PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Wednesday 2 July 2014

Afternoon sitting

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

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

Ian Mearns Yasmin Qureshi

_____________

IN ATTENDANCE:

Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel

Jacqueline Lean, Counsel Professor Andrew McNaughton, Technical Director, HS2

Ralph Smyth, CPRE

_____________

IN PUBLIC SESSION

2

INDEX

Subject Page

Promoter’s Presentation (Cont’d) 3

Representation from CPRE 13

3

(at 14.07)

1. CHAIR: Order, order. Would you like to continue with your presentation,

Mr McNaughton? Mr Mould?

2. MR MOULD (DfT): Just before, can I just pick up on a point that was left

hanging in relation to public rights of way across the retained cutting at Cubbington

Wood? The scheme provides for the diversion of Mill Lane and the footpaths over a

new bridge. The effect of that is that Shakespeare’s Avon Way and Millennium Way at

the wood, which were those rights of way you saw on the map this morning, are retained

on a slightly different alignment, but it is a matter of a few yards. I am also able to say

that because of the phased construction that is proposed at that point, we expect to be

able to keep public access through the wood available throughout the construction

process. Thank you.

3. CHAIR: Good, excellent. You’re on.

4. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Thank you. If I may, there was a point also

hanging about the cost of the eight and a half mile Chiltern Tunnel. The basic civil

engineering cost is circa £1 billion. We have to add to that the cost of tunnel safety

systems and ventilation systems, but they are not so expensive as the basic civils. So,

£1 billion plus, I think, if you could just hold that in your mind. That will be true also

for the next tunnel we come to, which is of similar length.

5. However, we broke at the Colne Valley. If I could draw you back to the picture

of the CGI of the Colne Valley Viaduct,1 at the point we broke we were remembering

that the Chiltern Tunnel came out underneath the M25 in the far distance, came down

the hill past the area which we were just discussing as the construction area for that

tunnel, and then goes on to a two-mile long viaduct across the Colne Valley, part of

which is water. Certainly, when I was a child these were gravel extraction pits. It is

now, as you can see, both a leisure facility and also home to waterfowl and other water

margin environmental aspects.

1 P2: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cmhs2/2july.htm

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6. The train has been left on that to give a sense of scale of the viaduct itself. The

train is a 400 metre long train, so a quarter of a mile essentially. On the London side of

the crossing of the water is the Hillingdon Outdoor Activity Centre, often known simply

by its initials, HOAC. It is that which we cross on viaduct on the alignment of the

scheme. Also on this bank on this side of the valley is the mid-Colne Valley SSSI. It is

a SSSI for water margins and waterfowl. In the middle, running almost at 90 degrees to

this viaduct, is the Grand Union Canal passing through the area, that very straight line

heading from the bottom left on a diagonal to the top right. The last feature just to

mention here is that the railway has been routed to get into the corridor of the Chiltern

Main Line. Right at the bottom of your picture in the bottom left corner is that Chiltern

Main Line so you can see we are getting close to it at that point.

7. As to trying to give us a sense of the height of the viaduct in amongst the trees

we have also created an image based on winter foliage, which is the next image. This is

a picture just looking along the Grand Union Canal with the potential type of viaduct

superimposed upon it to give a sense that the viaduct appears as something like 50

metres apart generally, and we dropped the level to run essentially at the height of tree

tops. So, rather than just talking in abstract metres, it seems easier to say that it’s kind

of tree top height going through that area.

8. Having crossed the Colne Valley and the mid-Colne SSSI mentioned, the line

then swings to line up with the corridor of the Chiltern Main Line, which I think you can

see there as it approaches the first parts of suburban outer London and, more

particularly, West Ruislip in the Borough of Hillingdon. At that point, just where we

get to the approach to West Ruislip, the railway moves into a bored tunnel again. This

is another bored tunnel of eight and a half miles. It is to within a few yards the same

length as the Chiltern Tunnel we were discussing a moment or two ago. It similarly has

air shafts, albeit now in a more suburban and then urban setting. The alignment of the

tunnel is broadly underneath the Chiltern Main Line and for those who are familiar with

that part of London, adjacent to it after a couple of miles is also a branch of the Central

Line. So, we are basically running a tunnel as far as we can under a railway corridor.

9. The tunnel purpose there, after public consultation and after further design work,

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reflected the fact that although the land is fairly level, the multiple crossings by roads

and all manner of main utilities that service West London meant that if we built the

railway on the surface, as well as obviously having an effect on the community, it was

going to be very disruptive indeed to both transport and main utilities such as gas, water,

sewerage and the like. Therefore, the Secretary of State made the decision that on the

basis of disruption to West London, the route should be put into a tunnel.

10. MR MEARNS: Can I just clarify, before the lane descends into the tunnel it

appears to skirt the edge of, or cut an edge off, the Ruislip Golf Club. I am not a golf

fetishist.

11. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: No, you are very observant. Yes, it is one of a

number of golf courses where in order to avoid other features, particularly property and

dwellings, the need to reconfigure golf courses and take part of the land is a central part

of the scheme. Apologies if I trod too lightly across that area. I am conscious of

having taken a lot of your time today already.

12. It is a similar length tunnel, as I said, which means that there are another four

shafts and we have denoted them on both this image and the next one, which is now

coming into Old Oak Common, with the dots, as I showed you earlier on the Chiltern

Tunnel.

13. CHAIR: Can I ask you, when we looked at the Chiltern Tunnel, at the end of it

there was a large area for works spoil. Presumably the big difficulty with tunnelling is

that you have to put all the stuff somewhere?

14. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes.

15. CHAIR: Is there anywhere at this end or are you going to use the same area as

the Chilterns?

16. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: No. The Chilterns area was particularly big

because of the previous Secretary of State’s decision that we should only bore from one

direction because otherwise we would have to set up a large site smack in the middle of

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the Chilterns. On this one the intention is to bore it from both ends simultaneously so

there will be – forgive me, for the purposes of today we have not highlighted it – a

significant construction site in the West Ruislip area and there will also be a significant

construction site at the Old Oak Common end of the tunnel as well.

17. CHAIR: How far between the Chiltern Tunnel and the tunnel in West London is

in open air, above ground?

18. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: From memory, about four miles.

19. CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

20. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: So, if I can then say, the line comes out of the

tunnel just on the final approach into Old Oak Common and there are various reasons

for it to come in and out of short lengths of tunnel to do with ventilation and technical

features.

21. CHAIR: Can you remind me what you said earlier about speed? Presumably

the speed comes down as you get to London?

22. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Our top speed earlier on the route was 225

miles an hour. You are absolutely right to pick me up. I apologise, I forgot to say.

Because of the challenges of tunnelling, of bringing trains in tunnels, when we get to the

Chilterns Tunnel the speed drops to 200 miles an hour and then it stays at 200 miles an

hour until it is well on the way through the Northolt Tunnel.

23. CHAIR: Is some of that because of venting problems?

24. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: It is very challenging to go any faster through

long tunnels, and perhaps on another occasion I might be permitted to expand on that,

but not probably for the purposes of today.

25. CHAIR: So, between the Chilterns it is 200 in the tunnel, it comes out of there.

Does it speed up a bit?

7

26. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: No, there is no purpose in speeding up to slow

down again. What you basically do is use energy for no great purpose, so once the

speed is dropped it stays dropped.

27. CHAIR: And 200 miles an hour in the London tunnel?

28. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: 200 miles an hour in the Northolt Tunnel and

then trains obviously stop. All trains stop at Old Oak Common, so there is acceleration,

deceleration, etc. Perhaps just to finish this off, the tunnel between Old Oak Common

and Euston is only designed for 140 miles an hour. The reason for that is simply that the

stations are not very far apart. So the trains accelerate and then they brake again and

there is no value in having a higher speed tunnel.

29. CHAIR: And Crossrail goes through Old Oak Common?

30. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes. I am just about to explain Crossrail, with

your permission. So, let’s just go to Old Oak Common. This is more of a railway

diagram, before I show you a visualisation, just to clarify the railway aspects of Old Oak

Common which today is a variety of railway sidings alongside the Great Western Main

Line to Heathrow, Reading, Bristol and the South West. The north point is shown in the

top left. Our line having come generally south-eastwards has now swung round a bend

to come through the site on an east/west alignment. We come out of the tunnel into a

deep box. There is no room to come to the surface so the line stays at a lower level and

we create a box for it to come into. The analogy there is the Stratford box on High

Speed 1 in East London, a similar sort of arrangement with a tunnel at each end. There

is a station itself and then our line goes straight back into tunnel – because there is no

room for it to do otherwise on the surface – and heads off towards Euston. I will come

back to that point in a moment.

31. On the surface, though, is the Great Western Main Line and two lines of that, the

slow lines, are currently being converted to become Crossrail. Our proposals include to

build this new station – this is not part of Crossrail’s Bill – on the surface on the Great

Western Main Line so that this provides a key interchange between High Speed 2 and

8

Crossrail. There are other lines in the area but that is the key interchange which is

central to our Bill so that passengers from the Midlands and North of England have a

simple interchange into Crossrail to go to the West End, City, and Docklands in one

direction, and to Heathrow in the other. The intention is also for people to be able to

make a simple change into trains heading to the West Country too.

32. CHAIR: Can I ask, from Old Oak Common to Heathrow, how many stops is it?

How many minutes will it take?

33. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: The Heathrow Express has been calculated as

11 minutes to the central terminal area. It is 15 minutes from Paddington. It will be

11 minutes, yes.

34. CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

35. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It is not quite an across-the-platform change is it?

36. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: It is not cross-platform but it is a very simple

change in our terms. I have not really gone into the design of the railway, but a central

tenet is access for all, and therefore everything here is about lifts, escalators, simple

passageways and support for those who need special support. I will not go into my

promotional mode about the station, it is not the appropriate time, but I will show you

the image of it which we use extensively. In building it, our railway comes in

underneath these other railways. There is then the box in which we put a station on top.

Then our line goes back into tunnel and heads towards the centre of London. All the

platforms on the surface there are about the platforms on to Crossrail and the Great

Western Main Line. I do want to highlight that in the construction and design of this we

have sought to maintain and preserve the community which is Wells House Road, which

I am just circling here. This triangular community, or triangle of roads, is a particularly

notable community in that area and we configured our railway in order to minimise

impact on that but I am sure you will be coming back to that point in due course.

37. MS QURESHI: Can I just ask a question? I know this is not a direct

comparison because obviously the routes will be slightly different, but currently as to

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the journey from Euston to Birmingham in the area that you are roughly going to be on

the new line, if it is to occur, and the proposed line Euston to Birmingham, what is the

time difference between the two?

38. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Specifically to Birmingham from Central

London the existing trains today on the West Coast Main Line take typically one hour

25, or one hour 24 minutes and our target or standard journey time is 49 minutes. So, 85

plays 49.

39. MS QURESHI: Yes, so about half an hour.

40. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: In simple terms, it is half an hour’s difference.

41. MR MOULD (DfT): That is to Euston?

42. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is to Euston. I thought I would say to

Euston because that is the comparable. There is no comparable to Old Oak Common.

49 plays one hour 20.

43. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That is down by 30%?

44. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Your arithmetic is quicker than mine, sir.

45. CHAIR: And where is the works area going to be in here?

46. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Most of what you see as green will be works

area and this is showing it in the finished article. That is actually quite a big topic

because the extent of being able to move tunnelling materials out of this area involves

potentially conveyer belts across to Wembley and there are other things in the

construction phase which we will need to put in here to handle the extent of material to

create this.

47. CHAIR: Are you going to be taking it out in trucks or on rail?

10

48. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: At the moment our plan is to maximise the

use of rail using not only the Great Western Main Line but just way off picture to the

left is Wembley on the Euston Main Line with extensive freight yards and we will

almost certainly need to use that area as well because of the volume of material we are

using, but the material handling in Old Oak Common area, because it is not only the

creation of the station but also the place where we are tunnelling in both directions from,

is a very big subject in itself.

49. CHAIR: Okay, that’s fine.

50. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: As we near the end of this quick tour down

the line this is a simple map of the last six miles from Old Oak Common to Euston of

which four and a half miles is in tunnel, the tunnel passing under Queen’s Park and then

the Primrose Hill area to come finally out of tunnel north of Euston, and I will come on

to the point it comes out of tunnel on my next slide. There are three more ventilation

shafts and I did say earlier that I ought to at least show you how ventilation shafts could

be treated in an urban area having shown you a rather nice picture of one in the

Chilterns. To remind you, the shaft itself has a lot of electrical and mechanical

equipment in it to be effective both as emergency ventilation and normal ventilation,

and on the surface there is a building which we call a head-house building.

51. I want to show you a picture of one that is existing on High Speed 1 in East

London at Woodgrange Road. It is that new building that is in the middle of this

inevitably built-up area. The particular architectural treatment of that was agreed with

the planning authority so I do not ask you to make any judgment on that. That is what

was agreed and constructed.

52. CHAIR: Whereabouts is that?

53. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is at Woodgrange Road. I have forgotten

which borough it is in.

54. MR MOULD (DfT): Woodgrange Road? I am afraid I cannot remember.

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55. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: But it is to the east.

56. MR MOULD (DfT): We will find out.

57. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is my lack of knowledge, I am sorry.

58. MR MOULD (DfT): I am told it is just east of Stratford in East London.

59. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Just east of Stratford, thank you. I am more

familiar with the other one. Just for completeness I should show you, because I have

shown you several “in constructions” as well as completed ones, that in construction it

looked more like this and the site is surrounded with acoustic barriers. That is not just a

security fence. To give you a sense of scale, if you look in the top left corner you will

see some Portakabins stacked two storeys high. So, that is the sort of mitigation you

need to create to do the construction of something like that in a built-up area.

60. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Will we understand – experience, understand the

noise that ventilation shafts make to the surrounding areas.

61. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes, and there is a good track record of a

number of years of observations. The sound largely comes from the movement of the

fans, which is not in normal use. In normal use the fans are not having to rotate. They

are to be used when there is an emergency, but of course they also have to be tested

regularly, and finding a sensitive time to test them is obviously important.

62. MR MOULD (DfT): There is a very well established methodology enshrined in

a British Standard which has been followed with a whole range of industrial kit of that

kind that you will find in successful operation, setting design parameters for this kind of

thing. It is one of the easier aspects of this kind of system to control.

63. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Thank you, Mr Mould. We come to Euston

and, as Mr Mould has already said, the exact arrangements within Euston alongside

what is in the Bill are still being considered in the light of the Higgins Report recently

but the red line here is essentially the land boundary of any Euston solution. At the top

12

of this plan is the point where our railway would come out of tunnel on the west side of

the existing railway. It then passes in deep cutting – as the existing railway is in deep

cutting; this is Camden Bank cutting – past the road called Park Village East here on the

west side of the railway. Then our line comes through an area, which is existing

carriage sidings, before we are finally getting to the throat of the expanded Euston

where our new station is partly beyond the curtilage of the existing Euston station and

partly within it. Just to the north of the station at a diagonal, and I am just slowly

moving the cursor here, is Hampstead Road Bridge. One of the major works to create

the railway is not only to rebuild the Hampstead Road Bridge that exists today but to

extend it back so that we can run tracks underneath what is today housing.

64. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Another loss is St James’s Gardens.

65. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: I am just coming to that. There are several

losses here. The first loss, if we continue southwards – and just at the top is the current

carriage sidings which we take over – is the three blocks of apartments, which is part of

the Regent’s Park Estate, which is partly social housing and partly privately owned,

where some 188 dwellings are taken by removing the three blocks affected and where

the Secretary of State has charged us with working with Camden to rehouse the social

housing tenants. There is then industrial buildings which were part of the Royal Mail

estate, then a hotel, and then there is St James’s Park where a percentage of the park,

which is greater than 50%, is taken for the scheme and part of the Euston continuing

discussions is how to re-provide that amenity. But that is a park which also has a

number of graves of various ages as well. There is another hotel, which is an Ibis hotel,

and then some more buildings and this kink in the corner is where the scheme was

changed to ensure the retention of the Royal College of General Practitioners building in

this bottom left corner, which is a Grade II* building because we have managed, with

the rest of this 140 mile scheme, to avoid any Grade I or Grade II* and therefore we are

consistent with that by retaining that Grade II* building. On the basis that that is just a

line around a map of existing property, I think it was important to show the kind of

property that is affected by the expanded Euston. My very last picture, and the only time

I have used an artist’s impression in this – this is an artist’s impression, let me be clear –

is what the effect on the front of Euston could be if that is brought into being with the

retention, particularly, of Euston Gardens at the front of the building, which is the site

13

where people often talk about a reconstituted Euston Arch. Perhaps on that note – I

have probably sorely tested your patience with the length of this – thank you very much

for your attention and I hope that that was helpful in bringing you up to speed.

66. CHAIR: Any final comments, Mr Mould, before we move on?

67. MR MOULD (DfT): I had one, really arising out of some of the questions that

you and your colleagues have raised, and that is whether perhaps we need to provide

you with a little more information about the details of tunnelling than is set out in the

Information Paper. I am not expecting you necessarily to answer that question because I

doubt that you have had the opportunity as yet to read that paper but we will think about

that. In particular I am thinking about the cost relativities, where the work sites are

going to be, and that kind of thing. I detect that the Committee is quite interested in

understanding some of those points in context rather than just simply hearing about

them when we get to individual petitions.

68. CHAIR: I think that in principle more information is better.

69. MR MOULD (DfT): Yes. We will take that away. Thank you.

70. CHAIR: Thank you very much for your presentation. I think we will move on.

Are CPRE here?

71. MR SMYTH: Yes.

72. CHAIR: Is it just you?

73. MR SMYTH: That is right, sir, yes. A rather smaller team than presented by the

promoter, I am afraid.

74. CHAIR: Okay. Could you just introduce yourself for the record and say who

you are and what you are up to and then give us your presentation, please?

75. MR SMYTH: Sir, my name is Ralph Smyth and I am from CPRE, the

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Campaign to Protect Rural England. I am leading on its work on HS2. I am very

grateful, I say, to the Committee, sir, for making time available today to talk about our

mapping. It is very interesting to see the questions your Committee has just posed and

possibly how that might be facilitated by open data such as has been released by the

promoter and also other statutory bodies to facilitate the task that your Committee has.

As I understand it though, counsel for the promoter does wish to say something before I

get into my presentation.

76. MR MOULD (DfT): No, no.

77. MR SMYTH: No? I am grateful. Could I therefore have some tabs on the

screen? Sir, how I propose to deal with this this afternoon, sir, is to just set the scene,

set out some procedural issues because there are some, and then give some examples of

the mapping and how it can be useful.

78. CHAIR: May I ask, is it approximately 30 minutes?

79. MR SMYTH: That is correct, yes.

80. CHAIR: Okay, that is useful, thank you.

81. MR SMYTH: And if you do have questions I am very happy to take them

whenever you wish. When the Crossrail Bill came to this House in February 2005,

Google Maps was just two weeks old. The first travel journey planner for the UK was

only a few more weeks older than that. We know that the internet has been around for a

generation but things really have changed very much since the last hybrid Bill was

considered. Indeed, technology is likely to develop further during the course of this

Bill, which is not likely to be a quick Bill.

82. Can I give an example of how much difference this makes? When the internet

first came along people could download a train timetable. If you wanted to work out a

journey you might have to download a couple of different timetables, check for

alterations and then check live running. These days, you can simply type in an address

and then find out whether the train’s running and when it will go. There is a similar

15

advantage to having an interactive system for the mapping in terms of saving you and

your Committee time, sir. In particular, we know that the Environmental Statement is

particularly complex.

83. If I can set out a couple of reasons, I would take issue with counsel for the

promoter’s suggestion yesterday that communities can simply go to one CFA report and

find out the issues that are relevant to them. To give you an example, if we can turn to

the screen now2, this shows for the first time for the public a map that has both the zone

of theoretical visibility, in other words where you can and cannot see HS2, and the noise

impacts. The visibility is the lined area and the noise impacts are the contour lines of

each contour showing a greater sound level. If you wanted to work that out from the

Environmental Statement, you would have had to look at the map books and also

volume 5. For all practical purposes that simply is not possible for NGOs or anyone

without the NGO’s specialists that can incorporate the data themselves. Given that

many of the petitions your Committee has are complaining about the combined impacts

of where you can hear and see HS2, we would say that that is surprising and in fact this

sort of map can be very helpful.

84. Britain is also a world leader in open data. It is part of the Coalition

Government’s reforms. Indeed, the Open Data White Paper set out very significant

ambitions and we would say that this is not simply helpful for your Committee to deal

with the petitions more quickly and efficiently, it is also good for Britain. We know that

there was a lot of competition around the world for infrastructure projects and if Britain

can be seen to be at the cutting edge of making use of open data, that can only be good

for British firms, companies and jobs.

85. Just to set out our system, we have two versions. One is a publicly accessible

version – I think it has had about 5,000 hits in the last month – that is simple and allows

people to type in, say, a village. Could you maybe type in Offchurch? That should

allow you to get to the village very quickly and look at the impacts. We also have

another version, which is a subscription one, which gives many options, like the

difference of a camera between a point and shoot mode and one where you can change 2 A1: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cmhs2/2july.htm

16

the exposure and do all manner of clever effects.

86. CHAIR: Where does the data that you have put come from?

87. MR SMYTH: Mainly the data for HS2 comes from HS2 Ltd itself. We

requested the data from the Environmental Statement in November and although it was

initially expected to come by December, much of it came at the end of January, which

happened to be the original last date for consultation on the ES, but some did not come

until April. That is something that perhaps Mr Mould wishes to comment on later, but it

is our contention that there should be an undertaking from the promoter for data to be

produced in a timely fashion, which we understand to be about 15 days according to the

principles in the Government’s policy. By comparison, our local authorities are

required to disclose any spending over £500 within 15 days. So, we say it is fair for a

similar requirement to be imposed on HS2 Ltd.

88. Forgive me for adding, there was a lot of other data from statutory bodies like

English Heritage, Natural England and so on, that has been incorporated into this map.

So, if I click here, on a particular site, you can see how our photomontages have been

incorporated into the mapping. So, you can see a before and after impact on a country

lane. This makes it much easier than having to go through the map book, which is a

very large PDF, to be able to see where different places are.

89. CHAIR: Can I ask, each section, each map you have illustrated, is there a

reference point for the data it is pulled from?

90. MR SMYTH: For each part of the data I can click on certain aspects and you

see on the right-hand side there will be suddenly a change giving the data that is

proposed. For example, there is a file name here and this relates to the data.gov.uk

website, which is the portal for all open data, and then High Speed 2 has a list of each of

the data sources that will correspond with this file name. There is an issue I will come

on to in a moment.

91. CHAIR: So, this is more than asserting a point of view. You say that it is

possible for somebody to look at this and then look at the data and you may or may not

17

disagree with the data that has gone in but they should be able to follow the data chain

to where you have pulled the information from?

92. MR SMYTH: Yes. There are other forms of data. For example, if I click on a

road, there is information about the speed limit. That comes from OpenStreetMap,

which is a publicly available map which is the Wikipedia of mapping. If I can just say

why CPRE is doing this and is engaged with this project. First of all, fundamentally, we

believe in better public engagement in planning decisions, particularly of this scale and

importance. We also ourselves have needed something like this. We are not big

enough, unlike some of the other wildlife bodies, to have a NGO specialist on our staff,

but also as an organisation that wants to protect the countryside, if we were just about

hedges it would be simple, we could see where hedges are affected, but it is actually

much more complex, the character of the countryside, and it is by having different

information from Natural England, English Heritage, together with the data from the

Environmental Statement that it makes it easier to understand where changes could be

made to the railway.

93. So, perhaps I can just show a couple of examples of what can be done. I can see

that many of you have tablets, so you will all be familiar with the benefits of being able

to pan and zoom a map compared to having, say, a fixed paper map. You can also quite

easily switch between layers. For example, one of your Members asked earlier about

the construction impact. So, we can change the Birmingham Interchange site here from

how it will look when it is finished to its construction area. So, for example, you can

see that the purple lines are the construction routes for traffic, which we can see here at

the top, and also the extent of the zone of theoretical visibility. Also, certain features,

such as the stockpile, have been designed to be easy to remember.

94. On the HS2 maps there are various different colours but here there are actually

textures to show what things might be. So, this is, for example, where the earth will be

stockpiled during the construction of the station. There is also integration with the

English Heritage database of listed buildings and, for example, in relation to the speed

of the line you can click on the line itself and see. I am afraid it is in metric rather than

imperial, but this does allow you to quickly see what the speed of the line is at different

sections. Then the Heritage sites are red for Grade II* and I, and then black for Grade

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II, the less important. Again, if you click on them, you can quickly see that this source

is English Heritage and this is the stables and riding school by Stoneleigh Abbey. So,

this shows you that if, for example, there is concern about the visual impact of the line

on heritage assets, it is very simple to see what the impacts will be much more quickly

than having to go through the Environmental Statement.

95. There are some issues that counsel for the promoter has raised about whether this

form of evidence is appropriate in a quasi-judicial proceeding such as this. If I can be

fair and go through them, I think there is obviously a need to record information for the

records. Now, it is easier to record views, photographs or static images than it is to

record someone manipulating a map live, for example panning and zooming. There

may be the possibility of taking screenshots but at the end of the day the information

here is either from the ES itself or from a statutory body such as English Heritage that

has informed the ES.

96. There is also the issue that during the course of proceedings there will be a

number of additional provisions and there is a need to show, obviously, the map at the

time before, when it was presented rather than when there are other changes made.

CPRE would like to ask your Committee, though, to request that the promoter

undertakes to provide information particularly in relation to the APs in a timely fashion.

Obviously, there will be changes to the route during the course of these proceedings and

we would ask that it is made available quickly and in the same format as before. There

have been problems where the promoter has changed the format and it has been difficult

to make head or tail of it.

97. In terms of the use of the map, I can understand that there may be concerns if the

Committee is to have additional sources of evidence. On the other hand it is quite

normal in these proceedings for Members to leaf through copies of the Environmental

Statement and we would say this is simply a different representation of the

Environmental Statement. If we were to start adding things, our own interpretation of

the data, that might be different.

98. I am very happy to take questions and I understand that there may be things that

I need to explain further but without knowing your various technical knowledge or

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levels of interest, it is perhaps easier if you were to ask questions.

99. CHAIR: Can I ask, is this on your website or is it available to other petitioners?

100. MR SMYTH: This is on our website and many, many people have found it very

helpful in working out what the impacts are on their locality so that they can decide

which arguments are relevant and which are not. So, that is the basic version. The other

version here is not. We have made it available to some of the other NGOs and groups

taking an interest. The difficulty is that each time you view the map it has to be

processed by the computer, so if everyone was to log on at once and to have various

different views, that would cause it to slow down. So, that is why we have not made

this completely publicly available but certainly we could come to arrangements,

perhaps.

101. CHAIR: Thank you very much. Any questions from the Committee?

102. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I did not quite follow that. I have tried, but I am

not very clever. It may be that you can leave a note with the clerk.

103. MR SMYTH: There is a simple website, HS2maps.com, which provides this

version here and also if you zoom out you can see that there is a description about the

mapping and the different sources, the data’s acknowledgements, but in terms of the

more complex map, we would have to provide a log-in to do that with a password.

104. CHAIR: Thank you very much. That is very interesting. As you say, the world

has moved on, certainly since Crossrail. Anything to add before we finish your session?

Mr Mould?

105. MR MOULD (DfT): Would you mind if I just made one or two comments?

106. CHAIR: No, no.

107. MR MOULD (DfT): There are really two issues. One is a timely delivery of

information and the second is the use of these electronic tools. Can I deal with the

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second point first? I think the key point made by Mr Smyth was this. The information

that he has shown you in a particular form is information that is essentially derived from

the Environmental Statement that has been provided with the project and with

comments made by statutory bodies. Now, that information is already in paper form in

the public domain and has been now for many months, and it is available to show you as

far as you need to see it in order to consider the facts behind any individual petitions that

come before you. It then begs the question as to precisely what advantage that

information provides to the Committee in order to discharge its only function, which is

to consider the points made by individual petitioners as set out in their petitions, to hear

our response to those points and then to decide what, if anything, to say about that in

your special report.

108. If I can just illustrate that by reference to the two particular points made by

Mr Smyth, this is the Map book for the area which he showed you electronically just

now, Offchurch and Cubbington. This document is a very manageable document. It

contains information on the maps in relation to the extent of the impact of noise from

the operation of the railway. It also contains information about the visual influence of

the railway, not in a theoretical sense, that is to say if one assumes away all the

buildings, the trees and so forth that serve to create the practical as opposed to the

theoretical influence, but in a practical sense, so one gets a sense of what people might

actually be able to see and experience and hear when the railway is actually in

operation.

109. So, I venture to suggest that actually it is correct to say that in documents of this

kind, which are prepared on a local basis, and which are manageable and

understandable, petitioners will have the information in a readily accessible form that

they need in order to present their cases to you. And if Mr Smyth, who of course is

himself representing a petitioner who will present their petition in due course, or if other

petitioners want to bring forward further information which they say you need to

understand and appreciate in order to see the force of their case because they say we

have missed out some point that is relevant, then of course that information can be

brought forward by them in the context of their petition.

110. I make these points because I suggest it is rather difficult to understand what

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actual practical advantage the Committee will get from the information that he has

presented, or the presentation of the information in the way he has. Bear in mind also,

as he has said, that this information is available publicly to petitioners if they want to

use it as a tool in preparing their case to you. I should also mention that we ourselves

have developed an app which will be available publicly and can be made available to

you, which is intended to simplify the Environmental Statement. So, that is standing

back from this room to the wider world.

111. CHAIR: When is that app likely to be available, Mr Mould?

112. MR MOULD (DfT): September.

113. CHAIR: September, thank you.

114. MR MOULD (DfT): I do not want to take up any more time. I offer those

thoughts to you. Can I ask you just to consider, with respect, what practical benefit you

think you will get from this presentation in addition to that which we will provide to

you and which then will be open to challenge and comment as we go on to hear

petitions.

115. Turning to the other question, which is the point about the timely delivery of

data, I thought I should put up on to the screen the project’s open data policy3 and just

draw your attention to the Statement of Principle, which is the aim to publish data

collected and produced for the development of the project within 20 working days of

what are known as “key business milestones” in an appropriate format that can be

readily consumed. I draw that to your attention simply for this reason. If you assume

that the publication of an AP and its presentation to the House is a key business

milestone, coincidentally with that we will produce the Environmental Statement that

goes with that additional provision and the supporting technical material. But consistent

with the policy we would aim to present underlying electronic material in accordance

with this policy. It is not always going to be possible to achieve that because from time

to time the material requires further work in order to put it into a form that is of 3 P3: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cmhs2/2july.htm

22

sufficient quality to be presentable to the public, but that is in the nature of an aim that

sometimes the balance between timeliness and the quality of the provision weighs in

favour of quality.

116. Finally, it is not actually quite right to say that the Government has a policy or a

practice of delivery of data into the public domain within 15 days. The Government’s

position, which is set out in the open data principles4, is for the quick release of data but

no timescale is prescribed. The reason for that is obvious because what is quick in the

balance between timely presentation and useful presentation will vary in relation to the

nature of the data concerned. The data that was mentioned and produced last November

took some 60 days, I think, to produce. That is electronic data that was produced in

conjunction with and to support the very large publication of the Environmental

Statement alongside the Bill. The reason why that took a little longer to produce was

precisely because of the volume and complexity of it to make sure that it was in a form

that was acceptable for public presentation. There is not in fact a 15-day rule. All there

is is a statement in a White Paper that is in relation to certain spending information and,

as Mr Smyth has said, the expectation is that that should be published within 15 days.

On that basis I would be unhappy, if I may say, to descend to the level of any sort of

undertaking in this respect. I would hope that the Committee would be persuaded at

least at this juncture that the policy backed by the Government’s open data principles

gives sufficient comfort to the public.

117. CHAIR: Peter, did you want to ask a question or make a comment?

118. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I have two. First of all, Mr Smyth, what are you

actually asking us to do or to accept?

119. MR SMYTH: I would like to offer you use of the maps, both the public one and

the subscription one, in the meantime until HS2 publishes their app. I think the fact that

this app is being published does show the use of having something that is more user

friendly than the Environmental Statement as it currently stands and I am sure that as

you get to grips with more of the detail you will appreciate where I am coming from. I 4 P4: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cmhs2/2july.htm

23

would also like to request that the Committee considers asking for an undertaking from

the promoter for more timely release of data. It is my submission there has been a

misunderstanding. On the one hand there is a 20 working day time limit for public

requests under the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information

Regulations. Both of these laws, however, also require publication schemes, whereby

public bodies are required to published off their own back types of information that the

public will want to look at. It is my contention that these forms of GIS data are very

relevant for construction projects of this type. I would also say that given the trouble

that CPRE, local authorities and many other NGOs have had waiting months at times to

get information from HS2, the Committee should require that it responds in a more

timely fashion in future. It might be different if this information was being drawn on

vellum, but actually it is all being produced by HS2’s consultants in an electronic

format. It is not as if we are asking to go back to the archives from 1840 from when the

West Coast Main Line was first proposed and for someone to look at the route itself.

All the information we are asking is stored by their consultants in electronic format so

there should not be an issue.

120. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I just make two other comments or questions?

I gather that when the promoter’s app is ready it is likely to bring information together

in the same way that the CPRE one appears to, not necessarily identically but it has the

same effect. Is that right?

121. MR MOULD (DfT): I think that is right. It is designed to simplify the overall

presentation in the paper document.

122. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And without wanting to presume, I guess that a

petitioner being heard by the Committee would be able to present their information in a

way that they choose, which could include the CPRE HS2 map presentation?

123. MR MOULD (DfT): Absolutely. How a petitioner chooses to present their case

to you is entirely a matter for them.

124. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And presumably the only interesting question for

the Committee will be where there is disagreement on what the facts are.

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125. MR MOULD (DfT): Yes.

126. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And you can have views on consequences of the

facts but the noise contours, the visual lines, ought to be matters of agreement, albeit

bases of disagreements at times?

127. MR MOULD (DfT): Quite so. A point I was at pains to make yesterday was

that the focus of the Committee is on petition issues and the degree to which the

Committee finds information presented by either the petitioner or ourselves valuable or

feels the need to draw a distinction between it or to resolve a dispute is to be resolved on

the basis of the material presented in that context.

128. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: At the risk of boring everyone, Chairman, it seems

to me that that is not necessarily a decision for you or the Committee to make

straightaway and it might be possible to suggest that the promoters and CPRE actually

talk to each other and see if there is anything remaining for us to consider on some other

occasion.

129. MR MOULD (DfT): I am very happy for that to happen.

130. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Smyth, for your presentation. Thank you very much,

Mr Mould, and your team. We are wiser, we have learnt, I think, quite a lot today and

will have lots and lots of questions no doubt as the process goes on. Order, order. I

adjourn the sitting until 9.30 on Tuesday morning.