PROTECTION OF OWNERS OF LAND OR BUILDINGS AT RISK OF SETTLEMENT

HC Deb 25 April 1996 vol 276 cc653-5

1. 1. The following provisions of this Part of this Schedule shall, unless otherwise agreed in writing between the nominated undertaker and the owner, have effect.
2. 2. In this Part of this Schedule "the zone of influence" means the area within which land is liable to subside as a result of the construction of an authorised work.
3. 3. The nominated undertaker shall in the construction, maintenance, use and operation of the scheduled works employ best practice to prevent or minimise settlement or damage to buildings.
4. 4. The nominated undertaker shall notify in writing the owners of any land within the zone of influence at least 28 days in advance of the commencement of tunnelling and on completion of tunnelling in such zone.
5. 5. If a building within the zone of influence of an underground authorised work is suffering or has suffered serious structural damage during the construction of the authorised work, an engineer or surveyor appointed by the owner shall, on giving reasonable notice, be entitled to inspect the authorised work in the vicinity of such building accompanied by a representative of the nominated undertaker.
6. 6. The nominated undertaker shall ensure that any tunnel forming part of the authorised works has sufficient strength on completion of the construction of the tunnel safely to withstand a uniform or partial load of 50 kilonewtons per square metre.'.

I must begin by declaring an interest because my house in Forest Gate in the east end of London lies directly over the proposed channel tunnel link; not just to the left or just to the right, but immediately over it. Obviously, my property is very much affected. On the other side of Sprowston road is the site of the vent shaft. No one can say that I will not be materially affected by what is going on. I hasten to add that I am more than happy to undergo all the privations that will no doubt accompany the construction of the tunnel in order to achieve what we have all been trying to achieve—the international station at Stratford. I make no complaint about that. Of course, I raise this matter on behalf of many others as well as myself. A large number of people in the London boroughs of Newham, Hackney and Islington will be affected.

There are many Victorian properties in the area. There was a great deal of war damage and many of those buildings suffered badly. Movement of the ground underneath them potentially puts them at risk. I do not want to be sitting in my front room on a quiet day with my good lady wife, Sally, listening to our favourite Status Quo records, as we often do, only to find that with a horrible crash my entire house has fallen in on to the 4.15 pm out of Stratford and we find ourselves being conveyed at 186 miles per hour towards the Gare du Nord in France. If we were going to do that, perhaps I could have my own small station called Sprowston halt, or something like that. In that way I could descend into the tunnel in a more dignified fashion.

There is a problem and there will be subsidence. Although we are given all these assurances, the point of my amendment is to try to obtain certain assurances that, if the older properties are affected, compensation can be paid.

Mr. Allen

Is this one of those occasions when, unusually, my hon. Friend is seeking to defend the status quo?

Mr. Banks

I would always defend the group Status Quo, but it extends only as far as that. I certainly would not defend a joke like that.

I should give the reason behind the amendment. In the same way as statutory undertakers are offered protection in the Bill for their services and equipment, home owners and other owners of land and buildings should be offered protection. The promoters informed the Select Committee in June 1995 that a deed concerning settlement would be offered to owners within 30 m of a tunnel and the proposed deed was put before the Committee. However, it was on a take-it-or-leave-it basis and the promoters were not willing to enter into negotiations on its terms as they require it to be in standard form.

After considerable pressure, the promoters have responded to amendments suggested by the London borough of Hackney, in concert with Islington and Newham. A meeting to discuss points arising but not to negotiate took place at the beginning of March.

For the sake of amity, co-operation and some of the other things that we have seen associated with the Bill, I have given the Minister a copy of my briefing note so that he is in a better position to answer. The points included in the amendment are matters of general principle upon which it has not been possible to date to reach agreement with the promoters. I specifically draw attention to paragraphs 3, 4, 5 and 6.

I will not bother to go through all the points since I have already conveyed them to the Minister. If the Minister can give me some assurance that he is looking at those points sympathetically, I will be overjoyed.

Mr. Watts

As the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) has acknowledged, most of these matters in our view are already covered by the code of construction practice, which is a legally enforceable agreement.

With regard to the inspection of the works, paragraph 5 of the proposed amendment would give an engineer or surveyor appointed by the owner of the building which was suffering or had suffered "serious structural damage" the ability to inspect the CTRL works in the vicinity of the building. That is an issue that the local authorities have raised in terms of an addition to the deed and we have considered it carefully.

In view of the fact that the main issue of relevance in the unlikely event of such damage is the determination of remedial works to the building, we have concluded that the advantage to building owners of such a right, when measured against the difficulties of providing for building owners' engineers to have access to, for example, major underground tunnelling operations, would not be warranted.

With regard to the load-bearing standards of tunnels, paragraph 6 of the proposed amendment would place a requirement on London and Continental to construct tunnels so that they could withstand a load of 50 kilonewtons per square metre. I am not an engineer, but I am told by those who are that, while we would not expect there to be a problem in meeting and indeed, in some cases, exceeding that sort of load strength where the existing ground conditions provided that level of load-bearing capacity, there are concerns about the burden that such an absolute general requirement would place on those building the CTRL, in cases, for example, of made ground where that load bearing might not exist and also in terms of the monitoring requirements and the need to demonstrate that we had met the requirement in each and every case.

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if individual owners have residual concerns about protection for existing buildings, we would be willing to consider including this sort of provision in additional individual settlement deeds.

The code of construction practice is contractually binding on London and Continental through the development agreement. In addition, the settlement deed which is available to householders provides a direct and legally enforceable remedy for individuals. So there is double protection.

We believe that the deed, coupled with the provisions in the code of construction practice, deal with the subject of settlement in a much more detailed and comprehensive way than the hon. Gentleman's amendment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be adequately reassured. If he requires further reassurance, perhaps we could correspond on the matter.

Mr. Tony Banks

All I can say is that I would not like to be around and facing my wife if our house did fall into the tunnel, but, of course, I probably would not be. With the assurances that the Minister has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.