Crossrail exchanges over Liverpool St

Government concern over rising cost shown in Crossrail exchanges over Liverpool St.

The Government's anxiety about works concessions that would add to the cost of building Crossrail became very clear during the long examination of City Corporation and British Land witnesses who were challenging the promoter's decision not to provide a new ticket hall and entrance to Crossrail at Liverpool Street.

The petitioners contend that the current design of the concourse linking Crossrail to Liverpool Street station is wholly inadequate to accommodate the numbers of passengers that are expected to use it.

Responding to questions from Neil Cameron, junior counsel to George Laurence QC who appeared for British Land and the City Corporation, Peter Wynne Rees, the corporation's city planning officer, told the Select Committee that the City is going through a period of strong growth, based largely on the international financial and business sector.

He said: "If we are to do anything which precludes that growth by making it harder for people to reach the City and not gaining maximum advantage from new transport routes that are opened, then the City will go into reverse mode and will start to decline.

So it is extremely important to us, in terms of growth and capacity of the City, that we harness the potential of Crossrail.

"We want to make sure that it works in terms of supporting the important role of the City, and ensuring that during its construction and operation it reaches its full achievement benefit for London as a whole and the City with particular regard to Liverpool Street station.

We believe that it is not able to do that in its current configuration".

Liverpool Street, he said, probably plays the most important role of any station in London and the South East in provision of public transport for those who work in the City, bringing a higher proportion of people to work by train than anywhere else in the world.

Recent research has shown that compared with world output growth at the rate of 3.5 per cent, international financial services growth rate is of the order of 7 per cent.

"One can see that this component of business reflected by London's pre-eminent role in that activity far outstrips any other growth rates".

The finance and business services sector is expected to make the most significant contribution to London's economic growth, some 463,000 out of the estimated 636,000 jobs being created over the period 2001-16.

The growth that is being predicted, said Mr.Rees, would be accommodated to a large degree by an increase in the height of buildings in the eastern part of the City.

The area around Liverpool Street, he said, provides an opportunity through this eastern cluster of taller buildings those than currently exist.

This cluster could make a substantial contribution towards accommodating growth by increasing density and keeping it tightly organised within a particular area.

"These are not simply pipe dreams of developers.

We are seeing these buildings under construction", he said.

As an example, Mr Rees cited the recent application to the City's planning committee for a modest increase in the height of the Heron Tower immediately adjacent to Liverpool Street station.

"We see construction activity in the final phases of Broadgate.

We see keen interest to go ahead as soon as vacant possession is obtained on other high rise buildings in that cluster and the occupiers coming in to fill those buildings as they are being constructed.

The best buildings are attracting the best tenants." Contributions from developers Later in the session, under cross-examination by Government counsel David Elvin QC, it was put to Mr Rees that no policies could be found in the City's unitary development plan which say that major investors in the City in terms of big business and financial services should make a contribution towards upgrading Liverpool Street.

In reply Mr Rees mentioned contributions to upgrading transport contained within the supplementary planning guidance on Section 106 agreements.

He said the City was looking at a major scheme to enhance the streetscape to allow better pedestrian access to the station, and doing things to improve the interchange which were within the City's control.

Mr Elvin suggested that his answer concealed the fact that this kind of improvement was limited to matters on the surface or outside the boundaries of the station.

"You do not require that contributions be made in order to assist the upgrading of facilities to increase capacity within the station?", to which Mr Rees replied, "The sort of contributions that would be available would come nowhere near touching the issues".

"So", said Mr Elvin, "you are content, as a planning authority, to allow your office and business developments to grow without restraint in policy terms and without, at the time of the plan, adoption of a policy of contributions to Liverpool Street?" He then put it to Mr.Rees that Crossrail is being expected not only to redistribute passengers around the network, but to deal specifically with the problems that have built up at Liverpool Street, not just in the macro level, but at the local level as well.

Mr Rees: "No, it is needed to cope with the effects caused by the redistribution which would occur as a result of the building of Crossrail".

Mr Elvin: "Well, your entire case then pivots on Crossrail making a critical difference to the amount of passengers going through Liverpool Street".

Mr Rees: "From the planning point of view, yes." 'Trying to get Crossrail to pay' Later in the proceedings, when Joe Weiss, transportation and projects director for the Corporation of London, was under cross examination by one of David Elvin's juniors, Nathalie Lieven, she suggested that the real motive lying behind British Land's petition and its support by the City Corporation was that they were trying to get Crossrail to pay for expenses following from unconstrained business growth in the City of London.

Ms Lieven took a similar line to Mr Elvin when she put it to Mr Weiss: "You have not asked the Minerva Tower or the Heron Tower or any of these massive new developments to make financial contributions to a new ticket hall at Liverpool Street, have you?" Mr Weiss, non-plussed by this line of questioning, reminded counsel that the policies which govern how and where the City Corporation gives planning permissions were settled in the unitary development plan following policies approved by the Government.

Ms Lieven persisted: "It follows, as night follows day, does it not, Mr Weiss, that if Crossrail becomes heaped with too much cost, too much additional time and too many additional problems, the chances of it being delivered quickly, let alone affordably, go down?".

Mr Weiss said that was a very broad topic for comment.

What he wanted to see was a railway fit for purpose at the outset, able to cope with the future from the beginning, and not a sticking plaster and string approach which just meets the process to be addressed in five or ten years' time.

The whole question of contributions from developers is an issue fraught with controversy and not one that the Select Committee can deal with directly.

It is something the Government might have looked at when drafting the Bill, were it not more concerned at obtaining powers to relieve owners of their property at less than market value.

In any case, as evidence from British Land made clear later on, the developers are already making significant contributions by way of the Section 106 tariff levied on new developments by the City of London Corporation.

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