INDEX

Subject Page

Lucy Powell MP

Submission by Ms Powell

Response by Mr Mould

Further Submissions by Ms Powell

Greater Manchester Partners

Evidence of Mr King (continued)

Evidence of Mr Eckett

Submission by Mr Mould

Submission by Mr Cameron

(At 2.00 p.m.)

CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome to this afternoon’s meeting of the High Speed Rail Hybrid Bill Select Committee. This afternoon, we’re going to hear from the petition of Lucy Powell MP, who’s obviously the Member of Parliament for Manchester Central, covering the Manchester Piccadilly station site.
Ordinarily we do a short introduction from the promoter, but I think we can dispense with that on the basis that we’re all aware of the area we’re talking about, seeing as we’ve spent the last week hearing evidence on this issue. So in that case we’ll go straight to the petitioner and then Mr Mould will respond. Obviously, if you have questions for each other those can come at the end of your opening statements. So over to Lucy.

Lucy Powell MP

Submission by Ms Powell

MS POWELL: Thank you very much, Chair and colleagues. Thank you for having me here. First of all I just want to actually thank you properly, because I know, as a parliamentarian, that these Bills, when you’re put on them, can be a bit of a thankless endurance test, but your efforts are really appreciated and they’re incredibly important as well.
And I think particularly this issue, which I’ve been petitioning about and which you’ve been looking into for the last couple of weeks –I think this is probably the single biggest and most important issue that your Bill will be looking at, notwithstanding all the other smaller issues. So I just wanted to put on record my thanks and appreciation for you to do that.
Just to say something about my capacity, I am here as the Manchester Central MP, which covers Piccadilly station and the proposed gyrateries and so on. I’m not here as a formal member of the broader GM outfit that you’ve had here, as part of that, although obviously we are closely aligned in terms of some of those things. So I’m perhaps not able to answer some of the technical questions that you might have.
I just also wanted to say at the beginning as well that it’s not often that, as parliamentarians, we actually have a chance to really scrutinise and look at these sorts of decisions and maybe change them for the future. It’s normally the executive that just make these decisions and we get to maybe have a private or public view on them, but we can’t actually change them. So I think this is a really important question to be revisited.
I just wanted to emphasise – I know this was said at the beginning of this session – but what we’re asking for as petitioners is not that you, as a committee, decide whether one proposal, underground versus overground, is better or worse and actually come on board fully with that.
We’re asking you, as a committee, if you feel that this issue warrants further discussion, and that HS2, as the promoter, should engage with further discussions with GM about exploring its feasibility and possibility. So I do think that’s a lower bar, if you like, in terms of the evidence that you’ve been hearing about what is the question before us.
So my contribution has got three main parts to it really, building on some of the evidence that you’ve heard so far. The first is around the contribution to this critical decision to levelling up and how I think that that’s so far been largely ignored. The second is the limitations of the proposed plans for an overground turnback station, as that will restrict growth, both in terms of growth for rail network connectivity in the future, and secondly, to the economy of Greater Manchester, but also the wider agglomeration effects for the north.
So just to start with the first really, just to say a bit about levelling up. It’s great to see so many colleagues here that represent the north. In fact, we all represent the north here today, which is marvellous.
CHAIR: Yeah, yeah.
MS POWELL: We’re a region of 15.6 million people, but our economy has been held back over decades. One of the reasons for that is our very poor infrastructure, particularly our poor rail infrastructure, which many of us experience each week. The Government was elected on a pledge to level up the north, and actually it is now a cross-party consensus.
I think all political parties recognise that this is one of the defining issues of our time, and I think we can all agree on that, and that regional inequalities between London and the southeast and the rest have grown over the last 50 years, and de-industrialisation and infrastructure and some of those issues are a factor.
I just wanted to point out that today, I think one of the reasons for that really stark inequality in our country is about geography as well, because we’ve got one global-level city in the UK and that city sits in the southern corner of our geography. It’s had more and more money spent on it, it’s overheating, it gets all the infrastructure for that growth, whether that’s the Jubilee Line, Crossrail, the Northern Line spur, overground services or whatever. It’s got a transport connectivity that’s befitting of its global status.
But other major economies have more than one global city. They have at least two, whether that’s Spain or Italy. Canada has three, Germany has four and China has nearly 20 in the top 100 of global cities, and we still only have one.
That’s the whole basis of the Northern Powerhouse economic plan, is based on that agglomeration effect. And I know you’ve been talking about jobs and the displacement of jobs and how all these things – I think that’s a real theme of this conversation.
This is key to levelling up, in my opinion, that we create a global level economic node in the north of our country. That helps us to create a large talent pool of skilled, knowledge-based, high-skilled workforce. I think it’s just worth remembering that in the London context, and the southeast, some of these distances we’re talking about, say Burnley to Manchester, 29 miles maybe is it, something like that? That’s less than the length of the Central Line, yet the connectivity between Burnley and Manchester is woeful by comparison.
I think it’s well understood that the node of that economic hub in the north would be Greater Manchester. However, I think it’s really important to understand this is not a zero-sum game, that the benefits to Greater Manchester then are a disbenefit to other parts of the region, I think far from it.
Because actually, what we’re seeing is that Greater Manchester is becoming an international global economic hub. The companies that I speak to are choosing between Manchester and Munich, not Manchester and Hull, for example. I think the transformation over the last 25 years has been remarkable across Greater Manchester and beyond.
I just want to highlight one bit of ONS data in that context, because this is already happening and it’s happening at pace. The ONS data has shown that the productivity gains in Greater Manchester over the last 15 years have outstripped London. So productivity gains in Greater Manchester are now outstripping London by quite a bit for the first time over the last 15 years.
But importantly, those productivity gains are bigger in outer Greater Manchester than they are in my constituency of Manchester Central, even though what you would’ve visibly seen on your visit was all that growth in the City Centre, because that’s the effect of agglomeration to the economy.
That’s why I think the proposal for, at best, a suboptimal solution for Manchester Piccadilly that would connect through the city across the north falls well short of our ambitions for our region and for levelling up. Just to reiterate, my constituents can access that growth already. They can walk there, or they can get a short bus.
So these effects, these agglomeration effects, for the whole economy are, I would argue, to a greater benefit for people in the long term, over the next 50, 60, 70, 80 years, for those living in, say, Burnley, or even as far away as Goole or Scunthorpe or other parts of the north as well.
So just to reiterate that, I just don’t think the proposal for an overground station – which, let’s not forget, it’s tunnel coming in, then it’s going overground, and in the future, for NPR it will be tunnel going back out the other side. I just don’t think that proposal would ever be put in London. It would be like Crossrail coming up at Tottenham Court Road to save some money and going back under. That just wouldn’t happen, and I don’t think we should accept the same for the north as well.
Even Old Oak Common further down the line on the outskirts of London, which is cheaper real estate and less strategically important, is getting an underground station. Obviously you’ve heard the example before about the Woolwich station on the Crossrail Bill and the important role that was played there.
Just on this levelling up point, I just want to make the other point that I know we all share, that part of the conversation in recent years has been about the standard economic approach or the Green Book rules or the Treasury orthodoxy, all of those different phrases that we use, that take no account of wider and secondary benefits. And this is what’s really hampered proper infrastructure investment in the north. The Government recently said it was going to look at these Green Book rules, but under the terms of this Bill and HS2, we’re still working on the old issues.
So specifically, I don’t think the IRP has really taken into account the levelling up, the wider levelling up impacts of this proposal. It’s also why the north is always on the wrong end of big infrastructure decisions. Remarkably, the maths always look different in London, don’t they? And it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of ‘build it and they will come.
That’s why we’ve seen, per capita, transport capital investment – let’s just remind ourselves of that – in London is £864 per person, infrastructure, transport infrastructure spending in London. In the north it’s just £349 per person, so it’s less than half
And it doesn’t take account, this whole plan and economic analysis also doesn’t take account of the international connectivity that comes from Manchester airport, which is so important as well. I would just say that Manchester airport was arguably the catalyst to much of the regeneration of Greater Manchester.
Now I just want to move on. Sorry, I’m taking too long. Tell me if I’m taking too long.
CHAIR: No, carry on.
MS POWELL: I can talk obviously about these things. This is one of my favourite subjects, levelling up.
CHAIR: You should be on the Committee. You can chair it.
MS POWELL: Yeah. This is why I’m so grateful to you for all the work you’re doing, which I know is just totally thankless at times, but very important.
So I think the issue about limiting growth and capacity and our ambitions for northern connectivity, and I’m sure that, as northern MPs, we would all share in having real ambitions for northern connectivity, not settling for second best.
We all know, because we all experience it, our constituents experience it, that trains in the north and rail connectivity in the north is, quite frankly, absolutely rubbish. It’s unreliable, poor rolling stock, poor connections and really unreliable, and it really hampers our whole region.
I know you’ve had a lot of technical briefings. I’m not going to say I’m a technical expert, but I do think, look, it doesn’t really take a technical expert, does it, I don’t think, to understand that a turnback station is, at best, suboptimal. There’s no question about that for me, and that even when we take the full IRP into consideration, let alone future growth and future ambitions that I think we would all share, as parliamentarians, over the next 50 or 100 years, trains going west to east or through in years to come will be stuck at Piccadilly for several minutes, turning back, adding time, causing reliability issues and blocking platforms, and that whilst 11 trains an hour might be technically possible, that will put a ceiling on capacity for the overground station, hampering growth and ambition for decades to come and we’ve got a real opportunity to rethink that.
I just want to highlight – I don’t know if this has already been highlighted to you; I don’t think it has – but we made similar mistakes in the past, which we’re still trying and failing to deal with, when we come to look at issues around platforms 13 and 14 at Manchester Piccadilly, which Anthony might be more familiar with than others.
These two platforms are currently the only through platforms at Manchester Piccadilly. They’re on a gyratory, funnily enough, an external gyratory coming into the station. They’re actually a station, almost a station within a station. 40,000 people a day use those two platforms, which is bigger and better-used than Nottingham’s entire station, for example. 13/14 has been widely, for more than a decade now, has been classified as a major stumbling block to reliability, capacity and the whole wider northern network issues.
There has been a plan over the last 10 years to build two extra stations, at great cost, because it’s more costly to build alongside a current external gyratory like that. But just a few weeks ago actually, the Government dropped those plans for platform 15/16.
I just make that example, because the Castlefield corridor that they sit on has been long understood to be the bottleneck, because through trains are now a lot more common, but also the fact that it’s taken 60 – it’s taken nearly 10 years for people to understand there’s a problem and then drop the solution to that problem just shows how slow these things can be put right afterwards. I just don’t think we should make the same mistake with Manchester Piccadilly as we have made with platforms 13 and 14. And we couldn’t have foreseen the growth in through trains at that time, which has now happened.
Just finally on that point, I just want to say that the current plans would limit connections between Crewe, Manchester airport and Manchester Piccadilly, despite the fact that Manchester airport is the UK’s third busiest airport, handling 23.3 million passengers across the whole of the north a year.
This is really important because, again, my constituents can access Manchester airport relatively easily. But people from Burnley, people coming from Yorkshire, who will use Manchester airport to connect them to the whole rest of the world, because that’s their nearest international big airport with the connections it has, are currently very limited to do so and would have to rely on cars or expensive taxis.
So the final thing I just want to talk about, if I may, Chair, is the huge economic costs to Manchester’s growth and investment opportunities of an overground station versus an underground station, and the impacts this will have on the wider levelling up and agglomeration points that I’ve been making. The station on stilts that’s proposed would deprive one of the largest and fastest-growing cities in the country from a quite a large amount of usable prime city centre developable land.
Obviously I know you’ve been hearing about the opportunities of the overground station, but they are obviously diminished and less than they would be for an underground station. And I just want to – I know you saw this when you came for a visit recently, but Manchester, Greater Manchester, has changed beyond recognition over the last 30 years. I know you saw that for yourselves.
For example, in the mid-1990s, in the inner part of my constituency, inside the Mancunian Way, which is the inner ring road, less than 500 people lived there in the mid-1990s, not that long ago, 30 years ago. Now it’s way over 20,000 just on the inner ring road, and 50,000 to 60,000 in that core central Manchester area.
That zone, the central Manchester zone, is also expected to have another 50,000 new homes built in it in the next 10 years. So I’m going to – there’s going to be two of me soon, because my constituency is growing so fast, taking the lion’s share of the housing need.
But that’s been built on a vision of placemaking. It’s not just about economic development, but about a visitor destination economy built on culture, sport. Obviously we’ve got a great football team in Manchester City there as well. Other teams do apply.
CHAIR: I think we need to take a break now.
MS POWELL: Yeah.
CHAIR: Apparently some crazy talk seems to have entered.
MS POWELL: And that’s why, earlier in the year, Manchester was the only UK city to make the overall ranking of the large European city of the future by the FT, the only UK city to rank the connectivity and foreign direct investment and economic potential, and also named as one of the world’s best destinations to visit in 2023 by the National Geographic and the only UK city to feature in the Best Travel guide from Lonely Planet for this year as well.
The reason I make those points is because what the transformation of Greater Manchester has achieved over the last 25, 30 years is about becoming that global economic node in the heart of the north. It’s not about Manchester competing with other towns and cities across the north for jobs and for visitor attractions. It’s about raising the whole, all the boats together by creating a globally recognised city at the heart of the north, not competing locally.
I think one of the things you’ve been looking at in recent days is: who benefits. I think that’s a really important question: who benefits? That’s where inclusive growth, and the agenda for inclusive growth is so important. That growth is only beneficial, in my opinion, if that is fairly shared. Transport infrastructure and transport connectivity is absolutely critical to the widest possible group of people benefiting from that.
I know you’ve heard about some of the jobs and opportunities and things that will be created, but I just want to say that Manchester’s consistently delivered on regeneration, whether that’s NOMA, Circle Square, Mayfield that I know you visited. We’ve now got Manchester ID that’s coming right next to Piccadilly, big innovation district.
But again, I meet businesses all the time who are coming to invest in Manchester for their global European hub. They’re not even choosing between Manchester and Leeds, or Manchester and Liverpool. They’re choosing between Manchester and Barcelona, Manchester and Munich and other places like that.
The reason that the productivity gains are being greater felt in the outskirts of Manchester is that that’s created a new role for places like Bury and Oldham and others, who can then be part of that broader ecosystem but attract a different level of investment, different level of businesses as well. And it does open up trade and new opportunities and things like that.
Just finally on that, I just want to say about the specific impacts on Ardwick and Beswick of the overground versus the underground, because I know you’ve been thinking mainly about the Manchester Piccadilly area. Ardwick and Beswick are the two adjacent wards to Manchester Piccadilly, where the tunnel will come out. These are two of the poorest wards in the country, not just in Manchester, where life expectancy is six years shorter that the average for Manchester, and compared to some places in the south, 12 years shorter.
Those communities will be affected for many, many years to come for the overground coming out, firstly for HS2, and then for probably another decade or two decades thereafter, when NPR is then, as is proposed, being connected to that. So even though they potentially are connected to this great growth in Manchester, they’re going to have their lives blighted for a long time to come.
For all of those reasons that I’ve just set out, I think that’s why we’re getting so much support for this proposal for an underground station, not just from within Greater Manchester, as you would expect, but the London Chamber of Commerce has come out in favour of this. The Mayor of London has come out in favour of this, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership Onward, who I’m sure many of you know, the conservative-leaning think tank, and the Northern Region Assembly of the Chamber of Commerce, amongst many others.
So I hope I’ve set out my case there, which is a bit more political and high level, probably, than some of the other cases that you have heard. But just to remind you really, that obviously what we’re asking for from this Committee is that these issues be looked at again, rather than you take a firm view one way or the other. Thank you for your time.
CHAIR: Thank you Lucy. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? I’ll maybe just start with a couple if that’s all right.
MS POWELL: Please.
CHAIR: You’ve done a very good job of setting out your arguments for. One which we have heard, and we have gone into something about this morning, was this issue of the 14,000 jobs and whether that’s through displacement.
In evidence this morning we heard from one of the witnesses for the Greater Manchester partners that actually those 14,000 jobs would, could be displaced – probably would be displaced in part at least – from elsewhere in the north of England.
And also obviously to then provide the extra funding. Unless the Government came up with an extra pot of cash, we’d end up potentially with funding having to be diverted from elsewhere in the Northern network.
I suppose my question really is, what’s your response to this idea that it’s all great and everybody wants to see Manchester move forward, but is there a risk that if this was borne out, as we heard in the evidence this morning, that we simply create the divisions that exist north, south, elsewhere within the north by preferring Manchester, to the disadvantage of other communities?
MS POWELL: I think that’s a really good point and I think we should flesh that out. As I was saying in my opening, I think the two things I would say. Firstly, this effect of agglomeration and therefore inclusive growth has to be at the heart of this sort of vision for economic renaissance of the north. Obviously, connectivity is critical to that. That’s why I think we’ve got to ensure that the drive to – sorry – the commute to work times are doable, so that a broader group of people can access those jobs that are created than can currently do so reliably.
That’s what a lot of businesses that I – because I meet businesses all the time that want to invest in Manchester. As I said at the beginning, those businesses are usually global or globally ambitious businesses that are choosing between other European cities, or sometimes other cities across the world. They’re creating highly paid, highly skilled jobs around this knowledge economy and this digital tech economy that is now booming.
One of the things they want to know is that they’ve got a big enough talent pool that people can live in Leeds and work in Manchester, or frankly, live in Burnley and work in Manchester. Burnley is what, 29 miles away from Manchester, and on a good day would take an hour on the train; on most days would be delayed and cancelled trains and all of that. 29 miles is the same distance as Gatwick airport, roughly speaking, which takes half the amount of time.
So you couldn’t reliably live in Burnley and access some of the highly skilled jobs that are available and are coming to Manchester right now. As a Northerner myself, growing up in the 80s and 90s, to access those jobs I had to move to London, as did all, lots of people that I knew.
So now I’m hoping that someone from Burnley could access those jobs because those jobs are coming to the north. I don’t think this displacement idea is quite the right one to think of. What we have seen in Greater Manchester particularly, but it’s actually happening across the north, is higher skilled, knowledge-based, higher paid jobs that are coming to the region that wouldn’t otherwise come to the region. I want as many people as possible to access those.
Because what we saw in the 80s and 90s in that de-industrialised era was that we were supposed to take second best, which was all the old jobs. The coalfield jobs and the industrial jobs of the past had gone, and what we were left with were warehousing, processing and call centre jobs.
That’s not good enough. That’s just not good enough for the north, and that’s what – Greater Manchester has been at the heart of driving that whole new wave of talent and amazing opportunities and jobs, which now I think people across the north, not just in Manchester but other parts of the north, hopefully can access, rather than having to move to London, as they did 20 years ago.
So I think it’s too simplified to think about that. As I say, my constituents can access those jobs, but your constituents can’t, and I want your constituents to be able to access those jobs as much as mine can.
CHAIR: Thank you. Anything else? Thanks. I might come back to something else in a moment. Mr Mould.

Response by Mr Mould

MR MOULD KC (DfT): Without any disrespect intended, I’m not going to go into great detail in response, because obviously we are in the process of hearing more detailed evidence, and I will continue to present our case through that. But what I would like to do, if I may, is just pick up on one or two headline points on behalf of the promoter of this Bill.
The first is that, as you know, the Government’s current position is to promote a £96-billion rail investment package across the north and Midlands region. That’s the Integrated Rail Plan, which was published in 2019. So arguments about historic lack of investment, certainly in comparison to London and the southeast in national, regional and local rail packages, one of the primary purposes, as you know, of that investment package is to seek to go down the road in redressing that balance.
I don’t think Government is suggesting that that will do it for all time. But I think it is fair to say Government’s position is that that is a significant step in the right direction in redressing that balance.
Allied to that is that, as we heard in evidence yesterday, the Greater Manchester partners’s position is that if you translate the predicted gain in development land which will flow from the HS2 Bill scheme as an element of that package with a surface station, you’re talking about a million square metres of development land released by the Bill scheme, of which 333,000 will be land that is released for commercial development.
What that then implies is something of the order of 27,750 jobs coming forward as a result of the Bill scheme over time. But also, of course, a very substantial contribution to local housing need, because the balance of that additional one million square metres of development land, broadly speaking, the balance, the remainder will be land that it’s available for housing development.
Of course I recognise that not every square metre of that land will be given over to built development. A point that was well made by the Manchester partners is that good planning and master planning will require a balance between public rail and so on and so forth. But that is the proposition that is already guaranteed in terms of Government’s own investment. That’s the proposition that this Bill rests upon.
So there is a balance to be struck here between recognising the scale of future investment that Manchester is guaranteed under the IRP, of which the surface station is an important part, and drawing the right balance between that rail investment, the development of potential, the job creation opportunities, the agglomeration benefits that might come, ensuring that that investment is properly enjoyed, not only in Manchester, which has a vital role to play, but across the regions, across the towns and cities.
We saw some of the names earlier, Newcastle, Hull, Leeds, etc. Manchester is doing better than all of them, all of those cities. The people who live in all of those cities, they all deserve the job opportunities that we’ve been talking about. They all deserve the opportunity for new housing and better housing.
In order to strike that balance, whether you agree with it or not, that’s the Government’s proposition. That’s why that element of that investment that is guaranteed by this Bill, the surface station at Manchester, is as it is.
And that’s why the Government has rejected, as things stand, the proposition that the railway should go underground at an additional – very, very large additional cost on any view, and at a significant delay in bringing those benefits forward through the delay in the completion of the Bill scheme. That’s an important part of the context for the argument that’s being presented to you.
There was an argument about whether Manchester is being undersold, if you like, through the design itself. Manchester Piccadilly station will be the final station on the core HS2 network: London, Birmingham, Manchester. HS2 Euston is essentially a surface station built alongside an existing mainline terminus station. Birmingham Curzon Street is a surface station which enjoyed clear support from the local authorities in terms of the contribution it would make to generating investment.
Manchester Piccadilly is no different. The Bill scheme is essentially a surface station to serve HS2 services terminating in Manchester alongside the existing Network Rail station.
You might also draw that comparison with St Pancras. St Pancras was a surface station which has been developed in the last 30 years in order to provide a massive improvement in rail journeys, in rail transportation, and generated, by common consent, a massive regeneration improvement in the area around King’s Cross.
So there is no reason, in principle, to doubt the good sense of the Bill’s proposals in Manchester by comparison with the way in which HS2 has been proposed and is accepted in its other two main terminus areas, terminus stations, and also the obvious comparison with a rail-led regeneration scheme of the kind we’re dealing with, which is St Pancras station.
One of the disadvantages of the underground proposition that Ms Powell has put forward in comparison to a surface station is that although, as we saw in some of the evidence you’ve seen, and I’ve just put up P418(29). You remember that the platforms on the underground station will be at the same sort of depth from surface as the Jubilee Line platforms at Westminster Underground station.
What that implies, as shown on the screen, is that the journey for those alighting from HS2, or indeed NPR services at Manchester, and those boarding HS2 and NPR services at Manchester, they will have to – their journey is going to increase from surface, or from Metrolink or forecourt, whatever it may be, to platform and back again. It’s going to increase in each case by at least two minutes, but up to seven minutes. So is that the kind of passenger experience that this final, this third of the three main gateway stations to the HS2 network is designed to deliver?
In terms of passenger journey times savings itself, you’ve got to set those numbers against the acknowledged two-minute increase in journeys for those who are passing through Manchester on Northern Powerhouse Rail. That is to say from Liverpool to Leeds, whatever it may be.
Mr Cameron earlier referred to a balance between those two factors. It’s at least a balance; it’s no better than a balance in that sense. But actually, given that we expect greater number of passengers using HS2 and either boarding or alighting from NPR at Manchester, the greater numbers to be those who are going up and down the escalators than those who are passing through NPR services, the balance probably favours, in that sense, staying at surface than going underground.
And then you have the arrival experience itself is that, very different from Euston surface station, very different from Curzon Street surface station, very different from St Pancras surface station. Is that what the Greater Manchester partners really want for their, and what Ms Powell really wants for her station here? Views may differ, but this is not in any way a clear cut position. That has to be added into the balance in terms of economic advantage, and a balance in delivering investment.
Those are the points that I just wanted to draw out. It really is a case of whether you’re persuaded that there’s a clear failure of investment opportunity here. Is it really the case that the capital investment that is implied by taking this station underground, and the delay in realising the benefits that are being put, is that really so clear in your minds as to say, ‘Go back to the drawing board and revisit this. Revisit the station proposition for Manchester Piccadilly’?
To some degree I foreshadowed what I’m going to be saying little later on this afternoon in my summing up on the Greater Manchester partners, but I make no apology for that because, essentially, Ms Powell, as the local Member of Parliament, has made it essentially the same case, in favour of the underground station. So unless there’s anything I can help you with on those points, that’s what I wanted to say at this stage.
CHAIR: Thank you.
MS POWELL: Can I come back on those? Am I allowed to?
CHAIR: Yes, certainly. Yes, of course.

Further Submissions by Ms Powell

MS POWELL: I think it is, they’re important things to come back on. I think the first point I just make, obviously on the Government’s current position in terms of the Integrated Rail Plan, as I think I said in my opening, I don’t think that any of us, as parliamentarians and politicians, feel that that’s a sufficient forward plan, and that we have to plan for the next 100 years, otherwise we end up in the same situation we’ve ended up in the past, with things like platform 13/14, where we have these bottlenecks that affect the entire region. We have a once – not even a once in a lifetime opportunity to get this right. That’s what we’re asking of the Committee, is a chance to have another look at that.
On the point about investment land, the first thing I’d say is an underground station would release 40% more investable land than the overground station. But secondly, what I would say is anyone who’d been to Manchester lately, or who lives there like I do, would know that we don’t need that land to be released by HS2.
In fact, it’s currently being blocked by HS2 because Manchester – we just cannot build grade A offices, high tech offices and housing fast enough in Manchester. There’s a huge amount of private sector money going in that. If you look on a map, all of the possible land that can be developed is being developed. All of the land around Piccadilly which has been bought up over the last 10 years by HS2 hasn’t been able to be developed on.
So actually it’s been a blocker to regeneration and investment. We’re not grateful, if you like, in that sense because it would be built on, it would be invested in in any case. And in fact, in my constituency, for Beswick and Ardwick, which are two very poor areas, the gyrateries and the concreting-over will be a big loss of potential residential land and opportunity there.
I think the point that’s been made about the arrival times and getting from the Metrolink and all of that I think makes the point for me really, which is, I’m happy for my constituents to spend a couple of more minutes getting onto the High Speed line to come to London in exchange for there being much more reliable, shorter and more capacity journey times for people going from Liverpool to Leeds, or Warrington to Hull, or all of those other connections that we are talking about. It’s about getting that right.
I think you just cannot compare this to Euston. Obviously all the stations in London are terminus turnback stations, because we all know all trains go to London, don’t they? They don’t go anywhere else. And of course the minute you arrive in Euston or King’s Class, you then go underground to go through onto your onward journey and those two connections that just keep coming all the while. We’re not talking about Euston as the hub of a major reconnection of the whole of a region with turnback trains. That’s not what – it’s just not remotely, I don’t think, something you can compare that to.
Just on this point about cost and delay, there’s obviously disputed, the different cost analysis, cost benefit analysis. Firstly on the cost, I just refer you back to the points I made at the beginning, that the secondary and wider impacts, the whole levelling up agglomeration impacts and the limitations of the Green Book and Treasury orthodoxy are not capturing the true value of what we potentially could be looking at here, and that those costs should be considered in that cost value situation.
In fact, the tunnel I think in the end would provide better value than the overground, but I think you’ve heard some of that earlier as well. So I think let’s just remember that point. Just on this point about delay, look, we’re all northern MPs, right? When it comes to rail infrastructure and delay, the two words are part of the same phrase.
CHAIR: Yes, they are.
MS POWELL: We have seen delay after delay after delay, to electrification, to HS2, to Northern Powerhouse Rail that’s now not fully Northern Powerhouse Rail, that’s only partly Northern Powerhouse Rail. We are in this Groundhog Day. We have lived this Groundhog Day of delay and delay and delay.
So I don’t think that’s a particularly strong argument, because if it means spending a couple of years, which, quite honestly, it will probably be delayed by more. We’ve just seen HS2 delayed by more than that in the last few weeks anyway.
To get this right for the whole region – it’s not about Manchester. This is about connecting the whole of the north. This is not about Manchester. To get this right for the whole of our north so that we can have that global economic centre, that global economic economy that we can all be proud of, that’s connected, that all our constituents can access these great jobs of the future, then so be it, because we’ve lived with many, many, many, many more delays in the past.
CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Mould, did you want to add anything else?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): No, no, not at all.
CHAIR: Lucy, thank you very much for attending today.
MS POWELL: Thank you.
CHAIR: We have given extra time to this issue more generally because we do recognise it’s a really important one for the region, and also obviously for the whole project. So we are trying to give it as much time and detailed consideration as we can, and we will continue to do that. Your advocacy today has been an important part of that, so thank you for attending.
MS POWELL: Thank you very much again and thank you for all your time connected to it. Thank you.
CHAIR: We’ll see you in the lobby later. Well, I won’t see you in the lobby. I’ll probably be in a different lobby.
MS POWELL: Yeah. Not as exciting as yesterday’s obviously, yeah.
CHAIR: I wasn’t in that one at all.
MS POWELL: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR: Thanks a lot. Thank you.
MS POWELL: All right, thank you.
CHAIR: We’ll just give it a couple of minutes to move back to where we were this morning.
Mr King was still on the stand, wasn’t he? Still in the witness chair. So yes, Mr King was still in the witness –
We’ll just wait a moment for HS2 to return. for the promoter to return. I don’t think they’ve thrown in the towel on this one. Think they will be coming back.
Right, we’ve done our seat swap, so we’re all back. I think we left off with you, Mr Cameron, I believe, so we’ll continue from there.

Greater Manchester Partners

Evidence of Mr King (continued)

MR CAMERON KC: Thank you, sir. Mr King, can we turn to the underground station? We were looking at the surface turnback before. And can we go to A64(54) please, which is the scenarios which we’re all familiar with. You’ve got that.
MR KING: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: In scenario one we’ve got ‘HS2 services only. All services terminate.’ And this is before we’ve got the IRP – we’ve got the Northern – NPR, sorry, get my acronyms right. That is equivalent, that four-platform station, that’s equivalent to what HS2 would have had on the surface if it had been HS2 only, isn’t it?
MR KING: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: The answer’s yes?
MR KING: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: And no suggestion that you need some further turnback for that; it is a turnback itself?
MR KING: It is.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you. We then get on to scenario two, which is ‘HS2 and the NPR core network.’ That’s three terminating trains and six through trains. Correct?
MR KING: Correct.
MR CAMERON KC: So at that stage NPR has been built. So one has got trains going through to wherever they go to beyond Manchester, towards Leeds and elsewhere. Correct?
MR KING: For the NPR, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: So at that stage is there any suggestion from you that at that stage you need an additional turnback facility?
MR KING: In order to operate those six NPR services, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Operate the six NPR?
MR KING: Yeah. If I could just illustrate that point. The HS2 services terminate in the middle platforms. Some of those services will need to be split in order to bring them down to 200-metre trains, as per the train service specification that we’ve been working to. They will also be joined later in the peak service to make 400-metre trains. So that’s an activity that needs to take place. So that means all services for NPR are going off the two platforms and the middle platforms are occupied with HS2 services.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes, and so –
MR KING: So if you needed to manage things under perturbation, you need to be able to clear those platforms to enable you to do that.
MR CAMERON KC: ‘Under perturbation’; let’s just see what type of perturbation we’re talking about. Are we talking about clearing platforms when a train has broken down or stopped in the platform for some reason? Is that what you were talking about?
MR KING: Yeah. It could be many reasons that cause you to –
MR CAMERON KC: But it’s stopped in the platform.
MR KING: It’s stopped in the platform, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Yeah. A turnback facility is only any good to you if you can move the train from the platform, if it’s a turnback beyond the platform.
MR KING: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: So your solution, your turnback, needs – assumes that you can move the train. And if you can move the train to a cavern under Greater Manchester, you can move the train a bit further, can you not? Once it’s moving, it’s moving.
MR KING: To a point. You’ve got to take it somewhere.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes.
MR KING: Yeah.
MR CAMERON KC: It doesn’t have to be to cavern under Greater Manchester. Once it’s moving it could be taken further to a turnback sidings on the surface.
MR KING: That implies that it then needs to travel onto the Network Rail infrastructure east of Marsden and I’m not sure where you would turn it back from there.
MR CAMERON KC: But if the choice was a turnback on the surface, which we heard from Mr Smart would be so much less expensive than a cavern under Manchester, you would look to find somewhere wouldn’t you, rather than spending £2.5 billion?
MR KING: You would have to weigh out where that turnback was on the surface, because there will be a point where you actually incur additional rolling stock because you’ve then got to circulate the rolling stock around in a different stabling circulation pattern. So that would have to be considered as part of it. It’s not just one equation here. It’s a couple of equations. So there will be a point, if you take the train too far, the stabling and circulation pattern will be disrupted.
MR CAMERON KC: You take it a certain distance and you don’t need additional rolling stock. If you take it further, you might need additional rolling stock, but that’s not going to cost anything like £2.5 billion, is it?
MR KING: I don’t know what the cost of rolling stock is, but I would imagine it’s not £2.5 billion.
MR CAMERON KC: Let’s just see how likely it is. If you’ve got NPR running through, and this could be in scenarios two or three, because scenario three also assumes London services terminate on the two middle platforms.
MR KING: Yeah.
MR CAMERON KC: It’s no different for those NPR through services to any other station which has got two platforms, is it? There are stations up and down the country, which we’re all familiar with, which I think in railway terms has one up and one down. That happens all over the place, doesn’t it?
MR KING: It happens at various locations across the network, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes. And you don’t need a turnback facility for each of those locations, do you?
MR KING: It depends where those locations are and what train service is being operated, of course.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes, but you don’t have a turnback for each two-platform station do you?
MR KING: No.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you. You talked earlier about the specification, that HS2 were designing to a specification and the specification wasn’t only trains per hour. It was a service specification, and amongst that specification is train performance, isn’t it? That will be specified; trains are to run for a certain period before they need to be repaired.
MR KING: The train performance was a service performance. That was what the specification was. The trains need to deliver a level of reliability service performance on the HS2 network.
MR CAMERON KC: One element of that is not just the track and the stations, but the actual rolling stock itself. That will have a specification of performance, would it not?
MR KING: At some point, yes. It’s got to be specified what it needs to do.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes.
MR KING: And at some point it will need to be maintained, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: And there will be a specification which it has to travel a certain distance before it needs maintenance. That will be one of the specifications, won’t it?
MR KING: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Yeah. And it will be specified so as to seek to avoid it breaking down.
MR KING: If they are maintaining it on mileage-based maintenance, yes. If they’re maintaining it on routine condition maintenance, it’d probably with a different set of maintenance criteria.
MR CAMERON KC: But if they’re mileage criteria, you specify it’s not to break down or not to require maintenance for a certain number of –
MR KING: There would have to be reliability figures to it, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you. And that makes it less likely that it will break down in the station, doesn’t it? Well it must do.
MR KING: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: No, I think that’s all I need to ask you about that. Can I just check one thing? No, thank you very much. Those are all the questions.
CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Mould, did you have anything further?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I do, a couple of things if I may. Just on that last line of questioning, there is an issue between the parties on whether it would be prudent to plan for and cost a turnback facility before you get to scenario four. You’ve explained why you think that from an operational perspective, that’s a point of dispute. I’m not going to ask you anymore about that.
But can I just clarify this? From an operational perspective, do you say that there is any particular advantage to going to the four-platform through solution for NPR services as against the six-platform turnback solution for NPR services? Any particular advantage to the four-platform solution as against the six in either scenarios two and scenarios three?
MR KING: I don’t see an advantage, no.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Right, okay. So they’re effectively, in that sense, performing equally well as far as you’re concerned, in ordinary operation?
MR KING: Yeah.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yeah. Can we come then to the question of perturbation and delay? Can we just deal with stepping back first off in that respect?
MR KING: Mm-hmm.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): You were asked about the degree to which stepping back represented an additional operational risk which would be present in the surface turnback plan proposal, which seeks a five-minute dwell time –
MR KING: Yeah.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): – but absent from the underground station. I think you accepted that you wouldn’t expect to see stepping-back featured in the operation of the through station.
MR KING: No.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Right, okay. Can we just turn then please to C – so the risk, as I understand it, is the risk of the need for an additional driver standing on the platform to take over the NPR service which has come into Manchester Piccadilly so as to take it on its outward journey, the risk that that driver, for example, were not present at the time required, for whatever reason.
MR KING: That’s what the risk could be. However, we are planning to resource to make sure that that risk doesn’t materialise under normal conditions.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Can we just turn back to that stepping-back report, which is at P429? If we can turn please to P429(4). Just turn up, ‘Stepping-back process’; you can see there’s a chart there which shows a timetable, I understand it, for a day, and then colour-coded drivers.
MR KING: Yeah.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): How, in practise, do you expect stepping-back to work at Manchester Piccadilly station? Where is the driver who is going to take over the cab at the country end of the NPR service to take it on its outward journey, where’s that driver going to come from?
MR KING: Adjacent to that cab.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes, but how has he got there? Has he got there by driving in to work from – I say ‘him’ – he or she, have they got there from driving in to work from their home? How does the process work?
MR KING: The process would work that, again, it would go back to your train crew strategy, how you diagram and resource your drivers, and therefore that’s how that driver would get to that position.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Would they be coming fresh to the station, or might they be on a train?
MR KING: They could be either, depending on how you get that diagram sorted out. But you’d be looking to diagram to avoid baking in risk that that person that you’re looking to be at that end of that train at that time fails to be there.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I see, okay. You mentioned resourcing. If we turn to page 429(6), you mentioned the fact that you’d run this model we looked at earlier in relation, which led to the 19% increase in diagram requirements.
MR KING: Yeah.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): But you mentioned that that should be seen as part of the overall process of resourcing the driver resource.
MR KING: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I just wondered whether what’s said in 4.1.4 and 4.15 is something that we ought to have in mind. Does that illustrate the point you’re making?
MR KING: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Thank you. And then the final topic in relation to A67(21). You’ll remember that Mr Cameron drew your attention to this. This assumes an accumulating series of delays during a typical operational day at the station. Do you see that on the left-hand side?
MR KING: Yeah. Yes I do.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yeah. And we can see that as the day progresses, we can see that, on the results of Mr Palmer’s modelling, the surface turnback station suffers the effects of that delay as it proceeds, as it accumulates through the day more severely than the underground through station.
MR KING: That’s what it shows, yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yeah. Just help me with this. You said, ‘Well, that shows you that a risk could arise’, as it were. But you then went on to talk about it being managed, something that one would expect the operator to manage. Do you remember that?
MR KING: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Assume that you’ve got the operator either of a surface turnback station or a through station. As the day begins to take its course, as we move from the early morning into the mid-morning, it becomes clear that this pattern of accumulating delay is emerging, and services are beginning to be affected. What would be the operator of the station, whether it be the Bill station or the Greater Manchester partner’s station, what would be their reaction to that emerging state of affairs?
MR KING: They would put some form of operational contingency plan in to recover that service back to where it needs to be. So that that would be very dependent on the time of day, day of the week, that you would use different plans to mitigate that service and stop it growing in terms of delay attribution.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Is this something that is likely to be peculiar, the need to manage, from time to time, a disrupted day, is that something that’s likely to be peculiar to a surface turnback station?
MR KING: Disrupted days occur all the time and for lots of different reasons.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): The station operator would take the steps necessary to manage it.
MR KING: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Okay, thank you very much.
MR KING: Thank you.
CHAIR: Any further questions? No, okay. Thank you, Mr King. I think that’s –
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I have one more witness.
CHAIR: One more, yes, but you’re finished with Mr King.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I’ve finished with Mr King. Thank you, yes.
CHAIR: Okay, right. Your next witness then.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Mr Eckett.
CHAIR: Mr Eckett.

Evidence of Mr Eckett

MR MOULD KC (DfT): Mr Eckett, I think it’s a whilst since you sat there, but the Committee will remember you from your appearance earlier in the proceedings. You’re, I’m sure, very familiar to Manchester partners. You’re HS2’s Land and Property –
MR ECKETT: Yeah, head of acquisitions.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): You’re head of acquisitions, yeah, yeah. Just to set the scene for your evidence, if we just put up A82(2). The Committee will remember this from yesterday. This was Mr Lonsdale’s note. We saw that Mr Lonsdale’s calculation was that the Bill with the surface station would – I hope I use a non-controversial word – enable the release of a million square metres of developable land, of which some 476,000 – additional land released on his calculation by putting the infrastructure underground.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): And the fraction of that land, those numbers, that would be, on his view, applying the land use split from the SRF, from the Strategic Regeneration Framework, the fraction that would be devoted to commercial development would be 333,000 square metres for the Bill scheme and an additional 157,077 square metres for the underground scheme. And then there would be a more modest contribution on each side from hotel and retail and leisure development. Your assessment is more focussed on the land of the east of Mancunian Way isn’t it?
MR ECKETT: It is, yeah.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Just to remind the Committee, P418(40) to (42) just sets out, I think, your assessment.
MR ECKETT: That’s right. We looked at the various plots in both scenarios and calculated them and that is set out, as you say, on 418(41) and (42).
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yeah. We looked at these yesterday with Mr Lonsdale, so I don’t need to go through them again with you. But if we just go to P418(40), we’ve got the headline numbers from your assessment, with the commercial floor space in the eastern zone from the underground scheme, 195,090 square metres. With the Hybrid Bill scheme, with that surface infrastructure, 132,761 square metres. And you’ve calculated the net additional floor space, commercial floor space released in that eastern zone by taking the infrastructure underground.
MR ECKETT: That’s right.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): The 62,429 square metres.
MR ECKETT: Yeah.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yeah. Can I just ask you one or two other points? First of all, can we just deal with the question of the degree to which surface infrastructure, viaducts and other surface infrastructure which might bound, either wholly or in part, potential development sites, that would have a blighting effect on bringing sites forward for development. What’s your view on that point in this kind of urban setting?
MR ECKETT: I don’t think that is the case. I think it represents an opportunity. I share the views at A79(53), which is an extract from the Strategic Regeneration Framework.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Let’s get that up.
MR ECKETT: It says there ‘Transforming these heritage assets into animated public spaces such as bars, cafés, restaurant, shops, etc, will bring another realm of activity to the park, contributing to the overall character as a focus of leisure and recreation in Piccadilly Central.’ And then it says, ‘The precedents above, some from London, demonstrate ways in which both traditional and modern viaducts can be adapted to house vibrant public spaces.’
And if you look at other developments, such as what King’s Cross has been mentioned and the Olympic Park, both of those major regeneration areas have been crossed by infrastructure, which did not prevent the development coming forward. And in both of those examples, they’ve both got commercial and residential new builds located very close to that infrastructure. We have a plan, I think, of Kings Cross, and there’s St Pancras area.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): This is just a screenshot I think, isn’t it, just to remind the Committee of the –
MR ECKETT: Yeah. So you’ve got the two stations there, very much in a teardrop at the bottom, with St Pancras on the left and King’s Cross on the right. The entire boundary on the west, as shown in that plan, is formed of the High Speed 1 tracks and Midland Mainline services. And then on the eastern side you’ve got the boundary fixed by the tracks coming in and out of King’s Cross, together with also York Way. Within that zone, as I say, you’ve got both commercial and residential development very close to that infrastructure.
MR MORRIS: There’s no viaducts there, is there, it would seem?
MR ECKETT: Sorry?
MR MORRIS: It’s a journey I make frequently. There aren’t any viaducts coming into King’s Cross.
MR ECKETT: No, but what I’m saying, of course, is that that rail infrastructure does not prevent development coming forward and being located very close to it. The benefit of the viaduct is it enables people to be able to permeate beneath the viaduct. So these represent more significant barriers. In the present example, you can pass beneath those viaducts, being able to create pathways, walkways, placemaking that we’ve heard of. Some of them could also be converted to bars, cafes, to keep that vibrancy to the area.
MR MORRIS: I haven’t been travelling for 100 years but I’ve been travelling probably for 50 years, but King’s Cross is always being built up, hasn’t it? The miles beyond the Emirates Stadium and beyond that. Is that new? Apart from the immediate environment of King’s Cross, just the last few hundred metres, where there’s new development?
MR ECKETT: No. if you go on any railway line now, and it’s the same whether you go into Waterloo or wherever, you see new residential and commercial development being located very close to the rail infrastructure. So the GM Partners’ case is that blue area, that we’ve seen on some of the plans, is in some way sterilised and would be difficult to be brought forward for development. In my view, citing these other examples is where that infrastructure has not prevented development. And we’ve seen from the SRF that that can contribute to the vibrancy and to the public realm of the area.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Thank you. Can we just consider on a related point the degree to which the fact that the surface infrastructure to the east of Mancunian Way would be underground, under the GM Partners’ alternative; the degree to which that would release or improve development opportunities in the mindset of a would be commercial developer? Now we heard yesterday from Mr Hindle that you could engineer the necessary footings to be able to accommodate buildings over the tunnel and the turnback and so forth, and I think we accept that an engineering solution would be available. But I’m more concerned with the commercial feasibility of that solution as a means of generating high density buildings in such locations. Can you help the Committee on that?
MR ECKETT: Mr Hindle, Mr Lonsdale and Mr Lax all said that you would need a foundation solution in order to be able to build over those underground tunnels. My experience is those foundation solutions cost more than if you were developing on brownfield land without the underground station and that goes to cost. And, certainly, on the work that colleagues have done with commercial partners is that that will affect the viability of the development above the underground station. And although technically feasible is the sort of 12 storeys that you’ve heard those three witnesses talk about, it’s my case that the commercial viability will reduce that, so you won’t be able to develop out the maximum capacity because the commercials won’t stack up.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): So there are some constraints on either side of the line, as it were.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Turning to the question of mix, again we’re focusing on that eastern zone, we know that both parties recognise that there will be very significant development opportunities in that eastern area to the east of Mancunian Way, whether under the surface station or under the underground scheme. Have you taken any advice or considered, from a commercial perspective as well as a town planning perspective, what the most realistic scenario for the mix of development and use is coming forward in the take-up of those sites is likely to be?
MR ECKETT: Yes, we have. So the advice that we got was that it would be more than likely that it would be brought forward as a residential-led development, ancillary commercial. So that would be a ground or first floor, with residential above. And that there would be very little, if no, appetite for Grade A bespoke offices in that location.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): The Committee’s heard some questions and some discussion earlier in these hearings about the absence of any published planning framework for that area; there’s no master plan in place. And as Mr Lonsdale very fairly acknowledged that, in a sense, that was work to be done in the future. But the advice you’ve had is that there would certainly be a case for saying that it should be very much focused on residential rather than commercial.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I see. And then the other question I wanted to ask you about was in terms of delivery, because we know that Dr Simmonds, as he told the Committee, has made some assumptions about the timescales in which those development areas released by the scheme are likely to come forward. We know we’re dealing on either here with a very large amount of development land. I mean 1 million square metres; I think is around 10.8 million square feet.
MR ECKETT: That’s right.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): And, obviously, just under half of that is around 5 million square feet, by magic. Can we see from experience in Manchester, to which references have been made already in evidence to the Committee, how that compares to the pace of delivery of other Manchester city centre development schemes?
MR ECKETT: Yes, sure. So Councillor Craig on the first day presented some slides in A63(4) –
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Can we just turn to those?
MR ECKETT: – with some schemes, which were St. Peter’s Square, NOMA, Spinningfields, that you’ve heard of, all of them much smaller than the proposition that we’re talking about here in the eastern zone, and all of these schemes took a minimum of 10 years from submitting a planning application through to the last phase being built out. And then there are some other schemes on A63(5), in terms of Circle Square and First Street, which are the same. And the King’s Cross example is about 17 years. So we are anticipating that the sort of quantum of development that we’re looking at in the eastern zone will take about 15 to 20 years, realistically, to bring forward. And that’s partly commercial so that you benefit, subsequent phases benefit from the value uplift generated by the first phase or the earlier phases.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): What about the other point made, I think by Dr Simmonds, that with the majority of the infrastructure being underground with the GM Partners’ scheme, although there would be considerable disruption whilst the main station box was being excavated, there would be the opportunity to accelerate the pace at which delivery, at least of some of that developable land, would begin to come forward. What do you say about that?
MR ECKETT: As I understand, the area they’re talking about is land that will be compulsorily acquired for the surface scheme, and it will be used as the rail sidings, and therefore will be in use for the construction for a significant period of time.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): That’s at Ardwick?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes. So the likelihood of that coming forward for redevelopment, as it were, significantly before the completion of the main construction?
MR ECKETT: As I understand it, there will be a short duration, after the sidings are finished and before the station is opened, but for me that isn’t the area that you would start building out in the eastern zone. It’s the furthest away from Piccadilly and you would need to do some place-making that we’ve heard of, and I wouldn’t say that that’s where the substantive first phase would come from, if you were looking to maximise your commercial returns.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Is that it?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Thank you very much.
CHAIR: Thank you. We’re going to have a vote shortly so I’ll try and start just a couple of questions from myself before I ask Mr Cameron. My understanding from Mr Lonsdale’s evidence yesterday was that this issue of severance makes the land less attractive to development. I’m not a town planner or a property developer but it seems to me that if land isn’t severed, and is more easily to be packaged in a bigger space, that means you can do more. It means it’s more attractive; it means it’s more investible. Is that not your contention?
MR ECKETT: All developments in a mix of uses – thoroughfares, place-making, public realm, as we’ve heard – so those viaducts with that ability, as it says in the SRF, to create that vibrancy through those arches, either through permeability or converting them into use, presents that opportunity to help you with the development. And I don’t think a developer would see them as a significant constraint or a constraint. If you look at Mayfield, and the Manchester Partners are obviously very pleased with what they’ve achieved there, and so they should be, that is a development that’s on the top of the depot, we went up there. And that hasn’t represented a constraint and I don’t see either that the viaducts would do the same either.
CHAIR: But your contention is that a significant portion of this would obviously go for residential. We heard from Lucy Powell, 50,000-60,000 new residents are expected to be in Manchester, in the centre of Manchester, in the coming years. When I follow the debates about the construction of other above ground railway lines with viaducts, such as the SkyTrain in Vancouver, which I’m very happy for us to go to a Committee visit to, just to put it on record, now the debate there has been how that has had a choking effect on residential development because, of course, the shadows that are cast from viaducts, and obviously people not wanting to be at the site level of – you have to get quite high up in terms of residential development before you’re above the level of viaducts that carry the SkyTrain – but your evidence seemed to be that the sites in many ways would be more attractive for residential development because they have viaducts.
MR ECKETT: There may well be a difference in terms of the uses that you put the ground or first floor of those blocks to, at the point that they’re overlooked by the viaducts, but certainly above that I don’t think the viaducts have any impact on what you can bring forward in those areas, as we’ve seen in those large regeneration areas in the Olympic Park or at King’s Cross.
CHAIR: Other than there is less land to develop.
MR ECKETT: The viaducts in themselves can be used for bars and also public realm.
CHAIR: The modern viaducts?
MR ECKETT: And the existing ones.
CHAIR: Sorry?
MR ECKETT: And the existing ones.
CHAIR: The heritage ones, I understand – we saw the pictures – but the modern viaducts as well will be constructed in a similar way, so that development will be able to happen underneath is your contention.
MR ECKETT: Yes. There are examples of where there is development under modern viaducts. They don’t take any support from the viaduct structure; they’re two independent structures but, yes.
CHAIR: Thank you.
MR MORRIS: I’m a bit confused because I was under the impression that these viaducts that would be coming from Ardwick into Manchester Piccadilly would be standing tall, standing proud, above the landscape. Is the suggestion that that’s a variable plan and it would be possible to in-fill them with development if demand was there?
MR ECKETT: Through the detailed design of the public realm and the finished developments, you can do imaginative things with those viaducts. You’ve seen in Deansgate Locks in Manchester how they’ve changed that into a vibrant area. That could be the same with the new viaduct coming in. Absolutely, you can get various uses for buildings underneath those viaducts that contribute to the overall place-making of the area.
MR MORRIS: Is that a discussion you’ve had with GM Partners?
MR ECKETT: Not me personally but other colleagues may have; I don’t know.
MR MORRIS: That seems like a huge departure from what we’ve seen so far.
CHAIR: We don’t have detailed designs, of course.
MR MORRIS: Well we haven’t seen the detailed designs but just in terms of the design concepts and so on, that’s kind of news to me. I don’t know if it is to them.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Well we have assumed – there are two different things if I may say so – we have assumed for the purposes of our case that the viaducts present a constraint on development along their footprint, because it would be wrong to do other than that for the purposes of making a comparison. But I think Mr Eckett, if I may say so, was on a different point. He’s being asked about the opportunities that might arise through the detailed design process.
Now obviously that process is not going to happen for some time yet but he’s simply trying to assist you, that based on experience, he is aware of examples of modern viaducts where innovative design has enabled the land closely associated with them, and indeed the land beneath them, to be brought into use either as community space or indeed for some form of built occupation. I’m not sure we can take it any further than that, unless you’d be assisted by some examples of that, but I think he’s mentioned one or two.
CHAIR: I believe they exist; we have seen these things.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes.
CHAIR: Martin, sorry. I’m just …
MR VICKERS: No, carry on.
CHAIR: No, please, age before beauty. Go on.
MR VICKERS: No, you carry on.
CHAIR: No. Age before beauty.
MR VICKERS: All I was going to do was share Grahame’s view really that the traditional railway arches and viaducts and so on seem so much more inviting for that sort of development, where the more modern ones which tend to be a bit more like motorway flyovers don’t really necessarily blend in.
CHAIR: I think that was the point all three of us have tried to make in different ways is the argument being that the viaducts in some respects add to the development opportunities, they create these walkways. And my understanding of a modern viaduct is it’s a bit like a motorway flyover; it’s a big concrete thing with a few concrete pillars. It’s not the Victorian style arches which you can put a nice little brewery in, and a couple of café bars, and maybe a candle shop. It seems quite different to the kind of concrete pillars and motorway style. I suppose the point we come back to, because we haven’t got any detailed design so we’re getting into the realms of what could be and maybe not be, is still the fact that the argument we heard, obviously from Mr Lonsdale, was very much around the severance of these parcels of land diminishing substantially the value, the opportunities, the attractiveness of the development. And your contention is that that isn’t the case.
MR ECKETT: It should be seen as an opportunity, not a constraint.
CHAIR: So it comes down to a matter of opinion here, so I don’t suppose there’s much more use in flogging that horse from our side, but I think that’s where the three of us were at. Anthony?
MR HIGGINBOTHAM: Can I just check on these viaducts? Obviously, the cost of a simple viaduct, for want of a better word, that is just concrete poured to carry the train tracks straight in, that’s one cost. A more complicated viaduct that is designed to allow for shops or multi-use space, that’s a very different cost, one would think.
MR ECKETT: As I say, any structure that you would place under the viaduct, to create that environment, is separate to the viaduct. So it can be built under the viaduct; not attached to it, not necessarily using any part of the structure.
MR HIGGINBOTHAM: So you’re not designing the viaduct in a way that allows that.
MR ECKETT: No, no.
MR HIGGINBOTHAM: You’re saying, ‘This is the viaduct and now go away and creatively think about what you can do with it’.
MR ECKETT: You could have creative play spaces under there, playgrounds, uses, bars, in the same way as you would in any public realm.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): If I may say so, because I don’t want this to become misunderstood, you should certainly proceed on the basis that we do not claim that additional job-creating floorspace will be coming forward through providing job-creating activities underneath the viaducts. So in that sense, I hope that’s clear. All we did, and I hope this was clear from my question to Mr Lax in the first instance, and then I think to Mr Lonsdale – certainly Mr Lonsdale – is that it’s common ground between us, actually, on the basis of the strategic regeneration programme, that they can be seen as a challenge, but they can also be seen as presenting an opportunity, for example, to provide community space in the public realm.
And we saw that visualisation in the Strategic Regeneration Framework of a park, I think it was, which is running beneath the existing viaducts and was then intended to run beneath the HS2 viaducts, as they were then known, at the time when the Strategic Regeneration Framework was put in place. Do you remember that image that I looked at with Mr Lonsdale?
CHAIR: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): So I don’t think we’re claiming any more than that for the purposes of our case on this part of the debate.
CHAIR: I think the reason I was probing it was because of this issue with severance and what that has on the development opportunity, because there’s obviously a clear difference of opinion. Okay, this vote was coming, is coming, but we’ll start with Mr Cameron, and then hopefully the bell will ring.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you, sir. While we’ve got this in mind, can we have up P4(21), please? So we have here an illustration – and I think, Mr Eckett, you were talking about the eastern area. So that’s – confusingly on this drawing – it’s to the left, because it’s upside down, the station’s on your right, but you’re talking about the area on this to the left of the gyratory, aren’t you?
MR ECKETT: Good afternoon, I am.
MR CAMERON KC: Good afternoon. Sorry, Mr Eckett.
MR ECKETT: But thank you for that greeting.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I’m as bad as you.
CHAIR: I never said good afternoon either, so I apologise. Good afternoon, Mr Eckett.
MR CAMERON KC: I sometimes think that it appears more of a nicety than it is; it’s worse doing it than it isn’t. But anyway, duly corrected, let’s get back to the illustration if we can. So this drawing, you were talking about the eastern area, and you were talking about a viaduct, so where in the eastern area is this viaduct you were talking about, when we’ve got here a cutting and an embankment?
MR ECKETT: So you’ve got the existing viaduct, on the existing approach to Piccadilly.
MR CAMERON KC: No, no, but we’re talking about – we’re not talking about the existing viaduct, Mr Eckett – we’re talking about severance caused by the HS2 proposals. And you have this glorious idea of viaducts with parks underneath but where here – this the HS2 track in cutting, and HS2 and NPR on embankment – so where’s this viaduct that you’re talking about?
MR ECKETT: Well what I’m saying is that through the detailed design, you can integrate that with pathways across, in order to be able to open up that area that’s sandwiched between the two railways, to create that environment for development.
MR CAMERON KC: But if we’re talking about severance, there’s a different severance effect of a cutting. Yes, you could have a bridge across it. Then you can, wandering under your viaduct with your park under it. You were talking about viaducts, it’s a simple question, where are the viaducts to which you are referring?
MR ECKETT: If you see point 1, then it says that is the extent of the viaduct, doesn’t it? It’s clearly shown on there.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes, but you’re in the eastern area, and as soon as we get to the eastern area, after we’ve gone across the gyratory, the viaduct comes to an end, and we’re in embankment and cutting.
MR ECKETT: When we refer to the eastern area, we’re talking about, effectively from the point 3 to the left, not from point 1 to the left.
MR CAMERON KC: So any area that you were talking about, are you talking about from point 3 in the middle of the gyratory system? It’s going to be attractive there, with roads all the way round and a viaduct over the top.
MR ECKETT: As I say, through detailed design, that can be incorporated so as to bring forward the development, in my view.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you. Now at one stage, you said that viaducts were a help. Now if that really was true, you would have developers putting up false viaducts to make it better. I mean, it’s nonsense, isn’t it?
MR ECKETT: The High Line in New York?
MR CAMERON KC: How often does that happen here?
MR ECKETT: There are a number of schemes that are proposed.
MR CAMERON KC: What, to have false viaducts?
MR ECKETT: Well not false.
MR CAMERON KC: No.
MR ECKETT: But you can bring them into use.
MR CAMERON KC: Let’s now get back to reality. One of the objects of the exercise, would you agree is to assess the extent of the extra land and, therefore, floorspace that’s going to be derived if you don’t have infrastructure on the surface, and so that land can be used for other purposes.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: And it is necessarily a comparative exercise. You have one scheme which has viaducts, cutting, embankments and so on, and another scheme that doesn’t. And what you’ve got to do is to work out the difference in land area available, and that’s what you’ve tried to do.
MR ECKETT: Yes, we’ve compared the development plots in the two scenarios.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes. So let’s just, if we can, have a look at P422(1), please. Now this is the development response, so is this your report which went in; were you responsible for this?
MR ECKETT: No.
MR CAMERON KC: Your colleagues?
MR ECKETT: No.
MR CAMERON KC: No.
MR ECKETT: Colleagues produced it.
MR CAMERON KC: Right. But is it a report with which you agree or disagree?
MR ECKETT: I agree.
MR CAMERON KC: And can we go in that report to page 5, please? So 422(5), and the bottom of the page on page 5, that’s it. And we see here, you say, or your colleagues say, ‘The GM reports do not explain how these figures relate to the GM Partners’ massing drawings. In the absence of that explanation, HS2 Limited has sought to deduce this from the information provided’. So the exercise that you’ve undertaken is to look at the massing drawings, and then make deductions as to the amount of floorspace that’s available. I don’t mean by deductions, you’re deducing something; you’re not taking something off.
MR ECKETT: We were trying to do the comparisons which you’ve started with.
MR CAMERON KC: But this is how you went about it.
MR ECKETT: Our first step was that that was shown on P418(41) and (42) that Mr Mould took me to. So that was the first exercise that we did. And then in the absence of detailed calculations from the GM Partners, the second stage to try and cross-refer, if you like, to our first stage, was to look at those massing drawings and to see as to whether it would tally. And we did that as a second stage, and that did indeed corroborate what we did in the first step.
MR CAMERON KC: And did you assume, when you were carrying out that exercise, that the drawings showed a settled plan? Because you’ve sought to look at massing and deduce, as you put it, floor areas. Is that how you’ve gone about it?
MR ECKETT: As I say, we were trying to work out how the 475,992 had been originally calculated. I think we’ve had your own analysis now four times; it changed again in evidence yesterday. So it’s clearly quite a complex way that you’ve gone about it and we were trying to do our own analysis. And one of those pieces of work was, rightly, as you say, to look at those massing drawings.
MR CAMERON KC: That was one of the things you did. Did you, during the course of this exercise, go to the GM Partners and say, ‘How have you done this? Can we discuss this and come to an agreed position?’ Because the way of finding out how GM Partners had done it would have been to ask them, wouldn’t it, if you couldn’t work it out? It’s rather simple.
MR ECKETT: Yes. I wasn’t involved, so I don’t know whether that was done.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Well I do and the answer is yes. I’m surprised about that.
MR CAMERON KC: I’m not suggesting –
MR MOULD KC (DfT): No, but I’m concerned that there shouldn’t be a misleading picture; we did ask the question and we received information back which I put to Mr Lonsdale yesterday.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes, you received the Bennett note, which we’ve got here at A82. I’m just going to check when that was asked for. Thank you; we’ll come back to that in a moment.
CHAIR: Well you have been saved by the bell because we now have a break for the division in the House, so I’ll suspend the Committee.

Sitting suspended

On resuming—

CHAIR: The Committee’s resumed. Mr Cameron.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you, sir. I know that the Committee won’t want to waste time on who said what to whom and when.
CHAIR: We’re in politics, of course we do, that’s how we live our lives. But no, we don’t, obviously.
MR CAMERON KC: But as it’s been raised, I’ll just give you the dates and then we’ll stop on that. On 16 May this year, I’m told that the Bennett’s information was requested by the Promoter, and then the note was sent to HS2, shared with them, on 26 May. And so when it said, ‘The GM reports do not explain how these figures relate to the GM Partners’ massing drawings’, a few days before a note had been given explain it, but I don’t think that point is really going to help you. So if Mr Mould’s happy with that, I’ll leave it at that.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I’m absolutely ecstatic.
MR CAMERON KC: Well to get Mr Mould that enthusiastic is quite something.
CHAIR: I won’t say what I was going to say. Move on, carry on.
MR CAMERON KC: Mr Eckett, the approach that you’ve taken is to consider two areas, the west and the east, when you’re looking at land area released. And the approach you’ve taken to the western area, if you take – can we have P418(41) – is to consider the illustrative scheme and to, effectively, say, ‘Well there’s a large area taken up with public realm and a station building’, and that area is roughly the same as the area which we see on P418(42) for the Hybrid Bill Scheme area. It’s the 90,000 square metres-odd, I think, the area.
And so you’ve just said that, in both cases, development will not be taking place in those areas. It’s a very rough summary but have I understood that correctly?
MR ECKETT: We’ve identified the development plots and calculated those, I think as a consequence of what you’ve said.
MR CAMERON KC: But the difference – do you agree with this – between the underground and the surface, is that if you have the surface station, there’s a certain area taken up with surface infrastructure, namely the station itself and the six platforms, which you have to use for railway infrastructure – correct?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Whereas if you have an underground scheme, you have a choice. You can use that area for public realm, as shown in the illustrative drawings, you can use it for other purposes, and you can distribute public realm as you will. That’s the difference, isn’t it, in that area?
MR ECKETT: Yes, I think in your station at surface, there would still be station infrastructure that would be located at surface. So it’s not universal across the whole site but there will be elements of that site that you can use in the way you’ve described.
MR CAMERON KC: Well we’ve calculated that amount – I think it was originally 8,000 – and then became 11,000 square metres, for the surface building. But leaving that aside, you have a large area over which you have a choice as to what you do with it, but you don’t have that choice with a surface station. Is that right?
MR ECKETT: Less choice, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: You say less choice, if it’s going to be used to provide six platforms on the surface, it has to be used for that purpose to perform its railway function, doesn’t it?
MR ECKETT: Yes, there’s more fixed infrastructure with the surface scheme at the surface than there is in the GM Partners’ scheme, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Now turning to the eastern area, if we go to P418(40), we have a comparison, and on your calculation you end up with 84,490 square metres of additional development area if the station is built underground. And this in the eastern zone, so this is if you don’t have the cuttings and the viaduct.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: And there are, of course, a number of different ways that you could perform a calculation as to how much developable floorspace, and the net area, you would get on that 84,490. We don’t agree the 84,490, but I’m just seeking to investigate what you’ve done. And what you haven’t done, or you may have done but you don’t appear to have done, is to apply a floorspace index to that land. That’s not been your approach, has it?
MR ECKETT: No.
MR CAMERON KC: And no doubt you would say, ‘Well part of it is outside the SRF area and therefore the floorspace index applies to the SRF area’, giving you your answer.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: It saves time. Because if you did apply the SRF factor of 4 to that 84,490 – and I don’t want to do too much maths with you in front of the Committee – I’m happy to if the Committee were to put up with it, but I want to jump to the point if I can.
MR ECKETT: It’s 3.9 but, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Well it’s 3.9 or 4.
MR ECKETT: Yes, sorry, it’s 3.9.
MR CAMERON KC: Let’s not engage the SRF and go to the 4, but for the moment we’ll use 4 for maths, but we can use 3.9. That gives you, you multiply the 84,490 by 4, you get 337,000, if it was 960, and you have to convert it to get a net figure by taking 72.5%. That’s the way that Mr Lonsdale did it. And that would give you a figure of 245,021 of floorspace.
Now that is considerably more than the floorspace you’ve assumed for commercial and residential in eastern area, the difference, isn’t it? I sought to work it out, with Mr Lonsdale’s help, but the figure I’ve got for yours, and I’m going to jump to it, is 154,586. And you’ve arrived at that by looking at the massing drawings and taking a view on how much development you would get on those sites. I’m taking this as quickly as I can but have I understood what you’ve done correctly?
MR ECKETT: We did two different things. One is, as I say, we built up off those plots, so you could do the same calculation by looking at the plots. Given the limitations, for the reasons you’ve said, on the floorspace index, you could apply that for the purposes of comparison with our floor areas. But, as I say, the second exercise was to look at the massing, but only as a way, if you like, of trying to work backwards, if you like.
MR CAMERON KC: This is the deducing, I think was the word used, but the massing you’ve taken are from plans which are illustrative. They’re not settled plans, are they?
MR ECKETT: No.
MR CAMERON KC: And the floorspace index, of course, gives you a uniform approach, so you can compare one scheme with another by taking the same approach, rather than having to make assumptions on massing.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: And the figures can be checked, but do you accept that you would get a considerably greater floorspace – and I’ve combined commercial and residential – if you were to take the floorspace index approach compared to your plot-by-plot analysis approach?
MR ECKETT: We’re doing two different things, aren’t we? Our plot is a ground floor area, applying some form of FSI, is you’re getting the developable floorspace.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: So I’m taking your ground floor area, 84,900, if I apply the SRF, FSI, whether it’s 3.9 or 4, I’ve applied 4, I get a figure of roughly 90,000 square metres more of floorspace than you get. You get the difference of 154,586, and I get 245,021.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: And do you agree that any exercise that’s being conducted at the moment is an exercise in, we have to make assumptions as to the type of development that is to be carried out, which may vary greatly?
MR ECKETT: Judgments. Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: And one way of doing it, do you accept that it is a reasonable way of doing it, to look at the floorspace index and to apply that; is that a reasonable approach?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you.
MR ECKETT: With limitations, but it’s a reasonable approach, yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes. Can we turn from amount of floor space to land use? Can we have p422(6) to hand, please? And can we just go down the page a bit on p422(6)? Sorry, back up again; that’s it. So when you’ve made assumptions as to residential and commercial, are those your assumptions?
MR ECKETT: This is an analysis of what we thought the GM Partners’ proposal was.
MR CAMERON KC: Right. So it’s not your analysis of likely uses.
MR ECKETT: Not at all. This is what we thought how you distributed the uses.
MR CAMERON KC: If we go to p422(7), please, and can we go down a bit there on the page? That’s it. Now that is the front of the station, who made the assumptions as to residential and commercial in those buildings?
MR ECKETT: This was trying to interpret the Greater Manchester Partners’ drawings as to what the uses that were proposed. And it was considered from the massing and design that it was those uses that it was trying to interpret your drawings. I think it’s agreed between us that the front of station and the boulevard is best-suited to commercial development.
MR CAMERON KC: You’ve answered the next question. You wouldn’t put residential there because it’s right by the station, where you take advantage of the commercial opportunities.
MR ECKETT: Correct.
MR CAMERON KC: But your figures that you’ve arrived at, which are indicative, are based on an assumption as to residential uses in the blue part shown on that drawing, which is as we both agree not an appropriate use of a building in that location.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you. So in terms of the exercise that’s being conducted, can the Committee have any confidence in the precise figures that you’ve put forward, if you’ve made assumptions such as that, for residential use where it’s plain we agree it should be commercial use?
MR ECKETT: As I say, that was us trying to interpret what you’ve done. But the two parties have tried to assess floorspace and development areas, and have come up with two approaches.
MR CAMERON KC: Yes.
MR ECKETT: Both have merits, and perhaps if we were in a different environment the parties would get together to try and find out where between those parameters lied the answer. But I think both are credible. I would say, wouldn’t I, that I believe our approach is more realistic because it takes out things like the crossover box, which we say isn’t developable from our experience in Old Oak Common, whereas yours includes that. And there are other risks, I think, in your approach but both approaches are credible. I say ours is realistic; I say yours is optimistic.
MR CAMERON KC: You say both are credible, and I’m not suggesting that yours is not credible – as you say they’re both credible – but the advantage of the GM Partners’ approach is that it’s a like-for-like comparison, isn’t it? Because you take an area, you apply a land to building ratio, and you apply a floorspace index, so you can make a direct like-for-like comparison between with and without surface infrastructure.
MR ECKETT: You can, but as I say, I think you’ve done it four times, reducing it each time. I think there are still elements in there that could be looked at, in terms of public realm and use of public realm. And, as I say, I think there are over-optimistic assumptions, such as one example is that crossover box.
MR CAMERON KC: Of course, if you take the approach that the GM Partners have, and you apply a land to building ratio, you have the ability to use – you’re not determining where the public realm is going to be – you’ve got buildings on a third of it, and the rest of it can be used for roads, parks, public realm. So you’ve got flexibility, haven’t you?
MR ECKETT: Yes, but by taking that extra step though, with the third, the FSI goes up from 3.9 or 4 to something like 11.8.
MR CAMERON KC: The FSI doesn’t but the average storey heights go up.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR CAMERON KC: I think is the accurate. Thank you very much; I haven’t got any other questions for you.
MR ECKETT: Yeah
CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Cameron. Mr Mould?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Just two points, if I may. Mr Eckett, can we just turn to P418(40)? I want to make sure that we understand that there are two lines on this table, the first of them is expressed to be a development area analysis area, do you see?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): And the second of them expressed to be a commercial floorspace analysis.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): And if we just turn to P422(6), where Mr Cameron took you a few minutes ago, I think we can see the report writer’s explanation of how they’ve got to that. We need to get up to the – that’s it – it’s the paragraph that begins, ‘On the basis’. And you can see that reference is made to two development areas, the Bill surface station allowing delivery of a development area of 179,930 in the eastern zone, and the underground station, 264,420. Those are development areas, right?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): And they feed into the first line on that table we were looking at 418(40).
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Then it goes on to deal with the application of the breakdown of floorspace in Greater Manchester’s massing drawing. And it says the build surface station would, in fact, allow development of approximately 195,833 square metres net internal area of residential floorspace, and 132,661 square metres net internal area of commercial floorspace. And there you can see that that leads through, finally, to that familiar number, 62,429 square metres net internal area. So the second line on P418(40), that’s an expression of an analysis of floorspace, is it?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes.
MR ECKETT: Only for the commercial.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Only for the commercial. I just wanted to be clear that what it was that Mr Cameron was asking about there. Okay, the other question was this. We were back again to the question of the area of the station that would be taken up with station infrastructure under the build scheme and the area which would be taken up for surface infrastructure under the underground scheme. And let’s just remind ourselves at P418(37) and (38), what we’re talking about; 418(37) and (38). And as we can see on the build scheme, the station area is shown – it’s that area outlined in pink that we’re familiar with – and you agree with Mr Cameron the majority of that area would be taken up for surface railway infrastructure, I think was the way it was put.
And if we go to the next slide, (38), Mr Cameron pointed out that, although a comparable area is shown as being part of the underground scheme land take, as we’ve seen from Greater Manchester Partners’ plans in illustrative drawings, a significant part of that area is area that is devoted to public realm. And Mr Cameron asked you, ‘Do you agree that provides flexibility?’, and you said, ‘Yes, it does’. Can we just go to P418(8), please, just to see what it is that is – it’s that rather utilitarian phrase – ‘railway infrastructure’, which could embrace a lot of things. But the railway infrastructure that we’re talking about, on this community-generated image, is in the view, isn’t it?
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): That railway infrastructure under the build scheme is actually Manchester Piccadilly HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail’s station.
MR ECKETT: Yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Do you think that’s an inappropriate use of that site?
MR ECKETT: No, not at all.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): How do you think it compares with what on the Strategic Regeneration Framework Manchester Partners are actually looking for at that site?
MR ECKETT: Yes, it fulfils what’s set out in the SRF, yes.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Thank you very much; that’s my questions.
CHAIR: Thank you. So Mr Mould, Mr Eckett was your final witness.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes.
CHAIR: So we’ll go to final statements. I’m just keen, have we an agreement on how long each side is planning to take?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I have six pages of a summary of closing submissions, which I think will take me about 10 to 15 minutes to read, and I have that in a printed form. I don’t think we’ve got sufficient – oh, we do – we actually do have copies of that, if you’d find it helpful.
CHAIR: No, I’m happy to hear it. I think it would be useful for everyone to hear the final statements. We aren’t going to have any more votes in the chamber, so we won’t be interrupted. It’s just good for planning for colleagues, so that we won’t be running till 6 o’clock on this basis then. So Mr Mould, as the Promoter, I will allow you to go first.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes, that’s obviously, if I may say so, the right order.
CHAIR: And then we’ll hear from the Petitioner. So Mr Mould.

Submission by Mr Mould

MR MOULD KC (DfT): What I’ll do is, I’ll ask if we can put this up on the screen. So for the record, it’s P432, and it runs P432(1) through to (7). I also draw your attention to slides P418(2) to (4), which are a short summary of our case, as we came into these hearings. I think it’s pretty much our case as we go out of them but I thought I’d draw that to your attention.
So by way of introduction, the six platform surface station at Manchester Piccadilly would cater for all planned train services for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, with capacity for future growth. It would provide a catalyst for the redevelopment of Piccadilly, bringing with it substantial economic and other benefits to Manchester. It would fulfil the Strategic Regeneration Framework objective of a landmark station, giving a strong sense of arrival into central Manchester, providing a first and lasting impression of the city for those arriving by train. And the image I’ve just shown you on the screen is a visualisation of that, P418(8).
Under the Integrated Rail Plan, with the six platform surface station, Manchester will become the best connected northern city. It’s common ground, the questions with Dr Simmonds, that the Hybrid Bill, including its surface station, would support the government’s aspirations of levelling-up.
The option of undergrounding of the station at Manchester Piccadilly had been the subject of detailed consideration by the Promoter, in consultation with the Greater Manchester Partners well before this petitioning process began. It was found to be unjustified. That, of course, is a reference to the SIFT report and the government’s conclusions in the light of it. And our case is that nothing within the petition that you’ve heard changes that fundamental analysis. The underground option would come at a very substantial additional cost. It’s common ground that the additional cost would run into the billions. The effect would be to divert significant funds intended for other parts of the North and the Midlands under the IRP. The underground box required would be, as Mr Hindle explained, enormous; some 16 times the size of the underground box on the Elizabeth Line at Paddington.
It would represent very significant construction challenges and result in significant additional disruption in central Manchester. It’s common ground that it would substantially delay the arrival of HS2 into the city, postponing the social and economic benefits that HS2 would deliver, and the experience of those arriving into central Manchester by train would be greatly diminished. Instead of enjoying views of the regenerated city, think of the arrival into St. Pancras on HS1, visitors would arrive into Manchester underground and would be required to ascend from a depth comparable to the Jubilee Line platforms at Westminster Station, before finally emerging into the city.
Next page. We say that these benefits far outweigh the claimed additional economic benefits that would be brought about as a result of additional surface land to the east of the commercial centre of Manchester being freed up for development by the underground station.
Turning to the question of functionality, firstly the surface station. It’s common ground that the Hybrid Bill station would have the capacity to accommodate, firstly, HS2 services; that’s scenario 1. Secondly, HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail services on the IRP core network; that’s scenario 2. The Transport for the North’s preferred network services – that should say, rather than HS2, that should say GM Partners and Transport for the North’s preferred network services – 11 trains per hour; scenario 3.
On the Petitioner’s own evidence, these capacities will be achieved by the surface station with an eight minute dwell time for NPR services, a dwell time that would not require stepping back. As Mr King explained, the station as designed will achieve a practical capacity of up to 14 trains per hour. Accordingly, the surface station would provide sufficient capacity to meet not only the government’s plan for rail services, but also the, ‘preferred network aspirations’, of the GM Partners and TFN, aspirations which have not been taken up by the government. Indeed, even if those aspirations were realised at 11 trains per hour, there would still be some capacity for future growth.
It follows that the Petitioner’s claims that the Hybrid Bill builds in a bottleneck, one of the two alleged defects with the surface station identified in the Petitioner’s opening, is without substance. The fact that the surface station does not have the capacity to accommodate the capacity of the Manchester Spur, which Mr Palmer asserted at 15 trains per hour, is immaterial, since as Mr King explained both the HS2 network and the NPR planned network are designed to operate train services that are capable of being accommodated by the Hybrid Bill station. As Mr Lax agreed, the scale of increased operations contemplated by GM Partners’ scenario 4 would require large-scale additional capital investment in the railway system for which there is no investment plan. The assertion that IRP is planned only to accommodate rail services to 2050 is misconceived. The investment package is funded to that milestone but the rail programme itself is planned, effectively, to the design life of HS2.
As Mr King explained, the requirement for the station to be planned to achieve a five minute dwell time on NPR service is a sponsor requirement. It’s correct to say that achieving that dwell time is at least in part driven by the need to manage passenger experience on NPR through services. Mr King’s evidence, read together with the Promoter’s note, P429 – that’s the stepping-back note – demonstrates that, although not precedented in this kind of rail operation, stepping-back is able to deliver the sponsor’s requirements in a reliable and manageable way. In brief, stepping-back assumes that the driver of the previous NPR service into Manchester Piccadilly will move along or across the platform to stand ready to assume control of the next NPR service out of the station.
The risk of this system introducing delay into the day-to-day operation of NPR services through Manchester Piccadilly is plainly manageable through an effective resourcing plan. The additional cost of resourcing the necessary driver diagrams will be insignificant in comparison to the huge additional capital costs of the underground station. The concern about passenger experience – that is to say the additional two minute dwell time for through passengers on NPR services – needs to be balanced against the increased journey times for passengers on either NPR or HS2 boarding or alighting at Manchester in an underground station at the depth proposed.
And then turning to the function of the underground station, in order for a four platform underground station to provide the same functionality, with adequate resilience, it would be necessary to provide turnback sidings. This much is demonstrated by our evidence; that slide we’ve looked at in some detail at P418(24). In short, even if one of the four platforms is blocked by a train – sorry, if one of the four platforms is blocked by a train – the remaining three platforms would not have sufficient capacity to accommodate the HS2 and NPR services, leading to delays and a rapid increase in perturbation.
Mr King’s evidence, was that turnback sidings are required with a four platform station, in order to provide sufficient resilience, even assuming the practice of platform-sharing, which itself brings operational difficulties, in a through station. The need for turnback sidings arises, essentially, because whatever the size of station, two platforms are required for HS2-terminating services. The Hybrid Bill does not contemplate HS2 services running beyond Manchester Piccadilly, which serves as a terminus station for HS2. GM Partners’ scenario 4 is, accordingly, inconsistent with the operational principle on which the Bill is founded and would call into question the operational case for a dedicated high speed rail network, serving London, Birmingham and Manchester.
On that basic premise, GM Partners’ proposal is completely different to the Woolwich Station proposition on Crossrail; Woolwich is an intermediate station on the Elizabeth Line. The other points of clear distinction with the present case are two-fold. Firstly, the government was able to accept a station at Woolwich at no significant additional cost to the Crossrail Bill; and, secondly, the addition of Woolwich Station did not add substantially to the overall programme for the delivery, rather than the devilry, of Crossrail. I don’t think anyone would argue for devilry.
Crossrail is a red herring. The GM Partners’ proposal would elevate the claims of a subsidiary purpose of this Bill, which is enabling NPR services, over the primary purpose of the Bill which is to deliver the HS2 network between London, Birmingham and Manchester, as cost-efficiently and as timely as possible. The GM Partners’ proposal inhibits the achievement of that primary purpose.
Additional costs. It’s common ground that the additional costs of the underground station would run into the billions. The Promoter estimates that the additional costs of the four platform underground station would be between £4.432 billion and £5.58 billion. This would represent an increase of 63-80% on the estimated costs of the Hybrid Bill station. GM Partners’ estimate of the additional costs of between £1.734 billion and £2.627 billion is, we say, artificially low because it omits the cost of providing the turnback sidings, about £2.5 billion, including contingencies, etc. GM Partners have not provided an alternative costing of such a turnback siding.
Correcting the GM Partners’ estimated benefit to cost ratio to reflect the true cost of an operationally resilient four platform underground station alone, that is to say assuming, amongst other things, the GM Partners’ assessment of the additional economic benefits is correct, would reduce the VCR to 0.7-0.8, which represents poor value for money. In truth, the realistic comparator is the cost of the six platform underground station, option B1, which would cost a similar amount to a four platform underground station with turnbacks, and which would add an additional seven years’ delivery into service.
In terms of delay, both Mr Hindle and Mr Smart emphasised the scale of the engineering operation to construct the underground station. Both also explained that there were a range of factors, such as ground conditions, ground water and contamination, which could impact on the construction programme, and which were currently unknown. The Promoter estimates that the delay of bringing HS2 into service as a result of constructing a four platform underground station in place of the Hybrid Bill station would be between four and a half to eight and a half years.
The four year range reflects a degree of contingency, two years of which are due to the risk of construction delay. This is appropriate given the nascent design stage of the underground station compared to the Hybrid Bill station, and the degree of unknowns about land conditions, etc. The other two years of contingency take account of the potential delays to the Hybrid Bill process beyond the period envisaged. GM Partners estimate that the delay would be at least three years. For the reasons given by Mr Smart, we say this is unrealistic and should not be used for planning purposes.
By way of example, the GM Partners’ construction programme allows only 15 months for the construction of all internal structures and fit-out, after the excavation of the main box is completed. As Mr Smart explained, this is a wholly unrealistic estimate. Completion of the internal structures and fit-out to a station of this size to requisite standards is likely to take around four years from the end of excavation.
Correcting the GM Partners’ estimated BCR to reflect the delay alone – again assuming, amongst other things that GM Partners’ assessment of the additional economic benefits is correct – would reduce the BCR to 0.7 to 1.1. When the additional costs of the underground station are also factored in, together with delay, the BCR would reduce to 0.4 and 0.5, all in the poor value for money range.
I did want just to add one thing. To avoid having an unnecessary degree of complexity about the issue over programme, it is helpful, I think, just to note that if you look at Mr Lax’s programme slide, which is at P418, A64(58) rather, on Mr Lax’s slide for the four platform station, you see the bottom chart, you can see that construction – that is to say the green bar – begins at the beginning of 2029. And if you then have that thought in mind, beginning 2029 for construction, and we turn on to Mr Hindle’s programme which is at A66(31), we know that Mr Hindle has not attempted to take account in his programme, or in his staged approach, of ground investigations, design, land acquisition, utilities, diversions and other enabling works.
So, effectively, what Mr Hindle has done, his Year 1 is Mr Lax’s 2029. So on that basis, you’re not really troubled with that debate about how long you need to allow for the Hybrid Bill process to take its course. And I can show you that by just turning back to Mr Smart’s slide, which is at P418(33). If we can blow up the bottom chart, you can see civils route construction begins, the green bar, at the beginning of 2029. So there’s actually a common position for both Mr Lax, Mr Hindle and Mr Smart, that the main civils works start at the beginning of 2029. So then you’re looking at the debate about how much longer you need to allow for the internal works and the fit-out to take place. Mr Smart’s four years against Mr Hindle’s 15 months, I think. And you also need to add on the year for trialling. And then you need to consider how much, if at all, you think you should allow for contingency. In other words, how much beyond that four and a half years you should allow to account for the greater complexity of construction in relation to the underground scheme in comparison to the surface scheme.
I hope that helps to simplify that debate a little bit at least, so far as the programme is concerned. And as you’d expect, we ought to be focusing on the appropriate allowance for risk and more complex work in relation to the main construction of an underground station as compared to a surface station. That’s much easier to get a handle on on the evidence of engineering witnesses than the debate about whether an AP could be brought forward in three or four years, whatever it might be.
So turning then back from that little digression to regeneration benefits. Whether the station is at surface or underground, taking HS2 into central Manchester will provide the catalyst for regeneration of the area, bringing with it substantial economic benefits. On GM Partners’ evidence, the Hybrid Bill surface station would bring with it 1 million square metres of developable land, including some 330,000 square metres of commercial land. On Dr Simmonds’ approach, this would generate in the region of 27,750 jobs. On the Promoter’s assessment, the development would primarily be found to the east of Mancunian Way, outside of the commercial centre.
Our position on the advice we’ve received is that the most realistic scenario is that the balance of development brought forward in this area would be much more in favour of residential than commercial. We consider that GM Partners’ assumptions that one-third of the development of this area would be commercial is significantly overstated and, consequently, that the additional 14,000 jobs is also significantly overstated.
There has been some discussion about the degree to which the Hybrid Bill station and underground station constrain development in the eastern zone. However, it appears to be agreed that either scenario would present some development challenges. That there would be opportunities presented by either scenario for forward planning of the area is also common ground.
In terms of the pace of delivery, it remains the Promoter’s position that the delivery timescales on which Dr Simmonds’ economic assessment is based are overly optimistic. Experience in Manchester and at St. Pancras suggest that delivery of the huge scale of development potential released by either scheme would take significantly longer to realise than is assumed by Dr Simmonds. I think Mr Eckett gave you a figure of 15 to 20 years as being, in his view, the more realistic figure. And, as you know, he did compare that to examples that were referred to by the leader of the council in her own evidence.
In other words, the time at which the agglomeration benefits through job creation would begin to be felt is likely to be from a significantly later date than has been assumed, which I think is five years in Dr Simmonds’ analysis, so a considerably shorter period than Mr Eckett said is realistic. This in turn would tend to reduce the degree of additional wider economic benefit from going underground.
The promoter’s position is that the additional wider economic benefits achieved as the result of the increase in developable floor space from going underground would represent very poor value for money and I’ve taken that from our slide which I think is P418(44) when set against the additional cost, delay and other disbenefits of an underground station. HS2 including the surface station proposed within the Hybrid Bill will already provide substantial support for levelling up in Manchester. This substantial additional capital expenditure on an underground station would be far better employed, we say, delivering levelling up across the north and midlands regions in accordance with the IRP. And it’s for those reasons that although no doubt – although seductively expressed, Mr Cameron’s modest plea for some further collaborative consideration, we say would actually not produce a different outcome.
The case against going underground, whether it’s to six or to four platforms, is clear, or sufficiently clear to mean that, as it were, the guillotine should now be brought down on that particular alternative and we should move forward to secure a speedy Royal Assent for this Bill with a view to enabling the benefits to Manchester, both in terms of transport benefits and wider economic benefits and indeed to the region, those benefits can be delivered in the shortest possible time hereafter. And that’s our case in response. I did make some rather shorter but similar submissions in response to Lucy Powell MP and I would ask you just to take those into account also when you are considering the overall summary of our position in the light of these hearings. And unless there are any questions you have for me, I have nothing more to say on the point.
CHAIR: No, I think that’s fine. Thank you, Mr Mould. Mr Cameron.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you, sir. I have a written version which hopefully will have made its way through, though not yet. It’s only just been sent but I think it might benefit everybody if they had it in front of them in the same way that they have Mr Mould’s.
CHAIR: We can wait a moment until it’s –
MR CAMERON KC: It’s only just been sent.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): There we go.

Submission by Mr Cameron

MR CAMERON KC: Ah, there we go. Right. So, members of the Committee, I start where Mr Mould left off by reminding you of what our ask is and in the way that Mr Mould asked you to take into account his response to Lucy Powell MP, I ask you to take into account her address to you, her submissions to you, when also considering this case in the round.
And the issue is, is it desirable that the promoter and the GM Partners be asked to work together to bring forward provisions for an underground through station in place of a surface turnback station? That’s the question we have put before you. There’s no suggestion that the construction and operation of an underground through station would not be technically feasible. And whether the station should be on the surface or underground therefore turns on matters of judgement. So the Committee is ideally placed to exercise that judgement.
The key issues, we suggest, are would an underground station be better, will it cost more, will it take longer to build and will it provide better value for money? And the answer to those questions are it would be much better. It would be better from a railway perspective because it would provide capacity and better resilience and performance than a surface turnback station.
It wouldn’t build in a constraint with a horizon of just meeting the plans for 2050 for infrastructure that should be lasting into the next century and beyond. It would remove from the surface the blighting effect of significant viaducts and cuttings and embankments. It would enable far greater opportunities for economic development and place‑making.
It’s not just economic development but it’s the place‑making opportunity to create a station hall and an entrance worthy of the investment being made. It would cost more and we don’t shy away from that. But as you’ve heard, the biggest difference on cost is the necessity for an underground turnback facility. But faced with a choice of spending £57 million or £1.27 billion you’d have to factor both up, almost double them, for a turnback facility.
Even if one was necessary, which we dispute, the option that would be chosen is obvious. You’d go for one on the surface at a fraction of the cost. But that perhaps, I may add, is a reason why we’re asking you to request that everybody goes away and comes up with an appropriate underground solution. It would take longer to build but the parties – the differences between the parties are not, on a proper analysis, very significant. On a minimum, we have a difference of 2 for GM Partners and 3.5 for HS2. The reason we’ve got those figures is it was 3 and 4.5 but from the baseline you can take off a year because the HS2 Bill, this current Bill, is expected to take a year longer than it otherwise would. In the great scheme of things, this short delay is not significant. It would undoubtedly be value for money. HS2’s central forecast is 0.7 and Mr Simmonds estimates the BCR to be between 1.2 and 1.8 increasing to 1.7 to 2.6 if a hundred‑year appraisal period is taken. And it’s not difficult to understand why there is greater value because the underground station releases more land at the surface on anybody’s approach – difference in the numbers – on anybody’s approach it releases more land at the surface and that land can be put to good use for economic purposes.
We then set out what the key issues are to then exercise the judgement as we see it on railway. Would a surface turnback station provide a sufficient and reliable railway, in particular for NPR? And I’ll add in a moment something in response for Mr Mould. Would an underground through station provide a more efficient and reliable railway than a surface turnback station? Would a surface turnback station allow full advantage to be taken of the capacity at the spur? Can an underground station be provided without causing material disruption to or interference with the operation of the existing classic station, a matter which you, Chairman, raised? What is the likely impact on timing with the construction of an underground station? Then we’ve got economic and place‑making issues. What is the extent of the additional economic benefit to be derived from releasing land at the surface? Will providing an underground station contribute to place‑making benefits? What’s the additional cost of providing an underground station and how does the value for money compare? And so we deal with each of those issues, railway issues, but I won’t repeat the question because I’ve just read it out.
The surface turnback station imposes a constraint on the network as it can only accommodate 11 trains an hour before additional infrastructure is required. And you’ll remember Mr Palmer’s diagram with little green lines on it for the viaducts. And even then, the extra viaducts will only increase capacity to 13 trains per hour for passenger services. To achieve the necessary dwell times, and therefore performance, and that’s to achieve the performance specified by the sponsors, it relies upon stepping back from day one. And that builds in risk and builds in instability.
So would it provide a more efficient – an underground station – provide a more efficient and reliable railway than a surface turnback station? Well, from day one, it can accommodate more trains than a six‑platform overground station and can do so more efficiently and reliably. It is in every respect a superior rail facility. It is, we say, surprising that Mr Smart and Mr King did not agree to this when asked directly by members of the Committee. It’s obvious. There are, of course, costs and time implications for an underground station but those are separate considerations to efficiency and reliability.
You heard from the promoter that the surface station has been designed to meet the service specification in the integrated rail plan. This is scenario 2 as assessed by the petitioner which involves nine trains per hour, three London terminators and six NPR services. The underground through station accommodates in excess of the service specification and it’s able to accommodate the full capacity for spur with all through services. The London terminator as a four‑platform underground through station can accommodate 11 trains an hour from day one and 13 trains an hour if one assumes there will be platform sharing. And I emphasise that is with London terminators. So there is NPR plus London terminators. So, before any issue arises of the principle of the Bill as suggested by the promoter and certainly before the need for the 2.5 billion expenditure on turnback sidings which the promoter has sought to argue would be required under the centre of Manchester because you can have terminating London services and those through NPR.
So far as reliability issues are concerned, modelling work undertaken for HS2 concluded that the timetable becomes unstable if services either arrived at or accrue more than two minutes’ delay at Manchester Piccadilly surface station. While modelling work undertaken for the petitioner shows that a surface station is less resilient to longer periods of disruption than an underground station. And that modelling, carried out by Mr Palmer, used RailSys which is the standard modelling tool used by Network Rail for modelling railway operations and undertaking performance analysis within the UK. It’s used across the world but principally in Europe. It’s a robust and appropriate tool to understand the likely viability of the station alternatives in the event of perturbation. And nobody else, other than Mr Palmer, produced such an analysis.
Mr King did not suggest otherwise. His point was an operator would seek to manage perturbation. The operator of an underground station would look to do so as well. And ultimately, Mr King properly accepted that the modelling results are illustrative of another risk for the surface station. As you heard from Mr Palmer, a surface turnback station is more complicated to operate with a far greater prospect of delayed trains coming into conflict with other trains in the station throat. This means that an underground through station delivers significantly higher punctuality and better performance, enables quicker recovery from delay with fewer knock‑on effects and supports a higher level of services per hour without impacting on performance. In short, the four‑platform underground through station from day one can accommodate more trains than the six‑platform overground station including London terminators, can do so without the need for the £2.5 billion turnback facility and can do so with a more reliable and efficient station.
Next question is whether the surface turnback station allows full advantage to be taken of the capacity of the spur. There’s no doubt that the surface turnback station would not provide sufficient capacity to allow full advantage to be taken of the capacity of the spur. On the GM Partners approach, the spur has a capacity of 15 trains in each direction. HS2 in fact suggest that the figure may be higher. The promoter’s answer to this point is to refer to the current and planned train service based on the integrated rail plan. That may be though to be a short‑term and short‑sighed approach. The IRP covers the period to 2050 and phase 2(b) of HS2 is intended to come into service in 2036. And we’ve just had the announcements from the rail minister in the last day or so.
It is not appropriate to build a railway on the basis of a timetable which only has 14 years or so left to run at the time of opening. If you go to the existing Piccadilly station, that was opened in 1842 and it’s still in operation. And it can be assumed that the HS2 station will have similar longevity. It should not, this Bill and this station, should not impose a constraint upon the railway and its likely future expansion.
In cross‑examination of Mr Lax, Mr Mould referred to the principle of the Bill being that Manchester Piccadilly should operate as a terminus station for HS2 services. Well, the principle of the Bill, as the Committee will be well aware, as set out in the instruction to the Committee, is the provision of high speed railway between a junction with Phase 2A – of High Speed 2 south of Crewe and Cheshire – and Manchester Piccadilly station. It’s not part of the principle that Piccadilly should forever be the terminus. And Mr Mould in his closing referred to the fact that the principal object of the Bill was to provide a high speed service to Manchester. But the object of the Bill is also to facilitate NPR and that is an important object of the Bill. And one should not be allowed to undermine the other. Nothing in the design of the station at Piccadilly should preclude or unnecessarily constrain the future expansion of the railway network. The effect of the current Bill is to authorise a spur with a capacity of 15 trains an hour in each direction and a station which cannot accommodate that capacity.
It is important to take advantage of lessons learned from other projects. If a railway is designed to meet current timetable planning, it cannot cope when timetabling changes. An example of such an eventuality was given by Adam Palmer when he referred to the Borders Railway. And this matters. There will at least to be further very substantial expenditure to cater for additional NPR services at Piccadilly. Where additional platforms will go cannot be known and it would be perverse to knock down a new development that both parties anticipate with come forward with delivery of HS2. One can only wonder whether using the full capacity of the spur could only be achieved by deciding to build an underground station in addition to the surface station that’s in the future. So why not do it now?
Material disruption to the classic station – there is now no dispute on this issue, described by the Chair as almost the crux of the issue but not a matter in dispute. It can be done.
So what is the likely impact on timing? The GM Partners have given careful consideration to timing implications. They want to ensure that the benefits from HS2 for both Manchester and the wider north are able to be realised as soon as possible. But they also want to ensure that when the benefits do arrive, they arrive in the right way and with the greatest legacy value. And this Committee has the ability to ensure that there is a proper legacy from this Bill.
An underground station will take longer to build than a surface station, potentially, as Mr Lax said, approximately two to three years. But the GM Partners believe that the likely delay has been exaggerated by HS2 and that there are opportunities to reduce the time taken to construct an underground station. There are two main areas of dispute: the time taken to obtain the necessary consents and the time for construction.
So in the consenting process, in the SIFT appraisal, when they were looking at a six‑platform underground station, it was assumed that three to four years should be added for the design, development and consenting process. On the current HS2 assessment, the consenting process is assumed to take an additional two years. But Mr Smart properly accepted that upon a further additional provision coming forward, and the Minister for Rail and HS2 said yesterday that a second additional provision will be proposed, that any additional provision for an underground station could be considered concurrently and that must be right. And that takes a year for the difference between the parties.
On construction process, Mr Hindle considers that HS2 have been overly conservative in their assessment of construction processes, having regard to the advantages of constructing tunnels and caverns in the locally existing Sherwood sandstone which differs markedly from ground conditions in the south east. And unlike Mr Smart, he has specific and recent experience in undertaking construction projects in exactly this sort of ground. It’s necessary, in any event, to consider the contingency, not just the underground through station but also for the surface station. The IRP suggests that the delivery of the surface station may not in any event be until the early 2040s.
HS2’s range for the underground station is 2040 to 2044 and therefore even in HS2’s assessment therefore the underground station is capable of being delivered before an overground station might be delivered. And I just add to this, sir, that Mr Mould made detailed reference to the programmes, to the charts and to the contingencies that have to be allowed for. Of course, if you were to say to the promoter, ‘Go away and discuss this and come up with a revised plan,’ many of those uncertainties would be resolved and the delay is likely to be reduced.
I turn to economic and place‑making. Significantly greater economic benefits will accrue from there being a larger amount of land available for development at the surface. And the additional development in very simple terms generates a greater level of agglomeration benefits. That is, there will be increased productivity in jobs both in Manchester generally and beyond. This will result in higher incomes for employees and higher profits for businesses and it will add value to the UK economy of £3.6 billion in 2015 prices. And assuming that development does not begin at Piccadilly until the underground station opens over an appraisal period, that is the £3.6 billion, over an appraisal period of 60 years. But those are all conservative assumption because in reality if you have an underground station, development will start sooner rather than later because land to the east will not be blighted by the uncertain prospect of NPR viaducts which would blight development under the surface station proposal because they’re going to come along later. The greater levels of productivity do not, of course, cease after 60 years. They will continue to accrue for the benefit of the whole country well into the future. And this is an important levelling up benefit of the type described by Lucy Powell because by creating higher productivity you offer greater opportunities for people living in proximity by rail to this cluster of activity. So it has widespread benefits.
I then turn to place‑making benefits. An underground station will make an enormous contribution to place‑making. It will provide the opportunity to create a world‑class station entrance to Manchester with an expansive public plaza to the front which will catalyse redevelopment in the area. And significantly, an underground station will remove the blighting effect of the cuttings and viaducts required for the overground station. Mr Eckett made a valiant attempt to explain why viaducts and so on wouldn’t be blighting but, as I put to him, if they were such a marvellous contributor to development, developers would be building them and they don’t for the sake of it.
The land that will be available will be more attractive with greater opportunities to create high quality public space very much like that recently created in Mayfield which you would have seen on your visit. And this isn’t coming from a group of people who talk about something but don’t do anything. Manchester City Council has an impressive record of delivering development in the city. There are many existing examples of the city’s success such as Spinningfields and many in the pipeline. And Councillor Craig referred by way of example to how development in Mayfield over the next seven years is expected to give rise to 10,000 jobs and over 11,000 square metres of office space – more than was anticipated in the strategic regeneration framework.
So what’s the additional cost? Well, fortunately, in some ways for you, the ambit of dispute on this issue is relatively narrow. The dispute is limited to the question of whether the GM Partners who omitted various items from their calculations. The parties have engaged in discussion about the items included within HS2’s costings and those included within the costings of the GM Partners. And the output is in the comparative cost table which you have.
The main point at issue is whether there is a need for a turnback cavern under central Manchester. If it’s not necessary to construct a turnback cavern under central Manchester, the cost difference is narrowed by £2.5 billion. As Mr Palmer explained in the scenario in which the underground station is accommodating up to 15 trains an hour, it’s reasonable to suppose that the opportunity will have been taken up to run HS2 services beyond Manchester. And even if that is not the case, there will still be London terminators in a 15 train per hour scenario. It will be wholly unnecessary to provide turnback sidings in an underground cavern under central Manchester when above ground sidings could be provided. And they could be provided, presumably, for around the cost of the ECS siding as set out in the agreed note on cost which was £56 million plus contingency. HS2 have at the least failed to show that there is no need to give this issue any further consideration to see if a cheaper solution can be found. Really do not need to spend £2.5 billion on a cavern under central Manchester.
Turn to value for money. The reference case BCR for the build scheme, i.e. Crewe to Manchester, is 0.7. It follows that anything that is better than that is going to improve the overall value for money of the scheme and the promoter accepted as much. Now here we made the mistake that we shouldn’t have made. It should say Dr Simmonds, not Mr Allanfield. So we’re in good company in that but apologies to Dr Simmonds. Dr Simmonds estimates the BCR to be between 1.2 and 1.8 increasing to 1.7 to 2.6 if a 100‑year appraisal period is used. And the economic case for the build scheme is it is sure to improve if an underground station is proposed.
Conclusions. The heart leaps. We’re getting to the end. The real question to consider is whether the benefits of an underground through station outweigh its cost. And underground station would allow for future expansion of the NPR network, building greater resilience and avoid the need to use stepping‑back. There would be very significant economic and place‑making benefits. An underground station would bring with it greater productivity benefits and so greater economic growth from which the whole country would benefit. And we do not seek to shy away from the need to weigh against the significant benefits the increased cost and potentially time to deliver an underground station. But once this is done, the balance comes very firmly down in favour of an underground station. And, of course, we’re not asking you to make a precise judgement. What we’re asking you to do is to say you’ve been persuaded that this is a good scheme to pursue and it should be worked out. And what we’re asking you is to instruct HS2 to work with the GM Partners to bring forward the revised plans to replace the proposal for a six‑platform surface turnback station at Manchester Piccadilly with an underground through station. And if the Committee have any questions, I will endeavour to answer them.
CHAIR: Mr Cameron, I don’t think there are any questions. I think the two presentations were helpful to have read into the record. I think we’ve devoted a significant amount of time to the decision. I think we have done it justice, in fairness, of actually going into the details of the proposal but also testing the differences between both parties. So I think it has been very useful and I’m right to add some additional time in for that. I don’t have any further questions at this point. So I will bring the proceedings to a conclusion. Other than just to thank all of the partners from Manchester for coming down and for the witnesses for giving evidence to us over these past few sessions. And as with every other petition we’ve heard so far, we’ll obviously make an appropriate view on that at a time in the future.
MR CAMERON KC: Thank you, sir – apologies for interrupting – for giving us the extra time and for listening so patiently because we are fully aware that you will have other things to do.
CHAIR: Yes, we’ve forgotten what the inside of the House of Commons actually looks like. But I think it’s been important for both the petitioner and the promoter to ensure that we’ve had the time to really do this justice, as I’ve said. So thank you for your attendance over these past few days. Thank you, of course, to the promoter as well for their witnesses. And on that basis, I will bring the Committee to a close.