects as the detail of the

scheme continues to be developed. We’ve said that. And, indeed, the nominated

undertaker has got to do that under the terms of the Code. So rather than commit to

something now which may turn out to be a waste of public money, I would prefer to say

that that’s the position that we predict at the moment but we understand the concerns of

the church and we understand that this is a sensitive environment for the reasons that

members of the Committee have said. We will keep that under close review and so

there will be a… I don’t think I can say more than that at this stage.

93. MR BELLINGHAM: Well, I would like it if you did what the Father has said

because actually, you know, he’s exhausted, he’s got parishioners coming round, trying

to plan a wedding or funeral, he’s doing all sorts of other things. It’s a summer

afternoon; there’s a huge amount of noise going on and he can’t do his job. And that’s a

reality of the situation if you can’t sleep that evening if they’re working – well, we know

they’re not going to be working through the night – but if they’re working quite late.

94. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, these would be ordinary working hours.

16

95. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: He might have to go to the pub.

96. MR BELLINGHAM: I would be useful to hear what the two clerics have to say

on that.

97. FATHER ELSTON: I have a question about your response document because, on

the point of noise insulation, in your response document you seem to suggest that noise

insulation isn’t required on Eversholt Street because of the revised AP3 scheme. And

the reason you’ve suggested that in the response document is because of the no longer

having a link. But the link is further up near Camden Road. So I don’t understand in

the response document why the abolition of a link means that you don’t need to mitigate

the noise pollution on Eversholt Street.

98. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Because it means there is a concomitant reduction in the

intensity of traffic and so forth, which means that the predicted noise that we’re going to

introduce… I think it is important to bear in mind that we are in an environment where

noise traffic disturbance is a factor. You know, this is Central London. This church has

been there functioning successfully since the days when I suspect it was

Charles Dickens’ parish church back in the 1830s when he lived in Somers Town. And

the picture we have is that this is a successful, vibrant feature of the local community. It

succeeds notwithstanding the fact that it sits on a fairly busy street – I’ve shown you the

numbers without HS2. So I’m not trying to be unsympathetic but I’m trying to give a

sense of proportion to this. We are demolishing a large building next door –

99. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The major disturbance is for a month during

demolition.

100. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. And I think that, as I say, keeping the matter under

close review I would have thought is the sensible way forward here.

101. CHAIR: Brief final comments?

102. FATHER ELSTON: Yes. Looking at our mitigation points, you’ve addressed

noise and one of the things in the response document in terms of access and points of

contact is that it’s all about having contact with the Highway Agency which in this case

will be the local authority. But notoriously the lines of communication into a local

17

authority… I mean, just ringing up a local authority, it’s almost impossible to get to

speak to the right person. So I’m glad that you’ve said that there will be some lines of

communication, and I’ll be interested to hear, as the member of the Committee has

suggested, how those can be direct lines of communication because things do happen at

a rapid pace in parish life and we want to be able to respond to those sympathetically.

And just being able to ring the council and see what they’ve got on their books is not

going to be an adequate way of going about it.

103. MR MOULD QC (DfT): People understandably assume the worst of others a lot

of the time, but we really are going to try and do better than that. And I would ask you

of your charity to accept that we will try and do better than the worst. Thank you.

104. FATHER ELSTON: And I’d just like to return to the position of the organ

because I think that’s been glossed over. The organ is worth about £100,000 and organs

just go out of tune with dust. We have very ill-fitting doors. The way we can protect

our organ is to close the church to the public. And the organ is used for weddings and

funerals. Each pipe has to be meticulously cleaned. And I know it sounds quite

inconsequential to people sitting in this room and organs apparently seem sort of quite

fanciful antique things, but it does form the centre of our worshipping life and it’s been

there for 100 years. And I was hoping that HS2 might commit to at least giving us a

small amount of money to maintaining and cleaning the organ which we can’t afford to

do unfortunately. So if we want to maintain the instrument, we just have to close the

church to the public.

105. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I will tell you this. When the demolition of the building

next door begins, we will ensure that we inspect the organ on a sensible basis and if the

organ is showing signs of being affected by dust or deteriorating in its operation and that

can be linked to the demolition works, then we will pay for the necessary cleaning or

repairs that result from that. So if we cause damage to the organ, we will put that

damage right and we will deal with it as quickly as we reasonably can.

106. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If it does reach that level, I suggest that you make an

application to the Community Fund because it’s the sort of thing which I suspect that

those in charge would say that this is a discrete amount of money that clearly is an

advantage to people who are neighbours to the scheme in one part of the line. So if it’s

18

in tense what Mr Mould says works; if it’s not in tense, make that application and see if

you can get a bit of a bonus from the disturbance of the change in the Royal Mail.

Although I congratulate the church on surviving the construction of the Royal Mail

depot which was probably more disturbing than actually demolishing it.

107. CHAIR: Damian Green, the MP for Ashford, gave us some evidence about HS1

and he said there was one street in Ashford where they had a lot of lorry traffic and they

all had dirty windows. And he said it took months and months and months to try and

get somebody to take responsibility for doing something about the windows. Eventually

the HS1 people worked out that they gave somebody the authority to spend a bit of

money with a window cleaner and that actually took away a lot of the hassle. And I

think one of the things we’re going to have to reflect on is whether or not that’s

something that HS2 are going to have to take onboard; that if there are little things like

that that need doing that make a big difference to a community then that can be done

relatively quickly and not become a nuisance.

108. MR MOULD QC (DfT): We’re already fully committed to that kind of thing and

it’s all dealt with under the small claims scheme. That’s already in the bag as far as –

109. CHAIR: Are organs included?

110. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah. We don’t spell out organs because we didn’t

think of everything but you can assume that within the potential realm of small claims is

dusty organs and cleaning them.

111. CHAIR: Yeah. The essential point was a quick response when there’s an

irritating problem that may not be the biggest problem in the world but one that irritates

residents.

112. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I think the due by date which as required of the

contractors under Crossrail on that sort of thing is done in a week. And I think we will

expect to have performed at least as well as that.

113. CHAIR: So in five years’ time, if you get a letter from the church about their

organ getting clogged up, then they’ll be able to at least reference the proceedings of

this Committee to see that this is something that’s included?

19

114. MR MOULD QC (DfT): You’re addressing me as the promoter rather than…

115. CHAIR: Ah.

116. MR MOULD QC (DfT): ‘Yes’, is the answer. Yeah.

117. FATHER ELSTON: And I suppose my other concern is that when we talk about

lorry traffic you’re not including in that the amount of bus traffic because you’re going

to site a bus stop where buses are going to turn next to the Royal Mail site. So there will

be an increase of public transport along Eversholt Street as well. That’s correct, isn’t it?

That’s not in your graphs.

118. MR MOULD QC (DfT): These are bus stands so there will be buses, yeah.

119. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are they mainly approaching from the south from

Euston Road?

120. FATHER ELSTON: And they’re turning there. That’s right, isn’t it?

121. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which is all south of where the church is.

122. FATHER ELSTON: Opposite the church. All the new bus stops will turn directly

opposite the church.

123. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If I look at 12489(2)...

124. FATHER ELSTON: It’s on Barnby Street which is the access to –

125. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We are looking at it, sorry. It does look as though

the buses come in opposite Polygon Road, if I read the map right.

126. FATHER ELSTON: Oh, I see. Yes.

127. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So I think you’re spared.

128. MR MOULD QC (DfT): You’ll be substituting buses for Royal Mail wagons.

That’s essentially it.

129. CHAIR: Thank you.

20

130. MR BELLINGHAM: And one final suggestion, Mr Mould. What the Father was

saying was that quite a few people will go in the church just to have some quiet time to

themselves and they’ll make a small donation. But if during the period of the

demolition, and indeed during other periods of intense activity, the church find that

people are not going into the church to have those quiet moments and may be losing

income, would the church be able to say to HS2 that ‘during this period our income

went down by X amount?’. Would it at all be able to guide HS2 to make a small

contribution to the church?

131. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, they certainly wouldn’t have a claim.

132. MR BELLINGHAM: I’m not talking about a claim. I’m talking about a –

133. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, that’s a policy decision and I don’t have

instructions on that so I’ll have to leave that to those behind me. I can certainly ask for

that to be considered.

134. FATHER ELSTON: I’m grateful for that point because my other church, St

Pancras Old Church, has some waterworks. It’s very, very small works and it meant

that people couldn’t cross the road at the crossing. And our candle money, which I

know sounds like a very small amount, usually is about £300 a week. And during the

period that the road was excavated, it went down to about £150. So we lost half our

income just in a month because the crossing was removed. They could cross further

down and further up but that deterrent of just crossing a busy road and getting into a

church just stops people going into the building.

135. And that loss of income, although it’s quite small, it is actually quite significant to

us. We run on a shoestring. We serve very, very poor people. And it’s very easy to

sound trivial about this but people will be deterred from wanting to walk up Eversholt

Street, to cross Eversholt Street. And that will have an effect on the people who want to

come in and want to have an oasis of prayer. It will have an effect on the amount of

people in the box and it will also have an effect on the people who want to let the

building. So lots of charities and groups, we offer the hall at a reduced rate. But that’s

what keeps us going. Now, if half those people decide that, actually, the bus queue up

Eversholt Street is too long to be bothered to let the hall out because it takes an extra

20 minutes to get from Euston and the walk is dreadful because they’re getting smashed

21

by lorries, they’re not going to let our hall out and we’ll have our income reduced. And,

as I say, we’re just about breaking even. So these things, for us, are not inconsiderable..

136. CHAIR: Okay. We’ve heard your final argument and we’ll reflect on what you

say.

137. FATHER ELSTON: Thank you.

138. CHAIR: Thank you for being briefer than you said you were going to be at the

beginning. I think you’re probably a very good person to listen to sermons from.

139. FATHER ELSTON: Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.

140. CHAIR: Thank you to both of you for sharing your thoughts.

St Pancras Parish Church Parochial Church Council

141. CHAIR: Right. We go on to 1843, St Pancras Parish Church Parochial Church

Council and AP3-110, which is Dorothea Hackman and Anne Stevens. If you’d like to

do a brief introduction please, Mr Mould.

142. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. I’ll put up P12476(3). Although I think that

doesn’t quite capture the focus of these petitioners’ concerns. It shows the church on

the other side of Euston Road but I think the principal focus of their concerns, having

looked at their slides, is in the effect of the scheme on St James’ Gardens, which you’ll

recall is just to the west of Euston Station. I think the Committee has visited St James’

Garden. And, that being the case, that of course is a burial ground.

143. By way of opening, just to set the scene, I’ll draw your attention to two things.

First of all, an agreement that we reached with the Archbishops’ Council on

1 April 2015: P12872(1). And if I can take you through to page 5 of that document. If

you just glance at clause 5, under the heading ‘Reburial in Consecrated Ground’, you’ll

see that the promoter has entered into an undertaking with the Archbishops’ Council in

relation to the removal and reburial from existing burial grounds to appropriate

alternative burial places in consecrated grounds of remains that are disturbed as a result

of the works. And we clearly will disturb remains in St James’ Gardens because we

need to take that burial ground for the purposes of constructing Euston Station.

22

144. That’s the first point. And the next point is in relation to open space more

generally. One of the assurances that we have given to Camden, which is at

P11427(23), is a fairly extensive series of commitments in relation to replacing trees lost

to the project in Euston and also in relation to improving existing open space and play

space both during the period of construction of the works and also following completion

of the works to take steps to restore the position permanently, either through actual

provision or where appropriate through contributions towards improving existing open

space in the vicinity of the Euston area. So that’s the context in which this petition –

145. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can we see that as well, please?

146. MR MOULD QC (DfT): 24.

147. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yeah.

148. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah. Under the heading ‘Improvements to Existing

Open Space’.

149. CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

150. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah. I can come back to these in more detail if

necessary. Thank you.

151. CHAIR: Mrs Hackman.

152. MRS HACKMAN: Yes. Sorry, I’m just looking at the Camden document. Very

helpful, thank you. I’ve appeared here in a number of capacities; it’s now as a church

warden. And this is the vicar, however: the Reverend Anne Stevens.

153. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: This is the church which has the galleries that was

used for the memorial services for the great railwaymen and the like?

154. MRS HACKMAN: Absolutely. And it has caryatids holding up the porches that

are the entrance to the Crypt. So it’s quite a large building that can hold 600 odd people

so it’s very useful for civic purposes.

155. I’m very aware from the previous sessions that I’ve attended that a huge number

of points that we would have made on behalf of our parishioners have been made and

23

there is no intention for us to repeat those. Just to give you a quick orientation, we

produced an analysis of the first set of petitions together with our fellow Church of

England parishes and there is an addendum for the AP3 petitions. So we have worked

with St Mary’s and also Mary Magdalene in the Regent’s Park Estate. And St Mary’s

didn’t mention it but they have been the venue for the Citizen’s Charter meetings. So

there’s been a lot of interconnectivity around this.

156. But you may wonder perhaps at the difference in appearance of the petitioners for

St Pancras and I’d like to point out that back in the day the ancient parish of St Pancras

simply stretched from Holborn right up to Highgate; and then gradually, as the area

became filled up, you know, you read in Charles Dickens, and indeed you had read to

you from Charles Dickens, how the church was belting through 100 baptisms a day in

the south vestry or the north vestry, actually, and weddings and funerals and so forth.

So by the late 1800s there was a sub-division of the parish into 37 different parishes;

and Old St Pancras Church, which was derelict at that time, was rebuilt.

157. This then was altered considerably by the Second World War as quite a few of the

churches were taken out by the bombs. Of course, they were trying to hit Kings Cross

and Euston regularly. And as churches disappeared, very often the parishes were

reattached to the mother church, which was St Pancras, the big one. Or the new one,

because it was built in 1822. And the result of that is that Christchurch, which was in

Somers Town on the right-hand side and would have been the middle-of-the-road

Church of England church rather than the high Church of England church, Christchurch,

given the churchmanship, was reattached to the mother church; and similarly when

St James was demolished in 1961 in the enthusiastic decade that saw the demolition of

the Euston Arch, that parish to the left of St Pancras was also attached back to the

mother church. So while the church sits south of the Euston Road, we have the two

arms going up either side of Euston Station.

158. What I want to do… If you could put up the first slide, which is just our

introductory slide.

159. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which is the parish for St Pancras Station?

160. MRS HACKMAN: It’s actually Old St Pancras, which is one of Father Elston’s

churches. And indeed the parish in which I live, as it happens.

24

161. I think the reference to the Archbishops’ Council withdrawing their petition in

exchange for the undertakings that were shown on the screen, and indeed Camden

giving a stack of assurances, shows why the parish on the ground really needs to make

the points that it needs to make, because those who are in charge higher up are rather

given to making agreements that possibly go further than, or insufficiently far, or further

than we would have gone ourselves.

162. So coming to our asks, which are the next slide, you can see that we are very keen

to rebuild Euston in the same footprint, not least to save St James’ gardens, that we’re

extremely concerned about playgrounds and open spaces and indeed trees. And the

issues of decent reburial, it is our vicar who is reburial for those at least 35,000 souls

who are left buried in St James’ Garden in consecrated ground. And I believe that it’s in

the diocese of London rather than the Church Commissioners but I’ll leave that to the

vicar to present. And I’m very happy to hand those over.

163. The middle points will be addressed by the vicar. The last five points – four

points anyway – I think have been so addressed by other organisations that I will leave

them.

164. Next slide, please. And over to you.

165. REVEREND STEVENS: Thank you very much for hearing is today. These are

the two areas that we want to focus on particularly: St James’ Gardens to the left and the

area surrounding Lancing Street to the right of Euston. We have an interest in Lancing

Street because our church hall is right next to the playground. It’s –

166. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We went to the playground, I think.

167. REVEREND STEVENS: You’d have driven right past our church hall which is

the last building on the southern side of the street.

168. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yeah, walked.

169. REVEREND STEVENS: And just to make a quick point about Lancing Street.

At the moment one of our deep areas of confusion is that we’ve got a certain set of

proposals from HS2 and a certain set of proposals from Crossrail who would like to

actually develop the site on which our whole sits as a worksite. But when you talk to

25

either of them, the lack of a joined up approach is driving us all nuts, frankly. So

whether they might be invited to actually speak to each other and then work together

with the community on restructuring that particular area, that’d be a great help.

170. But the main point we want to draw your attention to is not so much the open

spaces as the green space. So if you could put up the next slide, which is the Google

satellite picture of that same area. Because it shows exactly where every single tree in

the area is. And if you take out the well-established trees in St James’ Gardens on the

left and if you take out the well-established trees to the south in Euston Square and if

you take out the trees in Lancing Street to the right you’ve taken away almost every part

of that picture that is coloured green. The only trees that are left are the trees in the

bottom right corner around our church and on the Euston Road. And obviously, because

of their proximity to the Euston Road, they’re struggling to stay alive as it is. Even

though London planes are hardy, how much more can they bear?

171. Now, historically, St James’ Gardens had been the overflow burial ground for the

Church of St James’ Piccadilly. Then in 1887, I think it was, the St Pancras vestry

bought it from St James’. Now, at that stage Central London was already closed to

burials. We didn’t need it for burials; it was bought to be a public amenity, a public

garden, in an area that was already very densely populated and beginning to become

increasingly polluted. Historically, I guess the St Pancras vestry was subsequently

divided into the church council and the borough council but I think it shows that, in that

Church of England way, you know, the church’s concern for the health and welfare of

every person in the parish has always overseen what we’ve done with St James’

Gardens.

172. So it is particularly frustrating to hear that it’s targeted and described as being its

destruction has to be inevitable for this project to go ahead. We really don’t believe that

the plans to build on the same footprint in Euston Station have been given enough of an

airing. But it is that issue about green space and where are the green lines for that very,

very dense, busy, dirty, hectic area in terms of quality of life? It’s a huge issue. Father

Paschal, who you just heard from, he and I work together for our church school in

Somers Town, St Mary’s and St Pancras, and you just think: what’s the air quality going

to be like for those kids for most of their lives?

26

173. So that’s the point about green space. I’ll come on to just two other points related

to the gardens. The memorials of the gardens, in an area that’s been rebuilt and rebuilt

and rebuilt throughout the 20th and now the 21st centuries. Where to locate the

memorials is a big issue.

174. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That particular memorial in the centre. The rest got

moved to the edges, I think.

175. REVEREND STEVENS: That’s right. Three of them are listed but the other

tombstones are kind of scattered around the edges of the park, as it were. But all them, I

think, testify to the history of the area. All of them give us a sense of the heritage of the

area and they have a fascinating story to tell. So where are they going? Will they go

with the bodies? Will they stay in the area? We frequently get letters and emails from

people researching their family trees. Obviously we need to know exactly where

people’s remains are and where any memorials are going.

176. The only other point concerns the dead themselves, and I do accept the

undertaking that HS2 have given, albeit to slightly the wrong people in negotiating with

the Archbishops’ Council, that they may have slightly misled you. It’s always a

difficult question, who speaks for the Church of England, but when it comes to the care

of the dead, they belong within the cure of souls that any parish priest exercises in

accord with their local bishop. So, it’s really the diocese and me that you need to

negotiate with on the decent and proper re-burial, if that has to happen, though,

obviously, as you can see from our sign, we rather hope it doesn’t.

177. The historical precedent for this, if you wouldn’t mind going on to – if you jump

ahead to 1729(16), in the early 1880s, a slice of the gardens was taken for expansion of

the London and North West Railway in Euston. As you can see there, I think

approximately 25% of the gardens was then taken for the sum of £1,000 for the ground

– the cemetery where the bodies were re-buried – and paying the cost of the

reinternment. But by way of compensation, a further £8,000 was given in 1883, which

was divided between the church and the parish as it were, honouring the two halves of

the St Pancras vestry. It covered the church and the borough councils, so if you’re

looking for a model for future compensation should it prove necessary, we’d be

delighted to discuss that prospect with you, proportional rates, of course.

27

178. There’s plenty that we could do to preserve what’s left of the historical heritage in

the area in terms of our own caryatid on the Euston Road that you can just about see in

the next slide, number 17. There they stand in all their finery. If you’re interested in

inspecting how much organs decline during the period of your building works, we’d

love to undertake a similar exercise for the caryatids, because busy as the Euston Road

is, we do believe that it’s busy-ness will increase for the length of this project.

179. I think I’ve taken up enough of your time, but those are the concerns really.

Thank you.

180. MRS HACKMAN: If you go to Slide 11, I don’t know whether we can do that

panoramic thing, but in theory, if you go to this website, we can then. I just wanted to –

oh, while you’re going to the website, can I show a different slide?

181. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You can do one or the other.

182. MRS HACKMAN: Okay, I’ll wait.

183. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, no, do both. Do one, and then come back.

184. MRS HACKMAN: No, no, no. I’m happy. I think it’s very good if we do this

while we’re still talking about St James. What we’re keen to just show you here is just

how wide and beautiful. If you just pan – clockwise, or anti-clockwise? Clockwise. If

we just pan clockwise, not up and down, so clockwise all the way around. Now, I’ve

walked through St James’s Gardens on the way here, and counted the trees, and I

counted 27 big trees – trees that you couldn’t put your arms around and meet on the

other side. Clearly, you could hug them.

185. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: This one you can.

186. MRS HACKMAN: I didn’t count the little ones. Of the big ones, there are 27

and 17 of those are clearly from the 1700s. This was a field that was bought to be a

burial ground, and those trees have deep roots going into the ground. There is

absolutely no way that the replacement trees in their pits on the little concrete platforms

will in any way replace these mighty plain trees, and the calculations of the London Eye

Tree Project, which has presented its findings to the House of Lords on 2 December, to

do the work of one of these gigantic 35 metre high plains in terms of dealing with the

28

nitrogen dioxide and the particles, and all of these things, you would need 60 spindly

little lollipop trees with their 14cm diameters and their 3 and a half metre height. There

is no way that the destruction of these trees is anything other than a massive loss and

attack for the people of London.

187. Next slide, 12, please. There you can see – this is what I call – the one on the

right is a mighty tree. This is clearly from the 1700s. That’s a spindly tree in my

reckoning, but it’s massive compared to the replacement trees that are proposed, and this

one is a fairly recent planting, but it’s still quite a big tree. So, there is no way that a

like-for-like, one-for-one replacement of trees is in any way acceptable. The next slides

we’ve already rehearsed.

188. Did we show the Lancing Street Play Area that is Slide 15? If we could just look

at that. The trees there are not huge, but they are, nevertheless, important because they

are the trees in the area, and they’re the trees that we’ve got, and that playground is

being taken out of action for 6, or 7 years while it’s used as a construction site, and the

bits of the High Speed 2 Limited are planning to use – Crossrail too is bagsying – so not

only are the children to the west of the station losing all their playgrounds to

construction compounds, but the children on the east of the station are also losing their

playgrounds, and again, this is just not acceptable.

189. Slide 16. Yeah, okay, it can come up, 16. We’ve already discussed Slide 16, so I

won’t go on about it, but Walter Edwin Brown was clearly a very thorough and

excellent person, and I commend his book, which is available in the City University

Library to anybody who wants to find out more about all these disused burial grounds

that were bought as parks by the vestry.

190. Slide 18, please? Just going quickly past our caryatids again. So, you can see our

asks. Just to emphasize that we want no mature trees felled, decent re-burial in

consecrated ground paid for by High Speed 2 Limited. A request that’s come from quite

a few of the community groups – at least one day a week rest from construction. If this

is going to go on unrelentingly for six years, ten years, seventeen years, different periods

in different areas, to always be able to count on Sunday, or another day if that’s not

possible because they’re pouring concrete into piles, or whatever, so that people can

reckon with space and peace inside their own head, and time to get homework done, and

29

all of those things. I think that would be hugely beneficial. The final point ties in with

the first point, which is – if you rebuild Euston in the same footprint, you will not need

to destroy St James’s Gardens and parishioners’ homes because those homes in Cobourg

Street are the parishioners of this parish, and the homes in Regents Park Estate are of

course the parishioners of Mary Magdalen, so all homes are in some parish. If you were

to rebuild in the same footprint, you would not need to demolish our gardens and our

homes, and if you are going to do that, then you should compensate the living. I think it

is truly shameful that compensation is only tied to property, not to life experience and

the human right to the peaceful enjoyment of your own home. Thank you.

191. CHAIR: Mr Mould.

192. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Professor McNaughton explained in his evidence on 30

November…

193. MRS HACKMAN: Slide 19 – it’s just a picture for people to look at.

194. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m grateful, but I think, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll go

back to the previous slide so I can speak to the asks that you’re – delightful though that

picture was. Professor McNaughton, on 30 November, in his evidence, explained why it

wasn’t feasible to rebuild Euston Station in the same footprint. We have given a series

of commitments to Camden, which are recorded over several pages in the commitment

letter of 30 November, beginning at page 23 of that letter, and going through to page 27

of that letter, which deal with the requirements they had of us in relation to the provision

of replacement trees, and the maintenance of appropriate open space, both during the

construction works and the provision of open space to address that which is affected

permanently by the scheme on a permanent basis.

195. We are unable to give a commitment that no mature trees be felled, particularly in

St James’s Gardens because in order to construct the station to the west of the existing

station, unfortunately, we have no option but to fell trees in St James’s Gardens. The

provisions as to replacement trees I have shown the Committee a few moments ago on

pages 11427, 23 and 24. There’s no need to turn it up again, but those are the

arrangements that London Borough of Camden require of us, and as I understand it, one

of the things that the London borough are concerned about is that that which is required

of us should be achievable, and I say that because we live in – this is a densely

30

developed urban environment, and the London borough are keen that there should be a

proper balance between the need to replace trees that are lost, and appropriate planting

of replacement trees within that densely developed urban environment.

196. I’ve drawn attention to the agreement – the undertaking we’ve given on the re-

burial of human remains in the agreement of April of this year. Schedule 19 to the bill

and further clauses in that agreement, particularly clauses 6 and 7. Perhaps – I don’t

need you to put it up. For the record, it’s P1287(26) – deal with, firstly, the provision of

a memorial monument at any place which is consecrated for the purposes of re-burial of

remains that are removed from burial grounds as a result of the scheme, and also deals

with the handling of monuments that are removed, and it is – there is a clear process

whereby attempts will be made to find an appropriate place at which to relocate

individual monuments, including gravestones. But where such a place cannot be

located, then the obligation of the nominated undertaker, by agreement with the

Archbishop’s Council is that such monuments should be broken up, and obviously the

reason for that is out of respect for those whom they commemorate.

197. The duration of working hours are subject to regulation by the London Borough of

Camden in the exercise of its powers under the Control of Pollution Act. We’ve

explained that it is impossible to undertake the works that are required at Euston, in the

Euston throat, without quite a substantial amount of working outside of the core

working hours. But all working hours will be regulated by the London Borough of

Camden, under the licensing regime, under the Control of Pollution Act.

198. As regards the use of Old Oak Common as a terminus, Professor McNaughton has

explained in his evidence the difficulties with that as a proposition. We’ve given

commitments to Camden and to Transport for London, and the Greater London

Authority in relation to planning to seek to maximise the amounts of material that is

brought in and taken out by rail. I dealt with that in some detail yesterday. There is a

coherent plan to rebuilt Hampstead Road Bridge and commitments as regards that

bridge given both to Camden and the Greater London Council and Transport for

London, principally to the strategic authorities rather than the London borough in the

respect.

199. Time of information – resolution of complaints – dealt with that earlier this

31

morning, and so far as compensating the living is concerned, I note again a reference to

the human right to enjoyment of one’s own home. There is no difficulty at all with this

scheme honouring that right, which is Article 8 of the European Convention, because it

has been accepted by the relevant courts that measures taken to mitigate the impact of

construction works on people in their home are a more effective means, in practice, of

vouchsafing their rights to quiet enjoyment of their home, than paying them money in

order to disturb them. Prevention rather than financial remedy is a more effective

remedy. Unless I can help further, those are my responses.

200. Oh, Lancing Street Play Area. Yes, I shall just deal with that. If we just put up

P1185(110), this is an area of open space, in respect of which we may need to carry out

some utilities works. You can see the area concerned here, the playground and the

compound. In the event that we do have to carry out those works, they’re likely to last

between three and six months and after they’ve been completed, the area would be

restored to its existing state. So, it would be a temporary intrusion, and as I say, it may

in fact not be necessary. I understand from those behind me that the commitment I gave

yesterday in relation to Albert Street North is a general commitment. That is to say we

should be able to give the local community more certain information about the precise

extent of utilities works in the area by the middle of 2016. Do you remember? I made

that point in relation to Albert Street.

201. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are those the utility works the scheme requires?

202. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

203. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Obviously it doesn’t cover utility works that utilities

might choose to do in their normal course of replacement?

204. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That’s right, and that leads me to the final point, which

Ms Lean very rightly reminds me of: there was a concern about whether we were

committed to integrating with Crossrail 2. There is a commitment in relation to that in

the Camden assurance letter. Again, for the record, it’s at pages 12 and 13 of that letter.

No, it isn’t. It’s pages 3 and 4 of that letter, and effectively, what it says is that the

Euston Station Strategic Redevelopment Board, of which all interested statutory parties

will be members, including the London Borough and TFL as the putative promoter of

Crossrail 2, will seek to secure the integration of the delivery of a number of projects,

32

including, firstly, HS2 Euston Station and thirdly, Crossrail 2 proposals at Euston.

That’s it.

205. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I ask two questions? One is the consecrated

ground to which bones will go, as I understand it, actually, the incumbent has the cure of

souls in the care of bones, rather than – is the parish likely to be consulted as to where a

suitable consecrated ground might be? The Archbishop’s Council doesn’t seem to be

very clear on that. I suspect it would be at least a courtesy.

206. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, what I’m not entirely clear on is whether the

Diocese and Advisory Committee includes the parish priest.

207. REVEREND STEVENS: Well, you would hope there would be a consultation

process.

208. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I mean, in other words, whether this is an internal matter

for the church, rather than – I’m slightly concerned about giving you commitments

about that here.

209. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It was a question rather than asking for a

commitment.

210. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It’s because I don’t want to muck it up, basically…

211. REVEREND STEVENS: I’m afraid it also depends on the state of the remains

and how much space they might require, because if there’s not much there, we could

offer our own crypt, which still has remains in, or if not, then the St Pancras Cemetery

up in Finchley still exists, and can take the overflow as it did in the 1880s.

212. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I’ll say this wrong, but I did want to make sure that

you do get the chance of contributing. On the question of the memorial, which may, or

may not be broken up, it may be open to the PCC, or somebody to see whether they can

get a lottery grant of some kind to see whether they can do a recording at least of what

may be going. If there are some memorials which are of particular interest and in

reasonable condition, I think it would be appropriate to consider whether they can be

placed in a part of the garden that isn’t going to be destroyed. And the last point,

coming to the trees, I think we would hope that the replacement won’t just be one for

33

one, but there will be as many trees put in as is appropriate to the area without just

limiting it to saying, if 70 trees are going, 70 are going to be replaced, and it seems to

me that we all benefit by the trees that are put in even around Westminster. If I look at

Old Palace Yard, there are some good trees there, which were put in 15 years after I

became an MP. I think they’ve been there rather longer, so I think having street trees

and other spaces used would be a good idea. I’m sure Camden will look to do what they

can to take local ideas from local people.

213. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m sure that’s right. I make it clear that the

arrangements that I’ve referred to about the treatment of monuments, those are a

framework, but obviously within that, there’s plenty of opportunities for people to come

up with sensible ideas about how things might be done.

214. CHAIR: Brief final comments.

215. MRS HACKMAN: We are deeply shocked the very idea of breaking up the

historic gravestones. I mean, I know that archaeological surveys about own crypt bind

us to notify all those academics who are desperately interested in why people died, who

died, when and where. It seems to me not only sacrilegious, but completely

contemptuous of archaeological evidence to just break up the stones, so we really want

to know more about this, and we want to be involved in any discussion, or decision

about it.

216. Could we put up 1185?

217. CHAIR: Brief final comments. I hope we’re not going back to the…

218. MRS HACKMAN: No, no. I just want to make the point about the trees sitting

on the concrete, very quickly. So, it’s P1185(26). So, you can see that these

replacement trees could not possibly be big mature trees because they’re sitting on

concrete, and they will only be in pits that are pots, and I have since learnt by reading

this report, that it ought to be possible for the mature trees to be saved, preserved and

replanted, and therefore, I think it’s very important that all those options are explored

properly. Perhaps not for those from the 1700s, but certainly for the ones that are only a

hundred years old. I don’t think we have anything else to add. We are unconvinced by

the undertakings of the Archbishop’s Council, and the assurances of Camden Council.

34

219. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. We now move on to

the next petitioner, which is AP337, Camden People’s Theatre.

Camden People’s Theatre

220. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The theatre is located on the corner of Drummond Street

and Hampstead Road. The concern, I think, is about noise and construction traffic, and

we are – I think – I can show you in a moment when we’ve heard the petitioner’s

presentation, what the predicted effects are in relation to those matters, but suffice to say

that we’re not predicting any significant adverse noise effects on the theatre, and whilst

there will be traffic, obviously, on the roads around the theatre, I can explain the levels

of that in a moment, or two.

221. CHAIR: Beyond the Magic Circle?

222. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yeah, the Magic Circle I think is Stephenson Way, I

think, if I remember rightly, which is the other side of the road.

223. CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

224. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I think so. You’ll tell me if I’ve got that wrong.

225. CHAIR: Okay, carry on.

226. MS MASSIE-BLOMFIELD: Hello. I’m Amber Massie-Blomfield. I’m the

Executive Director of Camden People’s Theatre, and if I could go to the next slide, or

the slide after next, that can show you where we’re situated. Oh, sorry, scroll on

through to the next one. Yes, so this is our position, and if you go on to the next photo,

that will give you an idea of where we are on Drummond Street. So, we are a 60 seater

community arts space. We’re situated here on the corner of Drummond Street and

Hampstead Road, and we’ve been based in this location for 21 years. We serve around

15,000 audience members each year, and we’re an Arts Council funded venue. We

were the only theatre in London to join the Arts Council’s national portfolio in the

2015/18 funding round.

227. We do an awful lot of work with the local community, so for example, we’ve just

launched a new Camden Youth Theatre, which we’re working in partnership with the

35

Fitzrovia Community Centre, and the New Diorama Theatre and we do lots of different

outreach projects throughout the year.

228. I think it’s great to be here following on from the churches because actually,

there’s a really strong resonance between our needs and what the needs of the churches

are, and what role theatre can play, and I think it’s important to think about the role

these kinds of community and cultural spaces can play in communities that are facing

change, and helping communities to broker that change. So, in particular, we’re doing a

lot of work, actually, exploring HS2 creatively. We’ve got a collaboration with Mack in

Birmingham exploring the impact of HS2, and we also have a big festival in January

called Who’s London Is It Anyway? Which is exploring the impacts of regeneration.

229. So, to our concerns regarding noise, we have received late yesterday some

reassurances about this from HS2, but none the less, I think it’s worth recognising that

theatre spaces, much like churches, face a very specific set of requirements to operate

our business. We need to be able to create absolute silence to be able to deliver a

meaningful artistic and creative experience, and our theatre backs straight onto that

road. Literally, those double doors you can see in the top right hand corner, those open

up pretty much onto our stage space. So, any increase in noise has a really, really,

significant effect on our ability to carry out our business, and whilst the impact that’s

going to be faced by us isn’t going to be deemed significant, the building works are 75

metres away from our site, and we’re going to have a huge increase in traffic. I think

we’re facing about 150 additional cars per hour, and up to 25 heavy good vehicles per

day, which, as you can imagine, if one of these heavy duty vehicles is coming past in the

middle of a quiet moment in a performance, it can have a really, really big effect on us.

230. We’ve also got concerns about access to the site for loading and unloading set,

which is something we need to do several times a week. So, that’s our first concern, and

we’re requesting an acoustic survey at our site to measure the impact of that on us.

Also, that the Theatre’s Trust is consulted. The Theatre’s Trust is the statutory body

that’s responsible for looking after and protecting theatre sites, and I’m just a custodian

of this theatre. I may still be Executive Director there in 20 years’ time. I may not be,

and actually, it’s really, really important that while this work is happening, both to our

site, and to other theatres and arts venues that are being affected by this, that there’s

proper consultation undertaken and that the particular considerations of what running

36

these kind of spaces means and what they require are taken into account. So, that’s the

first point.

231. So, the second point. We’ve raised some concerns in our original petition

regarding the impact on community cohesion and what’s being done to promote

community cohesion in a time of great change for our local area. We were sent, in

response to this, the community and environment fund and business and local economy

fund document C12. So, this fund is £30 million. The fund is set up to add benefit to

the communities along the route that is demonstrably disrupted by the construction of

HS2. So, this fund is going to cover the entire route of phase 1 and it’s going to deal

with community and environment and business and local economy. That’s a huge scope

of different areas for one fund to cover. What our needs might be as a community arts

organisation are going to be vastly, vastly different to local business, or thinking about

environment. And also, our needs in Camden, as a community, are going to be very,

very different to another community. So, we would like some clarity about what

consultation has been undertaken to arrive at this figure of £30 million. I think it’s

running for the entire duration of the build as well. So, it’s going to be spread very

thinly indeed. Would there be the possibility of having a dedicated Camden Community

Fund to respond to the specific needs of our community as opposed to other

communities? So, that’s our next ask.

232. The final thing I want to address is around the principles around the use of

meanwhile space around this site. This is something that often gets overlooked in big

construction projects. A meanwhile space – the ways in which they’re used really has

the capacity to really change the timbre of an area. You see places like Brixton Market,

for example, the way the shops there have been used can really, really change the

atmosphere and the qualitative experience of an area.

233. Now, because meanwhile space is a temporary, often there isn’t a very strong

ethical framework in place to establish how these should be used and whether the ways

in which they are used are responsive to the needs of the local community and the wants

of the local community, and very often, they get used for pop up projects that drop in

and leave again very quickly and don’t have a real meaningful relationship with the

community and what the needs of that community are. So, we would like to see an

ethical framework put in place for the use of how meanwhile spaces – I mean, I know

37

that the National Temperance Hospital is already coming to use, but it would be great if

there was an ethical framework put into place with community organisations to establish

the best use of those meanwhile spaces in a meaningful way for the local community.

234. I think those are the key points I want to cover today.

235. CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Mr Mould.

236. MR MOULD QC (DfT): So far as engagement – keeping local community

facilities such as theatres and the churches properly informed of the works and the

programme of works so that they can make their plans and we can be aware of what

those plans are, it’s essentially the same point to the one that I made to you earlier in

relation to the church. This is also the sort of facility which the nominated undertaker

and the contractors will expect to have in mind, and their needs are part of the detailed

planning of traffic management and advance notice of works and that kind of thing. So,

I won’t – if you’ll forgive me – say any more than that.

237. So far as the community fund is concerned, I’ve explained the Secretary of State’s

approach to that, and he has, as you know, taken the view that it’s a matter of policy that

that should be a route-wide fund and the Committee may, or may not have something to

say about that, as I understand it, in its report.

238. The issue of meanwhile uses, we have given a commitment to Camden, which is

at P1142731. In relation to meanwhile uses, I take the point that careful thought needs

to be given to making best use of opportunities that arise in that respect, but I see no

reason, in principal, why that shouldn’t – those points shouldn’t be dealt with within the

context of this assurance. 11.1, as you can see, the Secretary of State will require the

nominated undertaker to use reasonable endeavours to engage with the London borough

throughout detailed design to identify opportunities for possible meanwhile uses for

vacant, or blighted buildings resulting from HS2 works in the London borough area, and

where these are identified, the nominated undertaker will, so far as reasonably practical,

enable third parties to use the facilities for the duration of the opportunity so far as it

does not impact on the timely economic and safe delivery of the proposed scheme, and

subject to any necessary consents and costs being obtained by the third party, so there

are opportunities likely to arise and that is the framework within which advantage can

be taken of them. I think that covers, albeit briefly, the three points that were raised.

38

239. CHAIR: We will have to reflect on some of the points you have made as well,

particularly when it comes to community funding. A lot of people have said, ‘Good

idea, not enough money’, and, ‘What if it all goes up the line and we don’t get very

much?’ so I think from your point of view that is quite important. Brief final

comments?

240. MS MASSIE-BLOMFIELD: Yes, just particularly on the Meanwhile Space, I

think there is a big qualitative difference between identifying opportunities for them to

be used and actually considering how they are being used ethically and in a strategic

way for the benefit of the community. It would be really positive if there could be an

undertaking if they were going to be used in a way that benefits the community rather

than simply opportunities being identified.

241. The other point, thinking back to the churches, is there was a suggestion of an

undertaking to communicate with the faith communities along the route of Phase One.

It would be wonderful if there was a specific connection with the arts organisations

along that route and some consultation with the Arts Council about the impact it will

have on arts organisations and what happens with the arts.

242. CHAIR: You can leave that interesting thought with us. Thank you very much

indeed for your contribution today. We now move on to AP3:49 Ampthill Square,

Tenants and Residents Association represented by Frances Heron and Louise Fletcher. I

understand that there are some petitioners who will also be taken at the same time:

1342, Peter Astor; 918, Jacquelin Haggett; 915, David and Nicola Lincoln; AP3:126,

Paul Tomlinson.

Ampthill Square Tenants and Residents Association and others

243. CHAIR: Do you want to do a brief introduction, Mr Mould, then we will go to

Ms Heron.

244. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I will see if I can just set the scene for the petitioners

that are coming up now. We have the construction plan for AP3 from the

Environmental Statement map book. Ampthill, the estate itself, is essentially this area

here. You have Gilfoot, Dalehead, and Oxenholme. You see the footprints of those

three blocks. Now, you can see that reasonably close to the estate we have three work

sites. We have the Royal Mail Delivery Office satellite compound, which is associated

39

with the demolition and bus stand creation works that we mentioned earlier. Then we

have the two Hampstead Road Bridge satellite compounds south and north. South, as

you can see, is actually going on to the estate itself. This compound and the northern

compound are both associated, as the name implies, with the works to take down and

then reconstruct Hampstead Road Bridge.

245. There are more detailed explanations of the works to be undertaken in relation to

those compounds in P11269 – I won’t go to those now – in relation to Royal Mail;

Hampstead Road Bridge south, P11263, and Hampstead Road Bridge north, P11262.

We may look at those briefly a little later on this morning. If we can turn to P11846-10,

I will just give you a little bit more information about the works at and near to the estate.

Here again is the estate. Here are the three blocks that I mentioned. These red lines

show the routes of utilities. As you can see, as you would expect there are a good deal

of utilities in and around the estate. There are a substantial number of utilities both

within Hampstead Road itself and within the bridge, and then also running over a utility

gantry, which is this structure here, which goes across the railway line.

246. There are also existing utilities within the estate along this line here and along this

line here, just to the west of Gilfoot. There are also utilities not shown on here which

are private utilities owned by the London Borough of Camden as the freeholder which

serve the plot itself with gas and water, principally.

247. In order to keep this area powered, lit and supplied with water, etc., including the

estate whilst we carry out these works, particularly whilst we take down and replace

Hampstead Road Bridge, we need to find an alternative route to those utilities. Having

looked carefully at the alternatives that are available to us, those which we are really

driven to rely on are firstly taking some of those utilities over a temporary gantry along

this line to the west of the Hampstead Road and secondly taking them over a gantry just

to the south of the existing gantry, which as you can see is shown as a temporary

utilities bridge. In relation to that temporary utilities bridge, we have no realistic

alternative but to bring those utilities through the Ampthill Estate along this line that

you can see here, and that’s the function of the proposed temporary diversion. So,

effectively two temporary re-routing of utilities whilst we rebuild the Hampstead Road

Bridge. One is to the west and one is this route to the east via the Ampthill Estate and

over the temporary bridge.

40

248. We are showing as a potential requirement some works to the existing utilities

along the line that I am showing now and along the line that I am showing now, but we

may not need to do that. We may need to do no more than just inspect those utilities in

order to check that the works we do will not affect them to any significant degree.

Again, we expect to be able to know with much greater clarity the degree to which we

need to do works to disturb those existing runs by the middle of next year, so we will be

able to give much clearer information to local people by that date.

249. That is a brief synopsis of the works that we have to do and the direct effects that

those works will have on the estate. Essentially, it comes down to utilities works and

the presence of those work sites in the vicinity of the estate that I mentioned a few

moments ago.

250. MS HERON: Good morning. You will be pleased to know that I have got myself

together a lot better than I had yesterday. I would be very grateful if you would allow

me to read out a short statement on behalf of the residents.

251. As the appointed representatives for the people of Ampthill Square who face

multiple significant impacts of unprecedented duration from the proposed scheme, we

beg your Committee to hear our petition and to allow sufficient time for us to raise and

for you to consider some very important issues. The treatment that our community has

received from HS2 over the past three years has been less than fair. Rather than give

additional support and time to disadvantaged communities, instead the problems we face

on Ampthill Square have received little or no attention. We just now turn to your

Committee as the only democratic input we have available to hear the multiple strands

of our petition and to assist us, if possible, to address this injustice. We will be as

focused as possible but the issues are too grave to be rushed and we put our trust in your

Committee to hear our petitions fairly. We feel our understandable concerns have

hitherto been ignored.

252. Contained in some of the promoter’s exhibits we received during the past week

has been some information, albeit a high level of information, that we have been seeking

for many months. Our main petition issues will cover utility diversions, construction

compounds, maintenance of our security, challenges for safeguarding areas, habitability

issues, outdoor space and some other less significant issues including parking.

41

253. The first two of these petition issues, the utilities diversion and construction

compound, need urgent resolution as they form part of the enabling works which are

planned to be carried out before Royal Assent in the second half of the coming year.

Thank you.

254. MS FLETCHER: Not only do Fran and I submit this on behalf of the TRA of

which she is chairman and I am secretary, but we collected 254 signatories from people

on the estate. If you wish to see who they are, they were attached to the original

petition. I am not going to name them all here.

255. As mentioned before, there are some associated petitions. We will read the

statements from the people following the Ampthill Square petition. Next, please. Did

you want to give a brief history?

256. MS HERON: Just briefly, some years ago we did a little research. There is not a

lot about Ampthill Square but it appears that this land came to the Duke of Bedford as

part of a dowry, that Crowndale Road up at the top there was known as Fig Lane and the

land on which the estate sits was known as Fig Mead. Once the Duke of Bedford had

completed his building in Bloomsbury he turned his attention to the land north of the

Euston Road, which of course in those days was coming out of the central city.

257. Ampthill Square – although it was, of course never a square, it was a sort of

ellipse – was built as the mirror twin of Oakley Square, which still survives mostly

intact. At the time it was larger than it is now because during the intervening years the

railway had spread significantly from a very narrow track into Euston right across as it

is today. Interestingly, the orientation of the square was diagonal to dissociate itself

from the north/south grid of Somers Town, which was slum properties. So, this was at

the time a well-to-do bit of land. It was a gated community and the gates were open on

a Sunday to allow the good people of Ampthill to go to church in St Mary’s.

258. MS FLETCHER: I am going to say a little about what Ampthill is today. As it

stands it was built in the sixties and on the map before you, you see it is basically in

several sections. There is a section of three 20-storey tower blocks, of which many of

the Committee had the opportunity to go on top of – mainly Gilfoot, which is that one –

which overlook the whole Euston area, but it also has seven low rise buildings as they

are called, which consist of maisonettes. They are six storeys tall, and then there is

42

Holmrook, which is mixed commercial and residential use with shops on the ground

floor and apartments above, and then some commercial buildings as well. Also in the

middle is green space that is accessible by the public during daylight hours, similar to a

park. It contains a playground.

259. The next slide, please. This is an old map superimposed on top of today and as

Fran was saying, you can see the outline in yellow of the old Ampthill Square, which

isn’t a square, and then the pink is the outline of the Ampthill today. It is interesting to

note if you are over those shapes on top of the satellite view, that the mature trees and

the open area, which is a London square, still correspond with the original Ampthill

Square. So, some of these trees are quite mature and have been there a long time. The

green dot is highlighting a tree that sits in the area of the high rises which appears to

have been in somebody’s back garden. This map was from 1913. The next slide.

260. MS HERON: Could I just butt in for a minute? In terms of the maps, the maps

that the promoter has been working with are very much out of date. They contain sheds

and garages that were demolished at least 10 years ago and they don’t show the areas of

fenced sections of the estate, which are round three tower blocks and also round the low

rise. They don’t show the current paths either.

261. MS FLETCHER: This is a slide that just shows a bit about the demographics of

Ampthill Square. There are 366 households and in the order of 1000 residents and of

those, as you would expect, most are rented social housing from the London Borough of

Camden. However, in the order of 20 to 25% are leaseholders, of which I am one. I

have combined here owned and privately rented in the demographics because if any

apartment is rented there, it is because somebody has bought it through a right to buy

and are now a landlord. So, really the owned rate is in the order of, as I say, 20 to 25%.

We are a very mixed community and very diverse in terms of ethnic groups. We have a

large number of children, which is why our play areas are so important and need to be

safe and secure. Perhaps we can go on, please. Fran will now talk a little about the

recent history and the regeneration project.

262. MS HERON: Yes, if you wouldn’t mind. I don’t need to stress to those of you

who came and had a bird’s eye view from the top of Gilfoot just how close we are to

Euston Station, the epicentre of a hurricane revamp. A colleague made the observation

43

that we are in the eye of an 18-year storm. So, we believe it is important that the

Committee understand the history of Ampthill to recognise how vital it is that our

security system remains functional throughout.

263. Briefly, for many years we suffered from multiple problems. At the time the

estate was in need of investment but there was no fencing, it was completely open to the

world; the environment was very hostile – it was very much like a concrete jungle and

you could get into it from any which way. Because it was an island site, it attracted an

enormous number of things that you would not want to attract. It was frequented by

people who sold drugs openly; there was a low level of violence; the blocks were used

continually by rough sleepers and so it was a very unpleasant place to live. When the

London Borough of Camden decided that it was time to invest in Ampthill, a

£20 million regeneration scheme followed. After extensive consultation with residents

asking them what it was that they wished most to see, although we were offered new

kitchens and new bathrooms, the overwhelming majority wanted a comprehensive

security system so that their quality of life could be improved. Strangely enough, the

second priority was parking.

264. So, we just want to point out that if things aren’t managed very carefully and our

security isn’t kept intact we could revert to the dark ages and rather than Euston Station

being a go-to place, Ampthill will be the go-to place for all the things that we had to

endure in the past, even gangs coming from outside of the borough to fight it out on our

estate. At one time we had the mounted police there because they’d had a tip-off. So,

you understand that we had a really, really hard time.

265. CHAIR: I understand that you want to give some background but at the moment

we are going to be going through our lunch hour listening to other petitioners and we

really need to get to what you want to ask the promoters.

266. MS FLETCHER: The next slide, please. They said there is utility work and that

is true, and there are compounds, which I will show in a bit but we are also immediately

adjacent to the demolition of Hampstead Road bridge. We have a barrette wall that will

go in. There is demolition and then the work kind of proceeds around and then there

will be a demolition of Royal Mail and rebuilding and we are right next to the

excavation. I have drawn a line that borders where that work will be and you can see

44

that the entire estate is within 200 metres of that.

267. MS HERON: The next slide, please. Right out of the blue, even though we had

been attending community forum meetings, we received this document – we suddenly

acquired a document telling us that HS2 Limited wanted land on the estate. It wasn’t

clear whether it was permanent or temporary and you will see that in this corner here

there is a square with a corner that is taken off it in dark grey, which also represents the

land that has been taken. Clearly, you can’t demolish a corner of a tower block, so it

caused an enormous amount of concern to the residents living in that block.

268. MS FLETCHER: In the next slide, the corner is Gilfoot.

269. MS HERON: Yes, so the residents of Gilfoot were really, really upset. Despite

our pleading with HS2 to come down and talk, they refused to do so and that has set the

scene, I am afraid, for everything that has happened since. Could we go back to the

previous slide because that is the actual document that we received? This area here,

which borders on Barnaby Street which has been safeguarded. That goes inside the

perimeter fence, or the access fence right up to the buildings. It also doesn’t look

particularly pleasant. One of the reasons for that is because right across the road as you

drive into the estate is the playground. It used to be a lovely playground. The Princes

Trust came down and regenerated it and painted it in bright colours. It was beautiful but

we had to stop using it because it was invaded by Japanese knotweed from the railway

and it also spread to this area here so we have been unable to plant anything in there.

We have challenged the need for that space to be safeguarded.

270. The next slide, please. Could we introduce our witness, please?

271. MR O’NEILL: Good morning. My name is Pat O’Neill. I am the Head of

Service Delivery for Camden.

272. MR LEWIS: Would you mind if I just very briefly intervene on behalf of the

London Borough of Camden Council. I just wanted to say for the record that Mr

O’Neill is here as an employee of the London Borough of Camden. I just make clear

that he is not representing the London Borough of Camden. The council were asked for

help to assist the Committee and the petitioners and I just want to make it clear that his

views don’t necessarily represent Camden’s petitioning views as a whole and, indeed, I

45

think the subject which he is going to talk about might be subject to further discussion

between Camden and HS2 in future.

273. CHAIR: That answers the question why you are here. Okay, thank you. Please

continue.

274. MR LEWES: That answers the question.

275. CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Please continue.

276. MR O’NEILL: I have been asked to come along and respond to some questions

that were put to me by the residents of Ampthill, the first being, basically, what do I do

on the estate, what is my role on the estate, what function do I carry out, the second

being around trying to explain to the Committee the logistics of access to Ampthill

Estate and the third being to give the Committee some understanding of what utilities

enter Ampthill Estate, how many people they supply and what would the impact be of

these being disturbed.

277. I thought I would I begin by just explaining to the Committee what my role is. As

Head of Service Delivery I am responsible for basically the maintenance of the heavy

stuff within Camden. In Ampthill, as I am sure you are very much aware, 10 residential

blocks and some commercial units. That represents a total number of families of 366.

You have seen the split of the estate between high rise and low rise and you have seen

how the estate functions logistically.

278. My role is to look at maintaining the M&E infrastructure. That includes heating

and in the tower blocks there is a different form of heating from in the low rise. The

heating in the tower blocks is generated from a different heating system, in other words

all the properties have a communal boiler and in fact the communal boilers are within

two of the tower blocks. The lower rises have individual boilers but it is still my role to

maintain those services.

279. That also includes maintaining the gas supply to the properties. It includes

maintaining communal lighting on the estate. We have a significant infrastructure of

lighting columns on the estate and heat within the blocks and the common parts. It

involves heating and water services within the plants.

46

280. Ms Heron has referred to security and part of that is the door entry systems. I

control the door entry systems. I also look after fire protection in the blocks, lifts, of

which we have 15 throughout the estate, and occasionally, for reasons that are still

beyond me, I get dragged into trying to assist in repairing the telecoms infrastructure in

the estate. I think the problem is that when it was installed it was installed by what then

went on to become various successors, Telewest and now it’s Virgin Media, and it’s still

the original infrastructure in there and we get dragged into repairing that.

281. I also look at the voids and there are still empty properties at the back end of the

estate. That is where the properties have been 25 to 38 years on the estate. I also have

responsibility for delivering Camden’s capital assets which is both replacement of

capital assets on both the property side and the M&E side, and that is currently

approximately £60 million a year for the borough. I also do major repairs and that is my

role for Camden. I hope that helps to explain the role.

282. I was asked to comment on the logistics of access to Ampthill. It is in many ways

quite simple but in some ways it can interfere with the ability to deliver a service. There

are three vehicle access points on to the estate. One is from Eversholt Street further

south of Holmrook; there is another vehicle gate that turns left from that and goes down

through the main access, which is from Holmrook and there is another vehicle access

gate from Paddington Square directly opposite the north face of Oxenholme and another

vehicle access gate from Barnby Street going up to the car park on the south area of the

estate. The main vehicle access for my teams delivering services to the estate is from

Eversholt Street down into the raised block or indeed from Mornington Square into the

high rise blocks and that’s the significance of any activity, as you have probably

guessed.

283. I don’t want to bore the Committee with a lot of facts and figures about how many

repairs I do and how much they cost but if I move on to issues around access, I liaise

significantly with the local fire authority over means of escape, making sure that they

have access to and from our sites and indeed working with them, strangely enough, I

release people from this. One comment I would like to make in that respect is that the

last fire we had on the estate was at Gilfoot, which was three years ago. It was a Sunday

afternoon.

47

284. MS HERON: No, it was a few months ago.

285. MR O’NEILL: Yes, sorry, I am thinking back to Oxenholme. I stand corrected,

but significantly the fire authority chose to place their appliances on Hampstead Road to

fight that fire but rescue people from inside the estate go into the block from the main

hinterland of the estate.

286. The utilities we have coming into Ampthill Estate have been commented on by

HS2. We have a complicated gas infrastructure that enters the estate through the north

of Dalehead. It then splits and diverts along the west face of Dalehead down towards

Gilfoot and provides service into Gilfoot. It also diverts along the west face of

Dalehead and then crosses the estate and goes over to Oxenholme. The diversification

of the gas supply then splits into a number of different channels and runs down through

the estate. The water services come on to the estate – Thames Water Services, enter the

estate. One point of entry is from Eversholt Street through south of Holmrook. It then

splits and provides service to Holmrook and goes down to the south of the estate to

provide services to the low rise blocks. There are two other points of access from

Hampstead Road. One goes directly into Dalehead from Hampstead Road over the west

side of Dalehead and one from Hampstead Road on to the west side of Gilfoot. We then

take services from those and split them and diversify them through to the other

properties on the estate.

287. So the Committee can see that it a significant proportion of the services within the

estate are owned, managed and repaired by London Borough of Camden. I will make

no other comment than that.

288. I was asked to comment on what would be the impact of these utilities being

interrupted. I can only do so in the context of experience. We had an incident in the

very recent past in a neighbouring property in the borough where the utility company

cut into – by the contractors under their supervision – a gas supply. It took 12 days to

reinstate that gas supply and that supply affected 102 flats. I had a similar incidence in

2011 on an estate not too far from Ampthill Estate just about this time of year where the

same sort of incident occurred again under the supervision rather than done by the utility

companies. I think it is important to reflect on that and on how much control we may

have over the utility companies when they get on to doing these works.

48

289. Those were the points that I was asked to respond to. I hope I have been brief

enough and succinct enough to give you a flavour.

290. CHAIR: Right, carry on.

291. MS HERON: Could we have the next slide, please? We need to go back to slide

number 9, please. I just wanted the Committee to note that we are not talking of tiddly

little trenches here. We’re talking of big ones. The legend shows the size of them. I

believe that they have got bigger since AP3. So, you will hear from others later about

where they are in relation to their property but also you can see it goes straight through a

very well-used multi-use games pitch.

292. I can’t say any more than I really think serious consideration should be given to

trying to find an alternative way. Even if it costs a little more and it is going to be more

complicated it would relieve the misery of people living on our estate who are facing so

much else on top of the utilities for 17 years. We are just collateral damage, not even

counted.

293. Does anybody wish to ask anything on that?

294. CHAIR: No, carry on reading through that bit as well otherwise we are going to

be in the afternoon. You are going quite slowly.

295. MS FLETCHER: Slide 13, please. What I show on the next few slides is just a

layering of everything that is going on. You have seen the trenching. I have now placed

on the construction compounds with the length that they will be used. The main one

will be there for 18 years and the other one, Royal Mail, is a later compound and will be

there for 11 years. In the lower corner you can see that I have superimposed that

compound on an aerial shot only to show Gilfoot and you see a small roundabout there.

On that roundabout area there were six emergency vehicles during this last fire and we

are concerned that appropriate plans are in place for emergencies. You will also see the

red dotted lines. Those are public rights of way that are related to the square that we

talked about earlier. Those need to be maintained as public rights of way. They go right

through that compound.

296. The next slide, please. Now, you add to this traffic, and granted all of these aren’t

49

used at all times but we are absolutely surrounded by HGV ramps. Then we have

another mysterious road which is circled in red which is off Hampstead Road to the

north side of the compound, which seems to me very difficult if Hampstead Road

Bridge is going to be three metres high at that point down into it. It’s a very short area.

We’re not sure what kind of traffic that means or what that road is. It just has appeared

on all the maps.

297. The next slide, please. On this slide I have layered even more. If you look at the

dates of demolition, the pinkish colour are demolition; the brown is excavation and the

blue is a barrette wall. Now, the barrette wall is interesting because we were not told

that there would be a barrette wall, despite all of the engagement meetings that we have

gone to. We found it out because somebody pointed it out to us on a map saying, ‘Did

you know there’ll be a barrette wall?’ We found out only a few days ago exactly where

it was going to be in the materials that they sent us on 3 December. We had never

received a map of that before. It was maybe a bit earlier, but it has been very recently

and Fran actually had to do an FOI to know what is a barrette wall. It’s going to be very

noisy and we really would have thought that that is something that in the engagement

process we would have been told about.

298. Something else to note is that these dates are start dates and I know that they keep

saying, ‘We hope that the construction will be less’, etc., but the start dates of these

projects vary from 2017 to 2022. So, for five years we are getting consecutive projects

right in the vicinity of the estate starting with associated noise, dust and everything else

that goes with it.

299. The next slide, please. We were told that the AP3 would be easier on the

community. In our case it is not. In the original hybrid Bill the number of households

on Ampthill Square who will have to experience noise levels higher than noise

insulation triggers was 210. In AP3 it is 310. I don’t have the statistics in front of me

but it is a very large proportion of 366 households. It is basically everything but

Holmrook, which is that mixed use building on the corner. In addition, the compounds

are going to be there longer. The big thing that is in the corner is now seven years

longer than it was before.

300. The next slide, please. This is taken from the phasing maps that came in AP3 and

50

the Hybrid Bill. I have basically added them all up and mashed them together so that

you just get the total of a quarter’s worth. They are not consecutive but it is the total

number of quarters. The first three are Ampthill specific with utilities. Actually, in

other parts of the documentation the utilities go on for quite a bit longer and they may

come back and do even more when they’ve removed them, but in only one instance,

which is the Mornington Street Bridge, which affects us indirectly because of people

having to go up and walk in that direction, everything takes longer.

301. The next slide, please. This slide is a comparison of the various Hampstead Road

Bridge proposals over time. The first one shows the existing bridge with 18 platforms

and you can see, relatively speaking it is 52 metres long and is at ground level. The

middle bridge is the Hybrid Bill bridge which was longer and higher but this final bridge

is much higher, 4.8 metres over the existing bridge for what, an additional four

platforms?

302. MS HERON: An additional four platforms. One could say it’s a bridge too far,

really.

303. MS FLETCHER: The next slide are the cross-sections. Again, we just got these a

few days ago showing Gilfoot with the bridge next to it and stairs and a ramp to get up

to it, which is not exactly convenient for children, the elderly and people with toddlers

in tow.

304. MS HERON: We don’t think it is satisfactory anyway but if that was the best that

could be achieved, it would probably need two ramps, stairs, because there are currently

two gates from Hampstead Road into Ampthill. One is the fenced area for the tower

blocks, which we obviously want to keep secure, and the other one is the access to the

rights of way through the estate.

305. MS FLETCHER: And the rights of way is basically at that other point. Even if

that bridge is lowered by a metre, it is still a significant wall. Whereas before we walked

out of the estate on to a ground level, now you have to climb up to something in order to

get on to the bridge.

306. I am going to skip the next slide and instead I would like to bring up 11271 and

talk a little about open space. That is P11271-3. You have seen this before, I know, but

51

I want to say that as residents we don’t consider the forecourt of a station or ramp to be

open space for us. This is not where you go to let your children play. It is open space

for passengers. The green is what we consider to be open space for us.

307. The next slide, please. 11271-4. If you take out the blue in that chart and granting

the other ones are a stand, you come up with a net loss of 2000 metres squared of usable

open space for children to play in or for people, for residents, to use, not passengers.

308. The next slide, 11271-8. The open space here which is counted in their added

open space, is a bus stand. I don’t know how many people would want their children to

go play in a bus stand. This one, although some of it I am sure is fine – this is the other

track – the bottom part of it is a taxi rank so some of the metres squared that are added

into the additional open space again is open space for passengers. It is not open space

for the residents. So, we are looking in the immediate area at a net loss of open space.

309. Back to my slide 22, please; that is 1740-22. So, what is the mitigation that

involves Ampthill Square? They say that they intend to improve existing public open

space as a mitigation against taking St James’s Garden. I find that a bit odd since this is

already open space to begin with. It’s not creating anything.

310. The next slide, please. The area hatched in red is in this realm behind security

fencing which is what we want to maintain so that we don’t go back to the bad old days

of Ampthill Square as a war zone. So, really is that going to help? We don’t want that

to be made into public ground. The open space that we do have was all re-landscaped in

2010. It includes a new playground. There is a picture of it with lovely trees. I am

puzzled as to how new landscaping is going to make that mitigation when this already

exists. It seems to me that returning it to the way it was is a minimum criterion and any

landscaping is personal taste. So, I am puzzled by that as a mitigation.

311. MS HERON: If I could just bring up map P124962, as you can see it is not easy

especially for people who do not have very good sight, to pick out the different

colourings but basically it is, I believe, the original re-hatched. It is better for seeing it

on the screen, actually. Is the green hatched the AP3 one? I can’t see.

312. MS FLETCHER: No, the green one is the original one.

52

313. MS HERON: Okay, so I need to talk later about the grey one. If you come to the

bottom here, I am pretty certain that that does not match up with the map that we

showed you initially, and the pink. It has actually spread southwards over the road and

also, by the look of it, maybe into the Royal Mail. But it is certainly bigger than the

land we have shown initially that was going to be safeguarded. The Full Monty of the

land that they now wish to claim is the whole of Ampthill Square. They are saying that

this is because of utility works. They have said also that they want to improve the space

at Ampthill. You do not have to safeguard land to improve it. It is as simple as that.

There is also a question mark over whether, at the end of everything, the land will be

returned. This is absolutely horrifying. I think that’s probably it.

314. MS FLETCHER: The next of our slides are asks. Could we go back, please, one

side?

315. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I don’t think you need to read them because as long

as they’re available to Mr Mould, we can read them, he will read them and he can

respond to those he can.

316. MS FLETCHER: Yes, thank you.

317. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Okay. Do you mind if I put the next one up? Shall I

respond then?

318. MS FLETCHER: Yes, please.

319. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I won’t respond to your general asks, not because I seek

to belittle their importance to you but I have done it before. So, on your specific points,

the position in relation to emergency services access is really very straightforward.

These are residential premises. Those which are most directly affected by the works, in

particular Gilfoot, is a tower block. The project has no choice. The project in doing its

works has to maintain appropriate emergency access to Gilfoot. If it doesn’t do that

then it would have to provide temporary rehousing to the residents of Gilfoot for as long

as that situation obtains. The project does not wish to be in a position to have to provide

temporary rehousing to the residents of Gilfoot and therefore the project will maintain

appropriate emergency access to that property and to other properties on the estate and it

will work with the emergency services and engage with the Ampthill Estate community

53

in order to ensure that that is achieved.

320. As regards alternative options for temporary utility diversion, I explained briefly

in opening that careful consideration has been given in particular to whether it would be

possible to maintain those services that are currently routed along Hampstead Road

Bridge and along the existing gantry to maintain those during the works without the

need to take a temporary route through the Ampthill Estate and the project is clear that it

is not feasible to do other than to route through the estate. In particular, it is not feasible

to maintain those services through the Hampstead Road Bridge itself whilst it is being

demolished and rebuilt.

321. As to the safeguarded areas, it is important to understand that lands which are

principally required to carry out utilities works are not generally safeguarded because

there is no need to acquire those lands on a permanent basis. So, in this case that leads

to the following point. I can guarantee that the project will not permanently acquire

lands within the estate which are required only for utilities works. Once the utilities

works have been undertaken and the land restored, then we will be off and those lands

will be back in the ownership, I suspect, of Camden as the freeholder of the estate, but

insofar as any lands affected which are owned by leaseholders, then those lands will

return to their owners.

322. Insofar as habitability and relocation triggers, the Environmental Statement for

AP3 identifies the three blocks on the Ampthill Estate and the flats within them and

some other flats within the maisonettes as being likely to experience construction noise

for a duration that will qualify for sound insulation and so that point is reinforced by the

assurance that we have given to Camden under Part 10 of the 30 November letter, in

particular paragraphs 10.1 and 10.5. Paragraph 10.5, which I showed the Committee

yesterday, commits to a survey of representative properties particularly focusing on the

need for noise insulation and for ventilation and other works to enable habitability to be

maintained. Amongst those areas which were subject to that further work are properties

within the Ampthill Estate bounded by either Eversholt Street to the north of Calgar,

Lidlington Place and Hampstead Road, so that embraces the area with which I think the

petitioners are particularly concerned.

323. Insofar as construction compound size is concerned, we have given a further

54

commitment to Camden that we will review the effective management of construction

sites. That is page 31 of 30 November letter. In particular that commits us to seeking to

make efficiencies. These are not the very words but the underlying substance of that

assurance includes commitment to continue to seek to make efficiencies in the use of

compounds as we develop the detailed construction arrangements for the project.

324. In terms of security, I understand very much the concerns of residents of the estate

about maintaining the security system that has been in place in recent years. The

promoter and the nominated undertaker and his contractors will have to take all

reasonably practical measures that they can to make sure that that security system is

maintained in operation whilst the works are underway. That is a matter for detailed

consideration but clearly the objective has to be to maintain security on the estate whilst

the project is there doing the utilities work that I have mentioned and any other works

that are required.

325. I don’t say any more about the community fund. That is a point that was touched

on, again, earlier this morning. The project has a commitment under the Code of

Construction Practice to seek to minimise tree loss or impact on trees during

construction. That’s an approach which is conventional these days for any significant

development scheme. It’s a matter of policy. Developers are always required to take

all reasonable steps that they can to avoid loss or damage to trees, and that applies as

much to the promotion of this scheme as it does to others. We will particularly, as

we’re sited on it, particularly have a look at the trees that are of value to the community

and the estate to take all reasonably practical measures to try and avoid the loss of those

trees. I can’t guarantee it, but that’s just something which, again, is very much within

the sight of the detailed preparation for these works.

326. Insofar as open space is concerned, we’ve given commitments to Camden about

open space. I’ve referred to those earlier and I’m not going to refer to them again.

They’re in the 30 November letter. But what I can say is that the open space that is

within the estate boundaries, that once the construction of the project has been

completed and the works on the estate have been completed, that open space will be

restored as open space, so the current position will be restored. I think what is intended

is that that open space – where there are opportunities to, perhaps, improve the quality

of provisional facilities on that, that it would be a good idea to take advantage of those

55

opportunities – and I would have thought that’s something that should be done through

engagement, not only with the council, but also through engagement with the residents

association, because they’re the users of that open space and so it would make sense to

speak to them as well.

327. So there’s room here for a good deal of these issues to be attended to through the

detailed construction process and the development of the detailed construction

arrangements.

328. Coming back to the question of engagement, I think we’ve found that, perhaps

understandably, representatives of residents of the estate have been nervous about

meeting us on a sort of bilateral or a private basis.

329. We have – well, I’m told we have. But anyway, I don’t want to go back over the

past, but what I do want to say is this: the best way of getting on and getting these

things resolved in a way that gives the community on the estate, I hope, confidence in

the arrangements going forward is if we do sit down together and talk these things

through with the residents association, because we want to understand their concerns

and we want to take those into account in the detail planning. So I think if moving

forward we can work on that basis, that would be a very sensible thing to do.

330. CHAIR: Brief, final comments?

331. MS FLETCHER: I would like to pull up A174010, please. I’m only doing this to

show why we get concerned. This was in our response pack for Ampthill Square,

which says, ‘Principally, the additional lands included was to enable HS2 to undertake

open space enhancement work.’ That’s why we were concerned when we were there.

In the same document it says, ‘These areas will likely be redesigned.’ You know,

perhaps something has superseded this, but this is the information we were given and

this is why we got concerned.

332. MR MOULD QC (DfT): All I can say is, I’m not aware of any reason why they

shouldn’t be returned to – I think it would be to Camden as the freeholder of the estate.

333. MS FLETCHER: Of course it would be.

334. MR MOULD QC (DfT): But I’m not aware of any reason why they shouldn’t be

56

returned. I think I understand why people are concerned about these reservations that

are put on these documents. They’re put on because there’s a, sort of, never say never

approach to, sometimes, these things. There has to be a sensible reservation. But, as I

say, I haven’t been told there’s any reason why they shouldn’t be. I think you can

proceed confidently at the moment on the basis that they will be returned, and if there is

any reason why they shouldn’t be, you’ll be told.

335. CHAIR: Okay.

336. MS HERON: I’d just like to make the comment that in this HS2 game, the

promoter has all the trumps, all the deuces, and he hides the rest of the pack, and he has

his ‘get out of gaol card’ free wherever reasonably practicable, where the promoter is

judge, jury and executioner. We have nothing.

337. CHAIR: Thank you very much for those comments. We now move on to – let’s

see if William Harvey, 920 – is William Harvey present?

338. MS HERON: There are some other residents that we have some statements from.

339. CHAIR: Okay. We’ll do those quickly as possible, please.

340. MS HERON: Yes. The 915, David and Nicola they had one slide, please. That’s

A1738. Slide number 2, please. He has given me a brief statement to read, which I’ll

do. He writes – this is David Lincoln – ‘I am a 71 year old pensioner who has lived on

Ampthill Square Estate along with my wife and children for 44 happy years till I hit

with a bomb about the works they are intending to do, putting extra traffic on Euston

Station right next to the block I live in, which is indicated on the slide with the yellow

dot. We have been informed that we will enjoy many years of noise, dust, pollution

which really concerns me as my daughter has asthma, having difficulty to breath with

the pollution levels as they are, and I am elderly myself. With the extra dust, noise,

pollution, does this mean we will have to live with our windows shut and feel trapped

on our own home until work, covering many years, is complete?

341. ‘At the moment I can come out of my block of flats and easily commute to and

from work, when work starts at Euston and surrounding areas with extra traffic, not to

mention lorries who knows how long my journey will be, and it will be a nightmare.’

57

The picture that you see on the right is a view from his balcony, and from the left is

how close the will be to the demolition of the Royal Mail.

342. He further says, ‘Once I often say to people, I would retire to this lovely estate

along with my daughter, but when the work starts, lovely it will not be. It will be a

nightmare.’ His ask was rehousing when it’s really bad, especially in light of his

daughter’s asthma and other medical conditions. Thank you.

343. I’d like to say a few words on behalf of Jacquelin Haggett. Jacqui lives in

Holmrook, which is the block on the north-east corner of the estate. They have a degree

of traffic problems from the congestion, and Euston Road is often impassable because

of somebody badly parked or something like this. She’s concerned about the addition

of traffic. She has multiple health problems. She’s lived on the estate all her life.

She’s 44 years of age. She has two daughters. One also suffers from asthma. Her

eldest daughter, when the work starts, is just about to go, enter her final year of a BA

degree, and her younger daughter will be doing A-levels. She’s worried about them

having lack of sleep.

344. But also, Holmrook block itself has been left of counting for unknown reason.

It’s never been referred to, ever. Their frontage is a balcony onto Eversholt Street, but

those rooms at the front of the flats are kitchen, bathroom and toilet. The bedrooms on

the living accommodation is on the other side of the block, so it’s facing inwards to the

estate. So they, too, will suffer a lot of the same impacts as the remainder of the estate.

So that’s that one. That’s Jackie.

345. I’ve also been asked to say a few words on behalf of Paul Tomlinson, who is

behind me. Paul lives on Ampthill – the same block as I did, as a matter of fact – and

he is a local counsellor. As such he’s a governor of a local school. The school were

going to send in a presentation but the headmistress, as headmistresses do, was called

away at the last minute. So it arrived at 10 to 5.00 and we were unable to do it. So I

understand I can leave it for you to have a look, but it’s a Catholic infants school on

Phoenix Road, and that is a road that I think will be quite heavily impacted. It was

established in 1852. Still going strong. We’re asking that you please help that this

continue.

346. So the school’s concerns are: fumes directly into the school playground; parents

58

gather out of the school morning and afternoon every day to collect and drop off; will it

be safe – noise; fumes; speed of traffic, etc; both parents and pupils meet together daily

for an additional ten minutes in the playground for morning prayers and message

sharing, and will they still be able to hear the speaker; adverse effects on young lungs,

is another concern; 210 pupils in school; 180 pupils on this site; 30 travelling to nursery

each week; children are only four to seven years old and so lungs are still developing;

pollution and fumes will have an adverse effect on their growth; some also already have

medical needs, such as asthma; their health will deteriorate and their attendance

decrease, which will in turn have a negative impact on their learning; adverse effects on

staff supervising children in the playground, many of whom have asthma and bronchial

weaknesses, which we saw from a previous presentation that there were high levels of

respiratory disease in the area.

347. Staff supervise the playgrounds throughout the day and additional fumes and

noise will have an adverse effect on their health and attendance at work. So the

school’s concerns also about noise levels of addition of larger vehicles, more difficult to

teach inside and outside as a teacher cannot be heard as additional traffic passes by the

outer perimeter of the school railings outside. Speed of additional vehicles. Staff,

parents and pupils walking along the pavement or crossing. Risk to the very young.

The safety of pupils and parents crossing the road. Families having difficulty collecting

siblings from St Aloysius Nursery and Junior School through different locations which

all require crossing Phoenix Road.

348. The majority of families cross Phoenix Road every day. Additional traffic will

increase the safety risk. Families not able to travel to school due to blocked access in

Euston Somers Town. Families live on the other side of Euston, which is something

that we talked about. They will find travelling to the school difficult. Also, as transport

links are out, families will find it more difficult to get to school. It will take longer,

wherever they are travelling from. Many travel by bus and get off on Eversholt Street.

349. Difficulty in access for our disabled pupils. As the road use changes, access to

outside school become more difficult for our disabled pupils. Nursery pupils and

nursery staff must travel between school and the nursery regularly, daily for all nursery

staff. All previously mentioned issues will have an impact on them.

59

350. Pupil numbers will decrease. With all the works happening around them, parents

will not be incentivised to apply for a school which is difficult to access, and this is

important. With additional health and noise issues, this will be to the detriment of the

school and will affect its sustainability. Once again, this will help us to protect our

school. Our children, they are our future. Thank you.

351. CHAIR: Is that all evidence you’re giving; all the other petitioners you’ve now

covered? Thank you very much, both of you. Right. 920, William Harvey. I don’t

think he’s here, either, which is why I’m calling him. 920, William Harvey. No. 932,

William and Cassandra Adjei. Not here. 922, Fabijan Matosevic. 930, Jolil and Nadia

Shah. Not here. Right. We now move to 921, Maria O’Shea and others.

Maria O’Shea

352. MS O’SHEA: My name is Maria O’Shea. Firstly, I would just like to say that I

am in complete agreement with the petition from the Ampthill Square Tenants

Association and agree with all of the priority asks, especially comprehensive

redevelopment of Euston and habitability criteria and location triggers agreed for worse

affected tenants.

I’m have been attendant in Dalehead, one of the infamous tower blocks, on the

Hampton Square Estate for 34 years. I have a lovely home with my partner and with a

view of spending our retirement in a very pleasant, familiar environment. My mother

lives on the Regents Park Estate five minutes from me. We can see one another from

our respective balconies. Slide 1, taken from my balcony, highlights the close

proximity to my mother’s home. She’s now 86 and needs a lot of support from me as

she gets more frail. I visit between two and three times a day, taking her meals, doing

shopping, etc.

353. Slide 2 shows the route I take to my mother’s home. Then disaster strikes, and a

big, nasty fat cat comes thundering through, ready to destroy everything in front of it,

regardless. Not for one, not for two, but for at least 18 years. So we’re all going to hell

and back.

354. Slide 3 shows the demolition of Hampstead Road Bridge, Granby Terrace Bridge,

two large blocks of flats, Ainsdale and Eskdale, making my route impassable. My

60

mother’s on the other side of the divide, more blocks nearer to her being demolished.

She is going to be virtually entrapped. Her bus stops have been moved. She will be

more in need of me than ever. I don’t fathom how I can get to her quickly as I do at the

moment, and certainly it won’t be a five-minute walk. Everything I do for my mother is

to enable her to remain in her own home.

355. My own health is a problem. I’m registered disabled with two chronic conditions

and don’t have a clue how I will manage walkways as I struggle with steps now. My

partner has just been told he needs to have both hips replaced, so living on a building

site is not what he needs.

356. My proximity to all of the works could not be closer. Slide 4 shows how near we

are to the demolition of bridges, blocks of flats, and excavations.

357. I read in one recent report that Dalehead, the block I live in, is going to be one of

the worst regarding noise. I have been unable to open windows for 18 years because of

pollution.

358. The fear of all vermin is terrifying. Once those rats are disturbed, they won’t be

sitting round listening to good housekeeping rules.

359. The grounds the estate is built on is being turned into a building compound where

one side of Dalehead has trenches three metres by three metres across the estate, and a

massive bridge being built along the other side of Dalehead is going to make it very

difficult to access our homes.

360. This whole project is not only going to affect my life adversely, it is going to ruin

it. The idea that I have to spend the rest of my life living in this hell hole beggars

belief. So much for the idea an Englishman’s home is his castle.

361. I ask of HS2, at best I wish it would disappear, or in my case, rehouse my family

for the duration of the demolition and bridge building, with a guaranteed choice of

coming back to my home should I so wish, that is, if I’m still alive, because it’s

blatantly obvious, there really are no meaningful mitigations that would make any

acceptable improvement to anyone’s life on Ampthill.

362. That’s the end of my statement. My neighbour has come out without her glasses

61

and would like me to read hers. It’s quite short.

363. I’m speaking for my neighbour, Brenda Campbell, who is also a tenant at

number 40 Dalehead on the Ampthill Square. She also is in agreement with the

Ampthill Square petition and its asks. Dalehead has been her home for 16 years and

she’s always been very happy living there. She’s a single parent and has one child, a

son, who is 23 but has special needs and is a mental age of 6 to 7 years. Her son is

unable to leave home much as he has an extreme weight problem. He’s ultrasensitive to

noise and gets extremely distressed, even when it thunders. She also had to take care of

her brother who’s in his early 40s and is on the autistic spectrum. He also has a mental

age of a young child.

364. Her own health is a problem. She’s blind in one eye and suffers from hardening

of the arteries causing severe pain to her legs, limiting her ability to walk far. The idea

of not being able to open doors and windows for 18 years due to dust and air pollution

leaves her fearful and will affect the quality of her life. As you can see, her life’s pretty

hard enough, without the massive misery HS2 will inflict. The only ask she can make

is to have a priority for somewhere decent to go if it becomes unmanageable for her

son, and extra concerns given over ongoing noises. Thank you.

365. MS ALI: Good afternoon. My name is Zamzam Ali and I live at number

38 Dalehead on the Ampthill Square Estate. First, I would like to say that I agree with

the points and asks in the Ampthill Square Tenants Association.

366. I have been living in Ampthill Square Estate for 11 years. I moved to this place

when my son was only a few months old, and now I have three children. My children

have always been part of this lovely community and they absolutely love to play in the

Ampthill Square Park. My son, being 11 years old, loves to play in the basketball and

football court in the summer. I feel my children are safe when they are riding their

bikes and scooters in the estate. I cannot fathom what is about to happen to my

community and our lives will certainly change due to the fact that it will not be the

same for the next 18 years.

367. My four year old son suffers from asthma and is allergic to dust. I change his

bedsheets every two to three days, vacuum and mop with the steamer, and use a

humidifier every night. It scares me to the core when I think about how my son will

62

cope and survive without opening my windows for 18 years because of the excessive

dust and pollution. I sense that my children’s wellbeing has not been considered.

368. I fear for my children’s education and health, because of the noise pollution at

night, that they will suffer. A loud noise that will have an unpleasant side effects and

discomfort on their ears. As I hear that Dalehead will suffer the most noise pollution, I

wonder how my children will concentrate in school and their education. I have even

considered a mutual exchange, but then I realised, nobody in their right minds would

want to move to an area where they would not be able to open their windows for

18 years.

369. I would like to ask if I can be relocated to a similar and lovely property as mine.

Also, I would like to be moved to an area that is not far from my children’s school and

my lovely neighbours; and with a guaranteed option of returning to my home.

370. CHAIR: Thank you very much. I’m not sure the promoter can add very much

more given you’ve talked comprehensively. But thank you very much for giving your

views which we’ll reflect on. We understand the impact on the estate. Your –

371. MS O’SHEA: Sorry, we have just one more

372. MS WARREN: My name is Jane Warren. I live on the fifth floor of Dalehead

directly overlooking the railway. I agree with the points raised in the Tenants and

Residents Association of Ampthill Square petition and support their asks.

373. The works will cause disruption to people living on our estate for years. Dust,

noise, and accessibility problems will cause distress to us all.

374. Hampstead Road is a main artery into Central London and access to the UCH.

Loss of this could even endanger lives in an emergency.

375. On a person level I have concerns with regard to many things, some of which are

the noise, especially if this is on a 24-hour basis.

376. We live on the fifth floor. My husband has recently returned to work after a

year’s absence, and his new job will involve shift work. Recent works, nothing on a

scale of HS2, have been disruptive and can be heard clearly. I can only imagine what it

63

would be like once the project begins.

377. The triple-glazing proposed will mean that we will live in a closed, stuffy

environment and unable to clean the outside. Having experience works recently

undertaken in our area, vermin is a problem that comes hand in hand with major

projects. They’ve previously reached our floor when disturbed.

378. We will not be able to relocate for personal and financial reasons. If we did move

out of the area this would result in my son being made homeless as he has to remain in

central London for his job and cannot afford rent in Camden. As a single working male

he’s very low down on the list for any rehousing.

379. The security of the estate will be impacted by the works and we’ll be more

vulnerable during the period and we may have intermittent loss of utilities during the

drilling.

380. At present, I’m an extra key holder for my work at a local nursery and can be

there in minutes if needed in an emergency. Losing Granby Terrace as access will

affect this.

381. There are almost too many points to put into words. In rural areas digging has

been done underground to minimise disruption. An urban setting deserves equal

consideration.

382. I’d like you just to consider the following points: every effort be made to

minimise disruption and noise levels, including time restrictions; tenants and

leaseholders are not forced to move and no one is made homeless or at a financial loss

as a direct result of the work; the soundproofing does not damage our flats and

maintained property; and vermin control is in place. If possible, Hampstead Road to be

left as a main access point to the UCH and Central London.

383. CHAIR: Thank you very much, ladies. Thank you for your contributions. We’ll

reflect on that and the other contributions from the estate. Thank you very much. All

right. We’re now Linda Eager, 917. Welcome.

64

Linda Eager

384. MS EAGER: Firstly, I’d like to say that I obviously generally – I’m very worried

regarding the impact the construction works will have upon the Euston Station area for

some 18 years, such as the disruption, noise, air pollution, etc. I generally agree with

all the points raised by previous petitioners, and particularly the Ampthill Square TRA.

385. I’m here to present my own personal case. This is regarding my property, garden,

and quality of life. Just as a little bit of background, my grandparents were from the

Euston Area, Drummond Street, and so were my parents. This area has been my

family’s home for three generations. It means a great deal to me, and is now my home.

386. If I could have slide 1. The green star basically shows my property, and the

yellow, my garden. Regarding my property, my parents moved into Ampthill Square

when it was first built and into property 16 Calgarth. They exercised a right to buy a

16 Calgarth and the lease includes the property and garden. My parents bought the flat

in order to secure their future and my future. I’ve lived in flat 16 Calgarth for the

majority of my life. I’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and money to make my flat my

home, and a place that makes me happy to live in.

387. I’m very worried about the quality of my life for the next 18 years, as it’s foreseen

that the construction works will impact upon Ampthill Square and Euston Station area

for that amount of time.

388. I’ve already experienced disruption and costs only seven to eight years ago with

the regeneration of Ampthill Square. Really – I mean, that will be small fry in

comparison to the disruption to the works on Euston Station, and that was bad enough.

I’m concerned what will happen if in the next 18 years I would like to move. My

property is my asset. I’m very worried how the works will affect my ability to sell my

property and its market value if I wish to move or wish to do anything else with the

property. It seems that it’s only compensation for if you need to move and not want to

move.

389. I’m also very close to my family, being my brother, sister-in-law, two nephews

and nephews two young children. We’ve always lived very near to each other and I’ve

always spent a lot of time with them. Recently my brother and sister-in-law moved to

65

Borehamwood. My nephew and his partner and two young children are still renting in

the area, for which I’m very happy, as I still continue to see them a lot. However, I

think over the next couple of years, my nephew and his young family will moved to

Borehamewood as well. This will be especially true if the works go ahead, as they will

move to avoid the disruption and pollution, especially as my nephew suffers from

asthma and his son also has chest problems as he’s born two months premature. It’s a

great worry to me that if they do move to Borehamwood as well, and I want to move to

be near to them, that I will not be able to sell my flat because of the construction works

going on and/or I will not be able to get the market value that it’s worth at the moment.

390. Slide 2, please. I have a garden, and I consider it very precious to have a garden

in Central London. My garden is also part of my property and included in my lease.

Utility trenches are planned to run through Ampthill Square while the works are being

carried out. On the plans drawn up, one of these trenches is shown running through my

garden and very close to my flat. Actually, if you could go back to slide 1. The blue

line is showing the trench at the moment running through my garden, very close to my

flat. This seems it will also mean knocking down my garden wall and shed. If the wall

is knocked down or partly knocked down then anybody will have access to my garden

and my property in it. This, I feel, will compromise my security.

391. Again, I’ve spent a lot of time, energy and money, making my garden how it is. I

do not want a trench dug in the middle of it, ruining what I have done. This will also

mean a lot of disruption and mess, and will be very close to my home.

392. My nephew, his partner and two young children are at the moment renting in a

council studio flat in the area. They’re extremely cramped, as you can imagine. It’s

very stressful for them, and the children do not have any room to play. So my nephew

has a key to my flat and they can bring the children to my garden to give them some

room to play in. This is also very enjoyable and helps them a lot. I’m also concerned

that this will no longer be possible with a trench being dug for my garden, and also it

may no longer be safe or secure for the children.

393. My garden, as I mentioned, is part of my lease. So can a trench, then, just be dug

through the middle of it?

394. So basically my asks are, if the works go ahead as planned, a compensation offer

66

is improved so that I have the freedom to be able to sell my property when I want to,

and if my garden is dug up, that it is restored back to its original position and that the

wall is rebuilt and compensation for the disruption. That’s it. Thank you.

395. CHAIR: The trench and the garden being made good, and the wall also made

good.

396. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. But before that, this is one of those existing

utilities, do you remember I mentioned earlier. This is a UK power network’s cable or

cables. As I said, we’re by no means clear that we actually need to do any works within

the petitioner’s garden in any event. It may be possible just to leave these cables in situ,

or it may be possible to remove them without needing to go directly into her garden.

We may be able to undertake it other than going into her garden.

397. What I would propose to do is, I think we will be much clearer on that as the

delivery programme, it progresses during the course of the coming months. What I

would like to do is to keep her closely informed of the progress of that, of the

development of works, and so that we can, as soon as we reasonably can, we can get to

a final decision, and we can then let her know and give her comfort on that.

398. But as things stand at the moment, if we assume that we do need to go in and do

some works to remove these existing cables, then the petitioner will be entitled to land

compensation for the disturbance and injury that she may suffer as the leaseholder from

the execution of those works. I’m sure that that alone, just looking at the photographs,

if it’s the case of the effect of works of that kind alone, I’m sure she would rather – it’s

up to her – but I would have thought she may want to be able to say, ‘Well, I’d rather

put up with those works for the duration of them and then have my garden back,’ which

obviously would be restored by us to its current state. But once the act is passed, it will

be open to her to consider whether she wants to ask the secretary of state to take the

property as a whole, and that would then be considered by the secretary of state.

399. CHAIR: Having the flat and the garden?

400. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

401. CHAIR: Right. Thank you very much indeed. We now move on to AP3: 82,

67

Agueda Furtado. I hope I pronounced it right. Welcome. Good afternoon.

Agueda Furtado

402. MS FURTADO: Yes, good afternoon. My name is Agueda Furtado. I know you

almost came to lunch and I think our patience is running low. I understand that. But

the reason I decided to do my petition is because of my children, because I had

originally signed a group petition with Ampthill Estate tenants, but on Thursday, the

last day before the petition, I couldn’t sleep, so I thought – I woke up at midnight and I

thought, ‘You know what? My children need to have a voice. I’m their voice.’ That’s

the reason – sorry, I’m getting really nervous, but I’ll get there – that’s the reason I

thought I needed to do the petition. So because we live at Gilfoot, we are one of the

families that are within closest proximity with Euston. I feel that we’ve been ignored or

we’ve not been listened – or they feel that because there’s too many people in Gilfoot, it

might be easier to just put a glass around us and then do all the work.

403. We can see exhibition 7, this is a picture from my house. It shows the distance

from my flat, from my building to the station. It shows the proximity, how close we

are. I know we had lots of paperwork, letters, information, saying to people how close

we are, but when you look from our window and you feel the vibration of the train and

you feel – you hear the announcement from the station, that is when you know that you

live by the station, and you know that your children can’t do things or they’ve been

affected by them, and they need to be listened to and they need to take into

consideration.

404. I think – I feel that HS2 needs to identify our children’s welfare as a priority. Not

just as a priority, but as a key priority. They need to understand the risks and the facts,

because I know we have all this information that keeps coming to our letter box, but it’s

the fact that we’re living in those flats. No one came inside our flats to see and feel

how it feels to live there, because I know there’s negotiations with Camden, there’s

negotiations with everyone else. But when you come inside the flats and you feel,

that’s when you realise that all the papers, it don’t make a difference if you have to live

through it.

405. If we can see exhibition 10, please. I’ll shake through it, but I’ll get to – I’m

really sorry. We received this through the post, and if you see, I can – my daughter

68

helped me highlight all the yellow bits it says probably where there will be work or be

something related to HS2. You see there’s in orange right in the middle of all that.

What we feel is – we understand – we love – we have a travel card, a railroad card, and

we love train stations. Don’t take us wrong, because we don’t want HS2 to do some of

the things; because we travel, and that has enabled us to go north, south, everywhere in

the country. And we know there’s a need for development, we understand that. But it’s

when that development has impact on the welfare of our children that we need to look

into it and we need to consider, because the impact will be on their home, on their

routine, on their independence, on their education.

406. Also, if improvements go ahead in Ampthill Station, Hampstead Road, our

children will be lost. They will be lost to construction work that is estimated to last ten

to 15 years or more. My youngest child is ten. I’m a foster carer to babies. I already

feel that my child is losing a childhood just for the fact that we live in the city because –

HS2 feels that they were born to noise, then they can live through noise. But if I have a

bright child and a really creative child, imagine if she didn’t have to put up with all the

noise, the vibration, and if she could – because we already hear these things from what

is happening at the present, because we live close to the station. So I feel that imagine

what my child could do even more if she could sleep properly at night, if she could be

treated fairly.

407. I have one of the videos. Because I feel that – I understand we need to do work,

but if you hear one of these video, that’s on a normal day, the video, inside our house.

Now, imagine when it’s a really windy day or – we already have double-glazing, and

this video – I don’t know if you can hear it. Put the volume up a bit.

408. Yes. That’s inside the house on a day that it’s not too bad. That’s why I’m

saying, my child’s brain is already – she goes through this on a daily basis, and the

reason we have the ventilations is because we live close to the station, we have to keep

our windows closed, and because we keep our windows closed we have the ventilation,

that we actually close it so that we don’t get even worse than that. And that’s on a

normal day. Now, imagine when it’s windy. We sometimes go away, and all the way

in Portugal, we can hear, inside our heads, the announcements and this noise. It’s

because for 16 years, from my side and for my daughter’s 10 years and my niece as

well, we’ve been living with this. So it’s still inside our brain, that even when we are

69

on holiday, our brain doesn’t ever rest, because you sleep when you hear it and you

think you’re home. That’s not normal, because people normalise – that’s why I was

talking about the risk, because we normalise the risk and we make it something that is

normal, and then we think, ‘Okay, the children are used to it, so they can cope.’ But

that’s why I said my child is clever and bright, but imagine if she didn’t have to live

with this, if she got to have a normal life.

409. One of the reasons I also did this is because I found out – I went to one of the

meetings and I found out that, oh, people that live in the rural areas, they have a better

deal – we don’t even have a deal, but – they’ve been considered because they’re more

sensitive to noise, and I feel that my child has to live with noise in an area that is

already over-crowded, that is already noisy because we live by the station. I know it’s

no one’s fault. But to be penalised for it, that’s what I got upset about. That’s why feel

that it’s not right.

410. CHAIR: How are your cars going. All right?

411. MS FURTADO: Yeah. They’re doing okay, yeah. So I think HS2 could prevent

the impairment of my children’s health and development. They need to ensure that our

children continue to be healthy and they continue to grow well and safe, because in the

optimum lifestyle, it is when the work starts, they’re not going to be safe anymore.

412. So I think my children’s right to a good standard of living: their right to be

healthy, their right to be safe, their right to play and enjoy their childhood, will be taken

away, and that’s the reason for my petition. So the overall well-being cannot be

measured because this work will be taking their whole childhood, because my child is

only ten, without considering the babies, if it’s going to going for ten, 15 years, it’s the

whole childhood, and we feel that – I don’t think that’s right.

413. I think that HS2’s actions should be rooted in child development. But the reason

I’m saying this is because in Gilfoot there is about 200 children, and our children are

not being considered through all this. I know they’re thinking we’re going to put triple

glazing. We already have double glazing and you heard the noise. They’re going to be

putting ventilation gaps. We already had the noise and you can hear the ventilation.

They need to ensure equality, because they’re not being fair and just to children.

70

414. We have another video, please. I feel the HS2 is failing our children and our

families in Gilfoot, because you can hear all about Camden, you can hear all about big

organisation, all about big places and people that have a big voice, a loud voice, but you

don’t hear anything and nothing about Gilfoot. That’s the noise inside our flat with

everything closed.

415. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Not noise. Wind noise.

416. MS FURTADO: The wind, yeah. The wind. But not on a bad day. That’s what

I’m saying. Imagine on a bad day. That’s in – can you see the black thing on the top?

We try putting Sellotape, we tried putting all different things –

417. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that because there’s a gap somewhere?

418. MS FURTADO: No, there’s no gaps. We have – the ventilation is closed but

you can still hear the noise.

419. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, but that’s a wind noise.

420. MS FURTADO: It’s the wind noise, but it’s going through, because we have to

have ventilation because we can’t open the window, so the wind, it travels in the flats,

and that’s why you can hear, because of that, and that’s why I was saying in terms of

heavily ventilation, yes, you put it as in a glass, but then inside the flat, we live in there,

and that’s where we can hear.

421. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How long have you had that noise?

422. MS FURTADO: It’s always been there, because it’s the gaps, the ventilation

gaps, that causes the noise. It’s like pipe noise, when travelling.

423. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I’ve got a feeling your suffering more from that

than you ever liked to suffer from anything else that can happen except for a rocket

going off.

424. MS FURTADO: That’s the reason I’m saying the ventilations would make a

difference, because they’re saying, ‘Oh, we will put ventilations,’ and the ventilations

were put because of the railway station that’s there.

71

425. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If HS2 give you ventilation, and if they give you

ventilation which is a substitution for ventilation that makes that racket, I think your

noise levels may go down. I’m not saying it’s going to be possible, but –

426. MS FURTADO: Which will be great. I hope there would be something they

could do for the vibration of the building because I couldn’t film that because it was,

you know, where the building vibrates, it vibrates, and unfortunately, that was

something I could do, and I did it because I woke up and then I thought, you know, I

needed to film that bit.

427. CHAIR: Okay. Thank you very much for giving a voice to your children and

coming to the committee today, and you did it very well. Thank you.

428. MS FURTADO: And I hope the children are taken into consideration.

429. CHAIR: Yes. Right. We now move on to 840, David and Barbara Turner. Do

you want to add anything to your statement, which we’ve read?

David and Barbara Turner

430. MR TURNER: Yes. We’re not going to repeat it, I promise you. Are we the

last, by the way?

431. CHAIR: No.

432. MR TURNER: Okay. Well, you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer for

lunch.

433. Good afternoon. Thank you for this time. You’ve read our summary and our

petition is a long one and a very broad one. It contains an awful lot of material and the

material is still current and still a major concern. But you’ve heard it all before. The

counsel for the petitioners is no doubt well practiced in rebutting all the points. So

there’s no point in going over that again. What I’d like to do is to spend ten minutes of

your time in return for your complete attention, just to paint the human picture, if you

like – this is moving beyond the petition – and what the issues in the petition mean to us

as two people.

72

434. Barbara Turner, David Turner. Both aged 69 and approaching the sort of

feebleness that comes from our age. We’ve lived in our flat on Hampton Square Estate

for 43 years. We brought it 16 years ago. It’s probably the biggest investment we’ll

ever make in our lives, except, perhaps, for the family, which is probably a bigger

investment. We’ve lived there happily for 43 years. We’ve raised our family there, and

we were looking forward to remaining there throughout our retirement and probably

until death.

435. We’ve led modest but independent, and, I think, upright lives. What does our

retirement look like now? Enduring long, multiple bouts of 24-7 working, rebuilding

the two massive bridges from a compound, all on our doorstep, for 17 years. We’re in

the eye of the storm. Bouts of combined noise, fouled air, vibration, danger, and chaos.

A cumulative effect described even by the promoters as ‘extreme adverse affects’ day

and night. That’s our future. Actuarially at the age of 69, and this going on for at least

17 years, and, you know, for 17 years on a building project read 20, we’ll be dead

before it finishes. So, actuarially, this is the rest of our lives in this maelstrom.

436. What help are we offered? Well, recently, maybe, some noise insulation, if it’s

possible. Not much else. Precious little else. Even the consultation with the promoters

has been roundly criticised, so I’m not even sure we’ll even be able to put our voice to

them, or that they’ll be listening if we do.

437. We’ve got the misfortune of living in an urban area. The way the compensation

works out, there is this perverse and cynical idea that if you’re used to living in an

urban area, you’re used to noise and disturbance, so you can take some more. That’s

La-La Land. That’s Alice jumping through the mirror. It’s the other way round. It

could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And you’ve heard from the previous

petitioner the effect on her children and her and there’s more to come. But because we

have that, we’re not entitled to any more compensation. That’s cruel. That’s cruel and

perverse. Anyway, that’s what it is.

438. History’s repeating itself. In the 1840s when the railways came into London,

what happened was – and including the Euston to Birmingham railway – the rich,

landed gentry in the rural areas were well-compensated. The poor, around Somers

Town and in the urban areas, were rejected. History is beginning to repeat itself.

73

439. We hate asking for help, because that’s not our nature. We regard ourselves as

independent people. But the magnitude of the torment in front of us, I think, demands

it, and this is what we ask for. We ask that our home be deemed as being in the

safeguarding area, which actually completely surrounds the block. We would like the

opportunity to reap some of the benefits – strange to call them ‘benefits’ – some of the

benefits that being in the safeguarding area would provide us. They’d certainly be

above and beyond the ‘benefits’ we’re going to get now.

440. Failing that, maybe what could happen is our age alone, being 69, looking

forward to 17 years of this and probably dead before the end of it, our age alone is

deemed to be sufficient to entitle us to opt for the need to move criteria of the

compensation should we wish. I think, you know, facing disturbance for the rest of

your life should indicate in itself a need to move. But we don’t get those benefits at the

moment.

441. If we decide we’re not going to move, and I suppose it’s possible because we’re

getting old and all the stress and torment associated with that, we think it only fair that

we be allowed some of the homeowner repayments scheme. So we should get a cash

value to at least allow us to buy respite during the difficult times and to move away and

to come back again. But I do take the point of a previous petitioner that money is not

the thing that cures this, but it’s better than nothing.

442. Finally, I think if we stay we deserve some sort of champion. Somebody who can

monitor the promoter, can report on the promoter’s performance through a wide field of

potential disturbances. To represent us when we need to, when we’re reaching

stalemate with the promoter and somebody else earlier on said, ‘They’ve got all the

cards.’ It is David and Goliath, but David needs his hand held sometimes, and we need

a champion to do that.

443. Finally, maybe to penalise the promoter when they go wrong. It’s all going to go

wrong somewhere because this is the largest capital project this country has ever

known. Because of that, we need special safeguards, because we, along with everybody

on the Ampthill Square Estate, are there in the middle of this. If you’re our age you

won’t survive it anyway.

444. Our only legacy for our children is our flat. We don’t have anything else. But

74

that’s not a sob story. We have a nice flat, and we were looking forward to giving it to

them as a legacy. But the probability is they will assume the legacy halfway through

this maelstrom. So what sort of legacy is that? Even the cost of this project to us will

extend beyond our deaths to our family.

445. So without the financial ability to move, without any sort of humane mitigation or

compensation, the quiet enjoyment of the rest of our lives will, in effect, end, well, the

end of next year. That’s it. Job done. This, we regard, as an unconscionable

unfairness, and possibly even a burning injustice.

446. Thank you for your patience, attention, and interest.

447. CHAIR: Do you have anything to add to what you said about on the spur of the

moment? Okay. We understand your points. Thank you very much.

448. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: When’s the railway supposed to be in operation?

449. MR MOULD QC (DfT): 2026.

450. MR TURNER: 2026.

451. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: For a 69 year old, your average life expectancy is

15 years. 15 plus 2015 takes you to being able to go Birmingham.

452. MR TURNER: We’ve also heard that the disturbance period would be 17 years.

453. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes. That goes on for a year afterwards.

454. MR MOULD QC (DfT): We’re building the first phase by 2026, so that we can

start operating the trains from London to Birmingham and then beyond.

455. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You have a better chance on going on the railway

than I have, but I plan to be on it with you.

456. CHAIR: There’s a challenge. Thank you very much indeed. Right, we now go

on to the last petition, 954, AP3: 102, John James and Louise Fletcher.

John and Louise Fletcher

75

457. MR FLETCHER Good afternoon. Thank you very much for making time to

listen to our concerns. I’m going to try and make this as brief as possible, because I

understand that your committee believes that less is more. As I go through these slides,

if there are any points that you think have already been covered and adequately covered

previously, if you could let me know and we could just carry on.

458. Okay. First slide. Ampthill, a village next to Euston. I believe the select

committee has visited the Ampthill Square Estate, so you know the conditions under

which we live, which are very pleasant. It’s a very, very friendly community. It really

is like living in a village. Apart from a little bit of rail noise, you wouldn’t even know

you’re in the middle of London. Louise and I have lived there for five years, and life on

the estate and in Camden in general is a very exciting experience, although not too

exciting on the estate.

459. Okay. Next slide. First concern I have is regarding air quality. Obviously, we’d

like air quality to be continually monitored so that action can be taken immediately as

soon as it gets to an unacceptable level. We would like to have a baseline established

prior to any construction activity.

460. Dust. Were very concerned about the amount of dust that is going to be created

by the ongoing works in the area. Obviously, as people have said, we feel that Ampthill

is going to be in the centre of a maelstrom for 17 or 18 years. So there’s going to be a

lot of dust kicked up by all the activities going on in and around the estate. We’re

asking for rigorous control methods to be used to reduce dust in the atmosphere. I’ve

read through the Construction Code of Practice and it’s really not very clear as to what

action will be taken as far as controlling dust is concerned.

461. Working hours. I – sorry, next slide. Working hours. We would really

appreciate it if working hours could be restricted to the daytime core hours in and

around the estate. I note in the Construction Code of Practice that there is also a one-

hour window prior to core hours that they can start their equipment and a one-hour

window at the end of operations when they can shut down their equipment. So

effectively core hours are 7 o’clock in the morning till 7 o’clock at night, not 8 o’clock

in the morning to 6.00, as stated. We would really appreciate it if those working hours

could be kept too, but it would appear that we’re in a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week

76

environment as far as working conditions go.

462. Construction program. We would request that the proposed promoter explore

every possibility for reducing the construction program and presence on the estate from

the current 18 year minimum to something more human. Everybody has expressed

concern about the duration of the presence on the estate and how it is going to affect

people’s lives, children and old people and those in between.

463. Construction noise: again, we really need the promoter to do everything that is

humanly possible to control noise. There is very little noise on the estate. I wasn’t

aware of the wind problem up in the high rise blocks, but, apart from that, it’s very

quiet. People come stay with us and they say, ‘I’ve had the best night’s sleep I’ve had

in years because it’s so quiet’. It might have something to do with the beds as well, but

–

464. MR HENDRICK: I think you’re further back though.

465. MR FLETCHER: Yes, we are on the other side of the estate. That’s true.

466. MR HENDRICK: The other ones closer probably get worse.

467. MR FLETCHER: Maybe that’s worse, yes.

468. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Maybe with a coffee you can –

469. MR FLETCHER: Hot chocolate. One of my major concerns and bug bears is

when the construction starts at Euston Station there will be an enormous disturbance of

populations of rats and they will be coming up the lines and towards Ampthill Square,

is my impression. Also, Japanese knotweed has been mentioned earlier. It is one of the

most invasive plants in the world. If that starts being disturbed in the cuttings and

comes on to the estate, then it will be a nightmare to try and actually eradicate it.

470. So, again, we really need something serious from the promoter as to what they

will do about these. Again, in the Construction Code of Practice it mentions these

things, but there’s not a great deal of detail on it.

471. Just a little bit about us, personally: we purchased in December 2010, long after

the 11 March 2010 deadline. The first I heard of HS2 was in January 2012 when it was

77

confirmed it would proceed, and even then I just thought, ‘Mmm. That sounds like a

very big and difficult project but it’s not going to affect me.’ It was only much later I

realised what was going to happen to Ampthill Square Estate.

472. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: My, sort of, delving, shows that some of the values

of homes in the estate have risen by about 40 per cent the last couple of years.

473. MR FLETCHER: Quite possibly, yeah.

474. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think the handkerchief hasn’t come up quite yet.

475. MR FLETCHER: No. I’m just saying this is our personal circumstances, and all

I’m asking is that the promoter accepts the Euston Action Group submission in regards

to compensation.

476. As far as Euston Station goes, as other people have alluded to, there is a lot of

confusion about what is going to happen up until 2033 and then after 2033, as regards

Crossrail and the conventional train requirements. How is that all going to work

alongside HS2. We would dearly love that until there is a coherent plan for Euston

Station, Old Oak Common is used as a temporary terminus.

477. I think that everybody has discussed heavy goods vehicles in detail. My request is

that all material movements both in and out of Euston Station are made by rail. It must

be far more efficient and economical to do it that way. As to buses, we are concerned

about the bus stops in and around the area. We are very well served by bus stops at the

moment. We would like to keep it that way. We don’t own a car. We like to walk or

use public transport, so we would like that to be maintained.

478. Pedestrian access: as I say, we are in the middle of a maelstrom. Pedestrian access

will be very difficult along Hampstead Road and Eversholt Street for the old, infirm and

children. I would really like some reassurance from the promoter that they will maintain

safe access for our youngest and our oldest.

479. This is more on a general basis. It has been previously mentioned that the

promoter uses the phrase ‘where reasonably practical’. I would like to get an agreed

definition of what is ‘reasonably practical’. In my previous experience it is very hard to

reach an agreement after the works have started. As has been said before, there will be

78

great pressure to continue the work and to meet deadlines. ‘Reasonably practical’ to

somebody who is under pressure to meet deadlines will be slightly different to the

interpretation that I would put on it as a resident who is being inconvenienced by those

activities. So, I would like to get to a point of comfort where we both understand what

we are trying to achieve with using phrase like, ‘where reasonably practical’. The Code

of Construction refers to ‘in line with British standards’ and things like that. It is all a

little vague. I would like something more specific. I think that having something

specific will only aid the contractor or the promoter in actually developing their

construction plans rather than having ‘where reasonably practical’. If they have

something absolutely definite it makes the whole plan a lot clearer.

480. The next point is bridges. I think that bridges have probably been discussed

ad nauseam so I will skip that one. The promoter will have a construction compound on

our estate and that compound will take a large number of parking spaces. We would

like the promoter to consider alternative arrangements for parking on the estate for the

18 years that the construction compound will be there.

481. Again, it is inevitable with the work that is going on on the estate that utilities will

be cut off and reinstating those utilities will take some considerable time, so we would

like the promoter to appropriately compensate those who have been cut off.

482. As far as habitability goes, given the amount of activity in and around the estate,

18 years, we would like the promoter to agree an objective test to clearly establish when

homes are no longer habitable.

483. Just on a general statement about the Construction Code of Practice, the

sustainability policy contained within that makes reference to ‘environmental

enhancement’. A one-for-one replacement of trees is hardly an environmental

enhancement. It also refers to ‘no net loss’ to the natural environment and also

challenging industry standards. The whole Construction Code of Practice does not

actually seem to challenge any industry standards at all. In exceptional cases it actually

says it will comply but there are areas, as I have said, where it says it will be ‘in line

with’ rather than ‘comply with’. Those are my concerns. Thank you very much for

your time. It has been a pleasure.

484. CHAIR: Would you like to add anything briefly? Mr Mould: rats, Japanese

79

knotweed?

485. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Gloves off.

486. CHAIR: And car parking. I don’t know if we have heard much about car parking

and I think rodents certainly we haven’t talked about.

487. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Measures to control pests, rodents, are an important part

of the Code of Construction Practice. Slide P11846-21 summarises the approach in

principle. I won’t read that out but most of those are pretty unsurprising. That is what

we would expect, but clearly that will be built into the contracts for work sites to ensure

that they are properly controlled and measures taken to manage, control and prevent

rodent infestation resulting from the works.

488. So far as Japanese knotweed is concerned that is dealt with under Part 9 of the

Draft Code which has detailed arrangements for controlling non-native species. I won’t

read those out but they are set out in that chapter.

489. So far as car parking is concerned, we have an arrangement with Camden as the

parking authority and also, of course, the freeholder of the estate, to develop a plan to

mitigate as far as we can the impact on car parking spaces. I think on this estate our

understanding is that we estimate that we will take about 60 of the car parking spaces

from time to time during the works. Our understanding is that there are about 150 car

parking spaces. At the moment we understand that they are relatively underused so

there should be some leeway at least in terms of the position on the estate itself. I know

when I say things like that people say, ‘No, that’s not true, that’s not true’. That does

not in any way absolve us from working with Camden to manage the impact on car

parking on this estate as elsewhere within the borough.

490. CHAIR: Any final points?

491. MR FLETCHER: Yes, as far as parking goes, you said you would be taking 60

spaces from time to time. I think that time to time will be 18 years.

492. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It varies. All I mean is there may be some variation.

We have said that we will try. One of the things I referred to earlier was our agreement

with Camden to take steps to manage the efficiencies of work sites so if there are

80

opportunities from time to time during the works to adjust work sites so that we can

release back car parking spaces, we have given a commitment that we will look at that.

I am not saying that we will guarantee it but I just want to leave that option open. I am

sure it is a good idea if we can try and cut down, even if it is only for a period, on the

taking of cark parking spaces, if we keep that open.

493. MR FLETCHER: Okay. On pests and vermin my concern is that there will be a

tidal wave of rats coming out of Euston Station and I don’t think that what you have

there takes account of that. It is more concerned about cleanliness on site and ensuring

that you don’t encourage any rats on your location.

494. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Cleanliness on site?

495. MR FLETCHER: Yes. It says, ‘If infestation occurs’. The rats are there already.

496. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No.

497. MR FLETCHER: You are just going to disturb them and drive them out of

Euston Station.

498. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That is only if the preventative measures don’t work.

We have to allow for the fact that prevention may not work in certain circumstances and

then we will have to deal with the infestation as soon as possible but the aim is through,

amongst other things, cleanliness on site to prevent infestation occurring. That is the

current aim.

499. MR FLETCHER: But the infestation is there already. That is what I am saying.

500. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Okay, well in that case we will have to see what we can

do.

501. CHAIR: It will be a problem and I am sure that HS2 are going to have to get over

the problem otherwise all the residents are going to be very upset. Thank you for raising

it.

502. MR FLETCHER: Thank you.

503. CHAIR: And thank you for patiently sitting at the back throughout the Committee

81

to the bitter end and being brief at the end. I appreciate it.

504. MR FLETCHER: A pleasure.

505. CHAIR: Order, order. Could you withdraw from the room, please, so that we

can clear our thoughts from the sitting this morning.

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE - Parliament · Mr Tim Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport...

Documents

Transcript of HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE - Parliament · Mr Tim Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport...