HL Deb 23 March 1983 vol 440 cc1105-11

3.6 p.m.

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(Lord Aberdare.)

Lord Underhill

My Lords, one is always diffident about speaking on the Third Reading of a Private Bill that has gone through one of your Lordships' committees, but the matters on which I wish to speak are really consequential upon consideration by a Select Committee. Anyone who knows Liverpool Street Station and the area around it will readily recognise that redevelopment is very long overdue, not only because of the number of trains and passengers which use the station but also because of the narrow bottle-neck after one leaves Bethnal Green. This is a plan for the redevelopment of not only the whole of the station but also of the whole of the area around it. I emphasise that because I have no wish to hold up the work of redevelopment.

But redevelopment will involve closure of the adjoining Broad Street Station and building a new station at Worship Street, which is about half a mile from the existing station and away from the City. On 26th January, the Secretary of State announced his consent to the Broad Street closure and that this consent was conditional upon British Rail providing a substitute bus service between Worship Street and Liverpool Street Stations, without charge to rail passengers. The development will therefore affect also the North London rail line which at present runs via Dalston Junction into Broad Street. With the closure of Broad Street Station, the intention is that the line shall end at the new station which is to be constructed at Worship Street. I understand that some one and a half million passengers use the North London line each year, nearly 200,000 of them from the station at Dalston Junction and most of them travelling during business hours on weekdays. It is a very important City rail link.

The position is made more complicated by the proposal of British Rail to construct a new curve at Graham Road, Hackney, so that the North London line will in future continue to the Cambridge line, which then goes to Liverpool Street Station. It is the intention of British Rail that the line from Dalston to the new Worship Street Station, will then be closed, after the Graham Road link has been constructed some years ahead. This part of the scheme has been criticised because there could be a situation arising in which there would be no rail link to the City from Dalston Junction. That is considered to be a very important factor. If this should happen, which seems likely to be the case, there would be the problem of a one and a quarter mile viaduct of arches, where there are employed some 700 people, which would then be lying idle and for which refurbishment is badly needed.

The Transport Users' Consultative Committee for London gave support to a proposal that instead of building the new station at Worship Street there should be the provision of temporary high-level platforms on the existing North London line viaduct until the Broad Street services could be diverted to Liverpool Street, once the proposed new Graham Road, Hackney, link had been constructed. It must be emphasised that the Hackney, Islington, Camden and Brent Councils support the provision of temporary high level platforms and the further proposal that there should be a permanent high level platform over the redevelopment site so that the present North London line could be retained.

In his announcement, the Secretary of State stated that, although there are strong arguments against high level platforms, his consent with regard to Broad Street and the building of the new Worship Street Station does not prevent the Railways Board from adopting the high level option, if they wish to consider the matter at some future date. The Secretary of State suggested that the proposal for high level platforms would entail additional cost and delay. But it must be pointed out that the GLC also supports the high level platforms proposal and the retention of the existing North London line, and has offered to fund the proposal at a cost estimated at some £3½ million.

It must also be pointed out that the board would need to meet the cost of the new station at Worship Street, the cost of the Graham Road curve link, and also the provision of the bus service from Worship Street to Liverpool Street. I understand that the GLC has had discussions with British Rail, but there has been no agreement. Whether the cost of all those items would be approximate to the £3½ million cost of the platforms is one on which I have no information, but it cannot be very far from that.

The borough councils involved in the North London line favour the high level platforms, and particularly the retention of the existing line. If noble Lords have had an opportunity, as I have, to read the Third Reading debate in the other place on 1st December, they will see that Members of Parliament from all parties presented a very strong case for the continuance of the present North London line as it is at the moment.

There is also the problem that since 1978 the central Government and the Hackney Borough Council have committed nearly £5 million through the inner city partnership to provide for economic development and environmental improvement schemes within the Borough of Hackney. Some £1 million has already been spent on those schemes in the Shoreditch area. Male unemployment in the Hackney Borough is double the London average. Therefore, these schemes are really vital under the inner city partnership, and the retention of the City rail link from Dalston Junction is considered absolutely essential for these schemes for commercial and shopping redevelopment. I must point out that from Hackney there is no tube connection at all, and, if the present Dalston line to the City is closed, the only alternative, other than going round by the Graham Road link, which has yet to be constructed, would be on crowded streets.

It has been suggested that the Liverpool Street redevelopment scheme will take some six years, at least, to complete. There is no definite timetable for the construction of the Graham Road curve link so as to continue the present North London line into Liverpool Street via that curve instead of through Dalston Junction, and British Rail has said there will be considerable difficulty in moving forward the date of that construction. It will be noted that in the Secretary of State's announcement on 26th January there is nothing in the Secretary of State's consent to the closure of Broad Street that provides any guarantee whatever for the future. There is nothing mandatory on the construction of the Graham Road curve, there is nothing mandatory on when the Graham Road link will start, or even to say that it will be constructed. It could be that, at the end of the long period of development of Liverpool Street Station, British Rail may decide not to proceed with the Graham Road link. That presumably would mean that the North London line would finish at the new Worship Street Station as a permanency, or even mean the closure of that vital link altogether. If the Graham Road link is not to be constructed, it may then be far too late to talk of having high level platforms to continue this essential rail link from Dalston Junction to the City. That is why I say these matters arise from the approval of the redevelopment scheme, not the actual redevelopment scheme.

Therefore, it would seem that the Secretary of State should impose one of two alternative conditions. Either the provision of temporary high level platforms to enable the North London line to run on the existing viaduct from Dalston Junction should be made mandatory, as should the eventual construction of permanent high level platforms over the Liverpool Street redevelopment site, which we understand presents no engineering difficulties. Alternatively, the Secretary of State should make mandatory conditions for the construction of the Graham Road curve at Hackney, so that the North London line will eventually be diverted to new low level platforms in the new Liverpool Street redeveloped station.

My Lords, I am not speaking against the redevelopment scheme at Liverpool Street and the surrounding area, but only urging that the Secretary of State should lay down additional conditions so as to ensure that the points I have raised can be given consideration.

3.16 p.m.

Viscount Sidmouth

My Lords, I have no wish to detain the House at this point, but, if I may, I will speak very briefly on this Private Bill. I feel I should declare an interest as President of the National Council of Inland Transport. Let me say at the outset, as Lord Underhill has emphasised, that there is no quarrel with the purpose of this Bill, which is to improve the facilities at present jointly provided by Liverpool Street and Broad Street Stations. Equally, the method of doing this, by providing seven new platforms at Liverpool Street Station at the low level, will not only improve the railway operating side of that station but also make it more convenient for the passengers using it.

I wish simply to raise two points, both of them connected with the North London line trains at present routed via Dalston Junction into Broad Street Station at the high level. The first point is that following the hearing before the Transport Users' Consultative Committee for London in April 1982, the Secretary of State sanctioned the closure of Broad Street Station, but not of the North London line. In doing so, reference was made to what is known as the Graham Road curve, which will in the future provide the access for trains off the North London line into the new low level platforms. But, my Lords, there seems to be no firm commitment that this access line will indeed ever be built, nor, as I understand it, is any financial provision made for doing this. Without such a commitment, it is contended that the way would be open in the future not to proceed with this new access line at all, and thus in effect to close the North London line by indirect means, through procedure which was ostensibly concerned with the closure of a station. Your Lordships have heard the number of people using this station at the moment, and you will be aware of the pressure that London Transport commuter services are already under.

I come to my other point. I am sorry to make a technical point, but I think it is important. It is that under the present proposals the scheme provides for a temporary station to be built at Worship Street at considerable expense. It would, of course, be at the high level, and would handle the North London line trains which would temporarily be terminated there. It is 600 yards to the north, and a bus service would have to be provided. It is clear that these temporary facilities will be a good deal less convenient than the existing ones at Broad Street Station, and much less so than the eventual low level ones at Liverpool Street Station. The possibility arises, therefore, that while they are in use they will deter a number of passengers who currently use this route, and your Lordships will be aware that this would be a bad thing for British Rail. The joint effect might be that there would be such a falling off in passengers on these services that when the time came it could be argued that there was no need to provide the Graham Road curve at all and that the North London line should be closed.

To avoid this possibility, it is suggested that British Rail should have another look at the necessity for the temporary station at Worship Street. Although it is not apparent from British Rail's plan JC2, a survey on site seems to indicate that there is in fact more room at the high level than is indicated there. As an alternative to the station at Worship Street, it appears to be possible for British Rail to construct high-level platforms for the North London line trains in the space between the existing Broad Street Station and the western trainshed, using parts of the existing viaduct for the construction of temporary platforms.

I have a copy of plan JC2 on which the actual dimensions of the viaduct and the trainshed have been superimposed, and it would certainly appear from this that such a scheme is possible. Indeed, there seems to be no need to route the track connections to the temporary high-level platforms on the eastern side of the existing viaduct between Worship Street and Pinder Street, where they would interfere with the new works, but tracks for the North London line could be provided on the western side of the existing viaduct and so reach the location proposed for the temporary high-level platforms. I hope that the Minister will ensure that these proposals are carefully considered.

3.20 p.m.

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, I am glad that both the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and the noble Viscount have given a welcome to the development of Liverpool Street Station which is the subject of this Bill. Indeed, the Government themselves acknowledge the need for the development and give their support. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, that this afternoon there should be what I might call a rehearsal of the arguments put forward during the course of your Lordships' Select Committee inquiry into this Bill. At the end of the day—if my memory serves me right the Select Committee sat for about eight days—the committee was of the opinion that the Bill should proceed, subject only to the undertakings given at that time.

Perhaps, I may just outline the position. Broad Street Station provides a very limited service for the North London line and for peak services to Watford. The new proposals provide for the closure of Broad Street, and the Secretary of State has given his consent to this while Liverpool Street Station is being redeveloped. In lieu of Broad Street a temporary station—Worship Street—will open and will be used for a period of about four to six years. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said that no time had been given. He said that it might well be in excess of six years. I do not quarrel with that, but certainly the estimates that have been provided suggest that a period of between four and six years is more appropriate while that work is going on and until the Liverpool Street accommodation can take care of the new service.

The Graham Road curve which links the North London line with the Cambridge line into Liverpool Street after that station has been redeveloped will necessitate the Secretary of State having to give his consent for the closure of Worship Street temporary station. The Secretary of State will have to give consideration to that at the time the British Railways Board puts forward a specific proposal for that closure. Meantime, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State gave consent to the Broad Street closure subject to a dedicated bus service between the two stations. That consent to the closure of Broad Street made it quite clear that there is nothing in the consent that was meant to prevent the board adopting a high level option if it so wished.

In my right honourable friend's letter of 25th January signifying consent to the Broad Street closure he said, in paragraph 7: The consent to the closure of Broad Street is therefore conditional on the provision of such a service which is to be timetabled so that as far as possible each train arriving at Worship Street will be met by a bus, or buses, to take passengers to the vicinity of Liverpool Street station and that a bus, or buses, will leave Liverpool Street at a convenient time to allow passengers to join each train leaving Worship Street. The service is also to allow transfer between train and bus at Worship Street under cover, and it is to be provided without additional charge to those holding valid rail tickets to and from Worship Street Station. Section 54, subsection (5)(b) of the Transport Act 1968 allows the Secretary of State to vary or revoke conditions imposed in connection with the closure. It follows that if the board's experience of providing the dedicated service suggests to them that the use which is made out of it is not sufficient to justify its continuation or that the Secretary of State's objectives could be achieved more satisfactorily by an alternative arrangement, it will be open to the board to apply to have the conditions varied". Clearly the Secretary of State could not over-ride that power by binding himself at this stage not to exercise the power in that section of the Act. I am, therefore, not able to commit my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to giving a guarantee that the dedicated bus service will be provided for the entire time that the Worship Street station is to be used as a temporary station.

If the British Railways Board asks for a variation the grounds would have to be substantial, and it would be for the board to prove to my right honourable friend that a variation is justified. The board itself has a commitment to provide a service between the two stations. I imagine that while there are numbers of passengers or customers of that service who still require it then the need will prevail, and I am quite sure that the board accepts that situation.

That is really as far as I feel I am able to go in responding to the pleas that have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and, indeed, the noble Viscount.

Viscount Hanworth

My Lords, I was a member of the committee and nothing has been said in the House this afternoon which was not carefully considered by the committee over a period of some seven days' sitting.

We fully realised the inconvenience of the Worship Street station and we did also think that there might be a falling off of its use due to this inconvenience. We were therefore concerned, as one speaker was concerned, that the Graham Road curve should, in fact, be constructed and that the line should, therefore, ultimately go in to Liverpool Street.

Certain assurances were given by British Rail on this point, with one or two conditions, but we also inserted a condition, which was agreed, that the Worship Street station would continue in use until the Graham Street curve was constructed. This may not be absolutely cast iron, but I think that with the other assurances given by British Rail there will not be any question but that we shall see the line coming in at low level.

This matter was considered by the Commons Committee on very much the same grounds. Nothing very new came in when it came before us. There was some increased emphasis on the importance of the existing railway, possibly to the new development in Hackney. I therefore think that it would be a very great mistake if we were to go over all this ground again. I am not pretending that it was not difficult. Indeed, I said that our decision, whatever it was, was bound to be wrong in the view of some people.

On Question, Bill read a third time, with the amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

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