Andrew Dismore

78. CHAIR: Okay. We’ll take that as your final plea and we’ll reflect on what you’ve said. I think you do have a good point, that where there are local businesses, small businesses, being disrupted, I don’t think it unreasonable, if possible, for the contractors locally to put work in your direction. I’ve noticed about Central London, it’s very difficult to find garages these days. A lot of them turn into blocks of flats. Anyway. Thank you very much for putting your case to the Committee. Right. We now go to 732, AP3: 3, Andrew Dismore, member of London Assembly and late of this parish. Welcome, Andrew.

 

Andrew Hartley Dismore

 

79. MR DISMORE: Thank you, Chair. I suppose it’s good to be back, but I’m glad I’m not doing your job.
80. CHAIR: Well you’re on the Standards Committee. I wouldn’t have that job.
81. MR DISMORE: Okay, shall I start?
82. CHAIR: Yes.
83. MR DISMORE: What I want to do is to go over a lot of the ground that you’ve seen already. So I do stand by my petitions, but I’m not going to go through the detail of most of that. There’s no point, because you’ve covered a lot of that already, and I know Keir is going to go through compensation with you, I think, tomorrow, so I’m not going to deal with that either. I do want to say a few things about mitigation, because whilst mitigation reduce the adverse impact of the works, we are going to see these for 17 years and it’s going to be quite a blight on a lot of people for a lot of time. I want to deal firstly with the question of community engagement. Could I see slide A16963, please? This is just a quick point.
84. CHAIR: The system is slowing a bit, because it’s got so many documents on it. We were taking bets at the beginning of the process how many…
85. MR DISMORE: Yeah, okay. Can’t get it. Oh well. Well, if we had got the slide, what I was going to try and illustrate on the slide is the different between the Kings Cross opportunity area, which is effectively a very large brownfield site, the Tottenham Court Road one, which is effectively a business site, and Euston opportunity area, which is almost entirely residential, apart from the businesses you’ve been hearing from. This is not a brownfield site, and it does need therefore to have some consideration for the residents who live there, and I’ve been involved as the assembly member for almost four years. I’ve attended many meetings, by no means all, and I share the frustration of that community who asked many reasonable questions but got very little in the way of answers.
86. There’s very little trust between the community and HS2, and that stretches beyond the community to me and other elected representatives as well. We’ve seen continuity of HS2 representatives dealing with the public. We’ve had four different people in four different years, and HS2 seem to judge the output by the number of meetings rather than the outcomes that are achieved for residents. In fact, for example, we wasted six months just discussing the terms of reference for these meetings, and it seems to me that HS2 are incapable of negotiating with the community, and a lot of the issues that you’re having to deal with now could have been resolved rather than seeing these repeated concerns expressed time and again to your Committee.
87. I’ll give you an example. After four years of community engagement, we still don’t know which homes will have what work done and when for noise mitigation work, even for those that are obviously going to be affected, and that’s the sort of thing that could easily have been resolved with some proper negotiation and discussion with the community. That’s the context. I’m particularly interested now in the future engagement with the community, which is going to be via Camden Council, I guess. What I’m concerned about in the Camden letter of assurance is that seems to be more about dissemination of information, rather than actual engagement with the community, allowing the community to influence the process.
88. The concern is that it’s going to be the same old, rather than a real and effective system, rather than theoretical and illusionary, and I think one of the concerns is that the Camden document has Health and Safety at Work Act language and a lot of reasonable practicabilities which give a lot of room for manoeuvre. So I think we need to have key performance indicators to monitor effective change and regular feedback and outcomes, and that’s the first thing I’d ask for. I think we need to have some form of community representation on the ESSRB. Meetings in public, you can of course have reserve meetings to discuss matters which are quite rightly confidential, but we all know public bodies do meet in large part in public and I think it would do an awful lot for transparency about the process if that were the case here.
89. Above all, I think we need to see a fundamental change in corporate attitude, which seems to be – the corporate culture of HS2 is make it happen, don’t listen, plough on, and that has created this great ill feeling amongst the community, which I think you’ve seen expressed as these hearings have gone on. I think we need to see an independent complaints commissioner with enforcement powers. We’ve seen in the Crossrail complains commissioner somebody who is there, but it seems to take an awful long time to go anywhere, and I’ve got examples which I won’t go through, of trying to resolve complaints and the Commissioner in the end hasn’t got much power to do anything. If I go on to Euston Station. Have we got slides 169622? I did send this list in, so…
90. CHAIR: Okay. Well, we have them in a file in front of us anyway, so you can speak to your…
91. MR DISMORE: Well, what these slides illustrate – 169622 and 169621. No? Well, I think the point I want to make here is the need for Crossrail 2 and phase 2 to be funded and integrated together, not seen as separate projects. I know the ESSRB terms of reference involve Camden overseeing A to D on all the different phases, but in fact they are all split up, and you’ll see all the different phases here. HS2 is here, then you’ve got the old station and you’ve got the impact on Somers Town, which is what I’m particularly concerned about, which is particularly illustrated on slide 21 and 22, it’s block 5 on 21, and the problem here is the impact – we can’t get the slides unfortunately.
92. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’re on the Somers Town area?
93. MR DISMORE: The Somers Town area.
94. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Where we saw the playground and various other things behind the church.
95. MR DISMORE: Yeah. The point about this is, because this is not being done as a project altogether, we’re going to lose potentially an extra 130 homes and seven businesses in the Somers Town area for Crossrail 2, because Crossrail 2 now has to take on these sites in Somers Town, because of the uncertainty over what’s going to happen with the classic station. It makes a lot more sense to do the whole thing in one go with the Crossrail 2 station integrated into the classic station, integrated into the whole. I would hope the Committee will regard it as important that all the projects over and above those set out in the bill are done together and in time. Euston needs to be funded as a comprehensive development package and not split up, to minimise the impact on the community directly affected by HS2, but also the community in Somers Town and further afield.
96. CHAIR: I think we got the point that it needs to be planned as an overall project. Whether or not it’s phased in terms of funding, which I think is probably more likely, but we certainly pick up the point about the impact of Crossrail 2 on the community as well, having difficulties and then having further difficulties, which can be planned away, if done together.
97. MR DISMORE: Okay. Can I go onto mitigation? The concern here is the work that’s starting under the Paving Act, and last week, it was indicated that by starting the utility works first, HS2 won’t put in place the noise mitigation package until the next phase of work that’s coming under the bill commences, and the reason for this that, although the figure, the highest level of noise, that’s the utility works in the street, they don’t show you the noise mitigation methods, because noise levels are not exceeded for a sufficiently long period. We want to wait for the Hybrid Bill before doing sound insulation.
98. Now, you do actually have, in the green fold-out, the first slide, even if we haven’t got it on the screen, the actual slide number is A1678112. Can we get that one? No. We can see in here the area that’s affected, that one…
99. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ve got it down as 17742.
100. MR DISMORE : Ah, hooray, yes. That one. So you can see from here how wide the area potentially affected by sound insulation is, and if we’ve got the next slide, which is 11848(17), by any chance? All right.
101. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: No.
102. MR DISMORE: Oh well. P1184817. No?
103. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which shows?
104. MR DISMORE: Which shows the extent of the utility works. In fact, there are two slides. One is the wider are and the other one is Mornington Terrace, which shows in a bit more detail just one of the utility sites. The point about it is that the list of works to trigger mitigation doesn’t include, for example, utilities diversions, nor, for example, the construction of maintenance compounds, all of which are incredibly noisy works, and a particular practical problem will arise if there’s insulation at a later stage, because by then we’ll have road closures in place, parking suspensions and so. So even if they want to do mitigation work, getting the vans in to install the double glazing or whatever it happens to be, is going to be that much harder than doing it from the beginning.
105. It is work that’s going to have to be done anyway. Why do it from the start to protect everybody from as much noise as they possibly can, including the most noisy, which is the utility works? Some of which will go on for some considerable time, even if they are temporary works. So my ask is that HS2 should look at the whole program of works to see if the whole package qualifies, and if the whole package does qualify, then the sound insulation should be put in place before any work is done, including digging up the roads and any demolition for creating the work sites. There’s also an issue around the noise insulation quality.
106. In the Mornington Terrace evidence, I think it was quite recently, they asked for confirmation that all building regulations would be applied when assessing the impacts on a house of the noise insulation package. The response was, I quote: ‘I’m sure petitioners will understand it would not be appropriate to apply all buildings regulations that apply to new building’. Well, obviously, for example, things to do with energy conservation, we’d accept that, but I think the argument here is that those that relate to health and safety should be put in place, because I think that most people would accept that health and safety regulations, so far as the other regulations ought to be applied; those that deal with heat ventilation, damp, fire and noise and so on.
107. We haven’t an answer to that as yet. I think we also want to see the independent advisory service, as proposed by the local authority noise consortium, for residents to access advice in relation to noise insulation. Going on to the issue of traffic, I’m going to try my luck again, slide P11315(6), P11315(5). Looks like that. I’m just getting a little bit ahead of myself to see if I can find it while I’m making a point.
108. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s the pattern of vehicle movements?
109. MR DISMORE: Yes.
110. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: Are they under a different number? Is that possible?
111. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): This is in the pack of exhibits, so I think…
112. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: Under which tab?
113. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I don’t know, because I wasn’t the one citing it. I think it’s in the tab E, I think.
114. MR HENDRICK: It’s not there, is it?
115. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): No. I think Mr Dismore was referring to slides in the Euston Standard Pack, which I think is P11315, if you can…
116. MR DISMORE: Anyway. I did send a list in last week, but there you go. That’s life. What’s new? Same old. Well, I’ll make the points anyway.
117. CHAIR: Yeah.
118. MR DISMORE: The traffic modelling has been done on strategic roads only. Displacement of traffic has been predicted in their diversionary flows assessment onto secondary roads. There’s been no modelling done to see if the secondary i.e. residential roads can take the level of traffic flows after diversions. So we’ve got no real idea what needs to be put in place as a consequence of this, and if we look at the volume of traffic, that’s what the blue and orange lines show, the blue lines – ah, hooray, yes. Which one are we on? Yeah, the top one. That’s it.
119. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: On three…
120. MR DISMORE: Five, that’s it. 3.55, that’s it. If we look at this one, the blue lines are the spoil traffic, and even if that was taken out by rail, taking 75 per cent of it, you’ll still see there’s a huge problem left, which is the orange lines, and the first question is: why can’t some of the inward materials like concrete and steel be transported by rail? If they’re bringing empty trucks in, they might as well have something in them before they take them out again with a spoil on.
121. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It might be because the trucks are different.
122. MR DISMORE: Yeah, but the point I’m making is, we’ve still got a lot of traffic here. If you take the example of Delancey Street, this is going to be used as a construction route, there’ll be an extra 40 or so HGVs coming down there. Not a large impact in itself, but what we don’t know is what the estimate of the other HS2 traffic and public traffic is going to be on that road. I think there’s a real risk of gridlock, if we look at Hampstead Bridge works for example, and all the lane closures at the junction of Parkway and Delancey Street. This could cause complete gridlock. Now, as well as being on the London Assembly, I’m also a member of the Fire Authority, and I’m very concerned about the impact on emergency vehicles, particularly Fire Authority vehicles, the Fire Brigade.
123. We’ve had a couple of fires recently, persons reported north of Euston Road, one in Camden Road and one in Belsize, and it took the fire engines from south of Euston Road, because the other ones were out, over a quarter of an hour to get there, which made it very difficult indeed when the target time is actually six minutes. Luckily, in the first one, nobody was injured. In the second one, somebody did die, but whether it was a consequence of the fire engine not getting there on time we have to wait for the inquest. So I’m very concerned about the impact on emergency services, particularly Fire Authority, which I represent, but also the ambulance service which was recently put into special measures.
124. It’s no real answer to say people can do it on blue light, even if you’re on blue lights, if the traffic is gridlocked up, it’s still got to get through and it still takes time to work its way through. I’m also concerned about Euston Road and the need for pedestrians and cyclists to get across what is a pretty impenetrable barrier under the proposals. The last points I want to raise relate to air quality. For this, I’d like slide, if we can find it, P11248(5). No? Ah, hooray. Yes, good. Okay.
125. CHAIR: That surprised you, didn’t it?
126. MR DISMORE: It did rather, yeah. Well, there you go. The last is always the best. HS2 are only monitoring the main roads for air quality, and if we look at the impact of 800 HGVs on Euston Road, which is already heavily polluted, are to the current traffic about 40,000 a day on Euston Road, it’s not going to make a huge impact, but no monitoring is being done at points on the residential secondary roads to establish year-long baseline levels. Now, the red blobs you see here are predictions of substantial and moderate adverse air quality effects, including many on residential roads, but what they’re based on, there is no baseline monitoring data.
127. It’s claimed that this will include diversionary flows, but as there’s been no local road modelling done, which I referred to earlier on, how can these be reliable as they stand? So the ask here is that we need to have monitoring of air quality now where levels are much lower prior to any HS2 changes, and obviously, rather than on the trunk roads, so the level of increase can be established over the period when HS2 comes in. So I hope we can have the Committee recommending that there should be baseline air quality monitoring in the residential areas for a year, so we can actually see what the impact is going to be once the traffic is diverted and the air quality starts to deteriorate in the residential roads, as opposed to trunk roads where the work has been directed. That’s it.
128. CHAIR: Okay. Thank you very much, Andrew. Mr Strachan?
129. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. Firstly, in relation to community engagement, can I Just obviously refer to the amount of community engagement that has taken place? We haven’t always seen eye to eye, obviously, on all the issues, but there has been extensive community engagement, and of course, a number of assurances have come into place before petitioners reached the Committee to resolve issues. Obviously, they can’t resolve everything by way of discussion, but perhaps more positively, if I could just refer you to the Camden assurance, P11427, page 10, you’ll see that there is a process there for yet further engagement to take place, both for the design development of Euston Station, that’s on P11427(10), and assurance for public engagement in the design development of Euston Station.
130. 4.2, we have offered assurance to engage with the London Borough of Camden on the development on the community engagement framework aimed at ensuring all sections of the community, including businesses and individuals, are made aware of developments in relation to the construction program and local impacts. So there are two process of further engagement to go forward. One relates to the whole of the Euston Station design, and the second is specifically designed to deal with construction impacts and assuring everyone is aware of what is going on. Those are then coupled with the provisions about advance information, to try and minimise the effects.
131. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: Mr Strachan, I think Mr Dismore’s point was that these meetings should be in public to aid transparency.
132. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, that community engagement process will be public. I think Mr Dismore was probably directing that particular comment to the strategic board, which is a separate board that is set up under the assurances with Camden and TfL. You’ve seen those assurances previously. I’ll just refer you to those. That is a board which will work under paragraph 1 of the Camden assurance on page 3, which we haven’t got up yet. See, it’s not just you, Mr Dismore. The system, I’m afraid, is not functioning well today, but P11427(3) for the record, that is the clause dealing with delivering Euston Station, working collaboratively. There’s a similar assurance for TfL as well.
133. That sets out a process for the participation of the Euston Strategic Board with appropriate governance arrangements with membership of that board to deal with the wider strategic issues for the Euston area. It picks up on a point about Crossrail, because one of the things that that board is going to do looking forward is to look at the more strategic issues for the redevelopment of Euston Station, and the integration of a number of projects in the area, not just with HS2 Euston Station, but the mainline station, Crossrail 2 proposals at Euston and other oversight development under the Euston area plan.
134. The membership of that, that is intended to be a strategic board where confidential commercial matters can be discussed and that’s why that strategic board has the membership it does. It’s not intended to be a public forum, but it’s intended to look at the strategic issues for those particular bodies, both of whom, as I’ve said, London Borough of Camden and TfL of course, representing wider public interests. So I think that’s what that point was directed at, but that’s an explanation of why that board has the membership it does. That’s not to say of course there isn’t detailed public participation in the design of Euston Station through the assurance I’ve just read out.
135. The details of which under clause 4 set out some of the measures that have been taken – 4.1, we can’t get it on the screen, but I’ll just give you a flavour of it, ‘open engagement exercise with public exhibitions, leaflet drops, interactive online materials and related publicity’. That has to occur in 2016, no later than six months following the appointment of the design teams on preferred options for the design of Euston Station, and a preferred prior to submissions to the planning authority for approval. That’s a separate process of public engagement, with some very specific measures designed to engage everyone in the area in the design of the Euston Station.
136. That’s distinct from the more strategic issues where those other projects are going to be looked at to secure an integrated approach to Euston itself. So there is quite a lotof meat in the assurance, which I can’t unfortunately on the screen, but it is – that engagement clause 4 of the letter. The complaints commissioner, I think you’ve already heard about the construction commissioner, the way it’s intended to operate and the ultimate sanctions elevated up, if necessary, to Secretary of State. Of course, we hope that won’t be necessary. I think the Crossrail 2, I’ve dealt with – is covered under that way forward for TfL and Camden.
137. Utility works, can I just emphasise, utility works have been assessed as part of the environmental statement as works which form part of the project. So the traffic effects of them have been identified, the noise effects of them have been identified, consequential disruption has been assessed, and of course, a realistic worst case scenario has been put forward, but we – where there’s noise insulation that’s been identified as necessary for properties, it is generally not as a result of utility works, because of the relatively short duration of those sorts of works which are very much of the type which would occur in a road with normal utility works, with a rolling program.
138. That said, bearing in mind the assurance we’ve given to Camden about noise insulation, the process for surveying, taking place in the spring of 2016, and the desire to get it in as soon as reasonably practicable, as it happens, the process of that process is likely to lead to noise insulation going in earlier rather than later. It will need to be in before any works occur, which are the trigger for noise insulation. As I previously explained, the assurances we’ve given as to the program is likely to lead to in going in earlier than it’s actually required, and that will of course have a knock-on benefit for works that may be going on before the noise works that trigger it. Likewise, if noise insulation stays in place, it also has knock-on benefits for the residents.
139. That’s the program is currently working. Of course, you’ve heard already about the process for going into properties to look on a site-by-site basis as to what is required and the most effective way to deal with them, bearing in mind their characteristics, andof course whether they’re listed or whatever.
140. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: Sorry, Mr Strachan, before you move off that, could you give an answer to Mr Dismore’s point about building regulations? Because building regulations or noise have changed considerably over the last few months and they are few stringent than they were, involving things like insulating walls where noise is a problem. This could have a very expensive effect on the HS2 project. So I think we need a fairly careful answer on that.
141. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): The general position is that our works don’t disapply other pieces of legislation less specifically provided for in the Bill. So we’re not disapplying, for example, health and safety legislation which might otherwise be application, and noise insulation which is put in will have to be done safely to ensure the property is safe. What I think Mr Dismore may have been referring to are building regulations which would be applicable to a new property, and there are different building regulation standards that apply to new properties, which relate to, for example, energy efficiency.
142. They may also relate to some of the internal design properties, some of which would now be designed to very different standards of that which you might find currently in, for example, Mornington Terrace, which is what he referred to. Those are older buildings. They will have internal designs which wouldn’t necessarily meet modern building regulations for a new property. In putting in noise insulation, we’re not going to be doing anything that’s unsafe in that sense. We will be required to comply with the legislation which is applicable to putting in noise insulation and the relevant building regulations that apply to that noise insulation if you’re inserting it into a property.
143. What we’re not signing up to, and I don’t think anyone could reasonably sign up, is meeting all building regulations for any such property, which would apply to a new-build property. So I hope that gives some level of reassurance, but what we can’t do is do works to a property which wouldn’t be required, particularly for some of these older buildings which are not new-build and couldn’t be expected to comply with all building regulations. There is something specific, and I think it might be in IPE23. I’m just trying to lay my hands on it, which talks about compliance with relevant building regulations on mechanical ventilation standards and might be double glazing or secondary glazing, but not as if it’s a new-build property.
144. So I think that’s the only difference between us. If I’ve got that wrong, then let me know. On the traffic assessments, just to be clear, we do assess for the traffic effects, including diversionary traffic effects for the wider area. There’s some very detailed traffic modelling that has been done and updated in light of the further AP3 and supplementary environmental statement, and on top of that of course, the Committee will be well aware of our need for transport management plans to be agreed with the highway authority, to avoid the gridlock which Mr Dismore has referred to, and specifically, to consult with the emergency services as part of the formulation of those traffic management plans, because we are well aware and want to secure continued emergency access for properties as you’d expect.
145. That’s part of the process of the detailed approval of the transport management plans that we will have to go through. I’ll see if I can find that reference to the noise insulation package, but other than that, those are the principal points. Sorry, I should just refer to air quality. There’s an air quality assurance that’s been provided to Camden, which applies on a route-wide basis, which we’ve shown you before. That deals with the process of how air quality will be dealt with. We are focussing on anywhere there are identified significant environmental effects. There has already been data used for the model to be created for air quality effects to be predicted.
146. Some of that is existing monitoring or monitoring stations in local areas, existing baseline data that exists from, I think, either Camden or TfL, I forget which, and then a further process of where we’re identifying significant effects on very much a realistic, worst case scenario. So we’re using the peak levels of traffic. We’re showing certain, very conservative assumptions. That then leads forward to the basis for the further work that will take place, which has been the subject of an assurance provided to Camden, I think – I’ll just give you the reference, P11422 – and then a subsequent assurance, P11418, which is set out in a letter to Camden dated 27 November 2015, dealing with air pollution monitoring pre and during construction, and the approach which has been agreed with the London Borough of Camden as to the correct way to go about the future monitoring of air quality is in this area, arising from construction.
147. CHAIR: Okay.
148. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Reference to the relevant building is in 10.3 of our assurance given to the London Borough of Camden in that long letter which was first in compliance with the relevant building regulations so far as noise insulation and mechanical ventilation is concerned.
149. CHAIR: Thank you. Brief final comments?
150. MR DISMORE: Yes. Community engagement. As I said, HS2 monitor it by the number of meetings rather than the outcomes of those meetings. As far as I’m aware, only Camden Cutting Group have had any assurances out of this process as far as residents groups are concerned. I think that when Mr Strachan says the Camden assurance says that people were made aware of what’s going on, that’s exactly the point. People don’t want to be made aware – well, they do want to be made aware – but providing information isn’t the same as allowing people to influence the process. That’s what people want to be able to do, to influence the process, not simply be treated like mushrooms, which is what they’re particularly worried about.
151. As far as the ESSRB is concerned, of course, I fully accept that its meetings can’t entirely be in public, but a lot of it can be. If it’s dealing with broad scale strategic issues, a lot of those meetings could be in public. We’ve all been in public life. We’ve all seen local authorities meet partly in public, partly in private. There’s no reason why commercial confidential material couldn’t be dealt with be in private and broad strategic considerations dealt with in public. I think it’s really important that we do have some community representation on that board, of course subject to the same criteria as anybody else on a public board.
152. As far as the utility works are concerned, it depends on what you mean by ‘short duration’, I think, and if that work is going to have to be done anyway for noise insulation, I can’t honestly see what the objection is to doing it before the whole of the program starts, including the utility redirection works, some of which are going to be extremely noisy, extremely big and will go on for some time. Obviously not the 18 years whatever it is for HS2 as a whole, but certainly some of it will be potentially months, I think. It would actually be far more practical to do it before the whole thing rather than afterwards.
153. As far as the traffic and air quality issue is concerned, the point I make here is: where is the baseline for the residential areas on air quality? Those statistics don’t exist. You can try and do predictions, but it’s not the same as actually measuring the residential areas baseline air quality, and that’s what we’re asking for.
154. CHAIR: Thank you very much. Nice to see you again as well.
155. MR DISMORE: Thank you.