Single-drive Crossrail tunnelling alternative

Tower Hamlets backs single-drive Crossrail tunnelling as viable alternative strategy.

Tower Hamlets backs single-drive Crossrail tunnelling as viable alternative strategy.

It will be some time before the House of Commons Select Committee on the Crossrail Bill turns its attention to the situation in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

This authority in the heart of the East End, next door to the City of London and taking its name from the Tower of London, supports Crossrail as a major transport improvement promoting growth in East London.

But it is proving a formidable opponent to the methods the promoters are adopting to build the new railway.

As the borough's petition against the Bill says, the preferred strategy of the joint promoters Department for Transport and Transport for London involves launching the tunnelling machines from a shaft in Spitalfields.

This is a highly sensitive area in which many buildings go back to the 17th century and where there is much concern about the damage that could be caused not only by the tunnelling works but by heavy construction traffic.

Spitalfields is also the home of the Bangladeshi community centred on Brick Lane.

Tower Hamlets is calling for a thorough re-evaluation of the Crossrail base case, and adoption of a single-drive tunnelling strategy with the aim of avoiding Whitechapel and Spitalfields altogether.

The council leader Michael Keith says that Arup, to whom the question of 'end-to-end' tunnelling has been referred, reported that this is a viable option, and he wants it to be explored.

The council's attitude is that it will not allow Brick Lane to be 'served up on a plate' to Crossrail.

It alleges that the joint venture has failed to explain properly why it cannot tunnel from either end of the route and avoid the need to use a major tunnel entrance in Hanbury Street (off Brick Lane).

It is also demanding more stringent environmental safeguards to limit the noise, dust and other negative impacts of the construction project on local people.

The council's petition claims that the reports produced by Crossrail to justify the choice of the Hanbury Street site are not sufficient to discharge the duty to convince those who live and work in the borough that this is the right way to go about the job.

"Your petitioners are concerned that the promoter has not yet justified the need to launch tunnel-boring machines from the Spitalfields area in order to meet their six year construction schedule".

""Your petitioners are particularly concerned about this issue because, if such a launch could be avoided, it would preclude the need for the construction of the adit to Pedley Street, the Pedley Street site itself, the conveyor system running to Mile End Park, the Mile End Park holding area and the transportation of spoil by rail from the Sand End railway sidings.

"Following careful consideration, your petitioners take the view that tunnel boring machines should not be launched or serviced from the Spitalfields area." It added, "Were the promoter to be authorised to implement the current plans for Hanbury Street, there would be substantial disruption to residents and the commercial activities currently carried on there, including significant compulsory acquisition of relevant properties and consequent loss of the businesses concerned." If notwithstanding these objections, the tunnelling site from Hanbury Street is pursued, the petition asks that the promoter should continue to explore alternative means of removing spoil, at present involving a lengthy conveyor feeding an excavated material handling site.

Conveyor belt manoeuvres 'worthy of a Disneyland ride'.

Developing this theme, the Tower Hamlets Environment Trust, which among other things builds 'green homes' for local people to rent or buy on shared equity, has told the Select Committee that the schemes complained of to dispose of the spoil are a consequence of the decision to launch tunnel-boring machines from Spitalfields.

"The proposal to move spoil from the Spitalfields worksite to the Mile End area by means of a long conveyor belt on the side of the Great Eastern Railway viaduct, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, risks causing nuisance to residents along its length".

""Even if the belt is successfully fully covered so that dust does not escape, it seems very improbable that it can be soundproofed sufficiently to stop noise escaping, either from the belt itself as it travels over drive units and bearings, or from gearing as it is boosted along its journey, or from extractors dealing with the build-up of dust inside, or from individual trucks and/or containers if that is the solution adopted.

"These are many possible creators of nuisance, none of which has been explained in any detail at all, or assessed for its environmental effects, by the Crossrail team.

"Nor have they been able to provide any examples of this kind of conveyor in operation, and certainly not in a densely built-up inner urban residential area.

Your petitioners are extremely sceptical about this aspect of the project." This text, drafted by Dr Michael Dempsey, secretary of the environment trust, says that at its eastern end the conveyor belt will have to engage in manoeuvres worthy of a Disneyland ride.

"As it approaches Mile End, it will need to cross over the Great Eastern tracks from its position on the south side of the viaduct, to reach the proposed soil dump and stockpile on the north side at Mile End Park.

"To do this, it will need to clear not just the trains, but also the overhead line electrification catenaries and support masts".

"These are already on top of a viaduct - so the resultant height of the conveyor, as it crosses the tracks on a long skew to maintain belt speed, will be of the order, your petitioners would guess, of 15-18 metres above ground level.

"Not only that, but it then has to come back again from the spoil dump/stockpile, over the same OHLE wires and masts, to get back to the transfer station on the other side.

Thus there will be two of these improbable structures adorning the sky, in this area of housing, hospital, university, canal and popular open space." This, says the document, will result in a very large spoil heap in Mile End Park itself, 10 to 12 metres high according to the Crossrail team.

"The use of a large tract of public park is of course the easy option for a construction project, compared with acquiring and using any other sort of property.

But this is the recently created and high profile Mile End Park in a tightly built and quite deprived part of London." Mile End Park is designated as Metropolitan Open Land where there is a presumption against any development at all.

"It may be argued that this is merely a temporary loss.

That may technically be true.

But this part of the park will be out of use for the best part of a decade - that is the whole of the childhood of many local children, and part of it for almost all the others".

"The concept 'temporary' means something entirely different to a child than to an engineer." Use of a large central chunk of the park for the spoil dump will, the environment trust contends, impose a severe break on the ability of various species to use it as part of a chain of routes between important green spaces and water bodies".

"This would be a worry if it were only of limited scale, duration or daily operation".

"Seven to ten years, with 100 per cent occupation and twenty-four hour activity, seven days a week, is a very serious break indeed.".

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