• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

What are you doing about English Heritage?

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

On the East London Line, round Bishopsgate Goods Yard, your statements have been a bit confusing at times. Perhaps you could help by reiterating your views about that. My view is that English Heritage's twelfth hour intervention in trying to get part of the Goods Yard listed, has been unhelpful in delivering a 21st century transport project. I have no problem with that Heritage being involved but their very late intervention was, frankly, anti-democratic. What do you think about that?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

There are lots of jigsaws here in transport to put together. My worry about Crossrail is that this company is in two parts, Strategic Rail Authority and Transport for London, but both these bits of funding coming from the same place, which is Government. Isn't that a bit of a worry? If Crossrail doesn't get going, which would be a very sad thing, do you have to tear up the London Plan?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Would you accept that whilst we all support what is said about Orbirail and Crossrail, none of that answers the issue that there is a severe dearth of orbital transport in outer London? Are you aware that the ALG raised that point specifically with the Scrutiny Committee? If the ALG come to you, either singly or with partnership groups, with worked up schemes for comparatively cheap and quick improvements, will you sit down and talk to them about it?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Back to Orbirail, because this was something I raised at the beginning with you, only because it's so cost effective and I thought it would be a win by 2005. It isn't in the Plan in the way that Victor wants because it's not a mega-project; it already exists. It's a concept of linking existing north, south, east and west lines together into a Metro-style network, and it brings inner-London town cities together with areas of opportunity and deprivation. It was a snip in 1999, when I last had it costed; it was £450 million including the East London Line...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

I think the real concerns of the South London partnership are not so much what's in the London Plan as what is not in the London Plan. Whilst extending Tramlink to Sutton will be very welcome, would the Mayor agree that that is by no means the only solution to the pressing need to improve orbital travel around South London. Can he give us a bit more reason for hope than he has so far? Surely it does not have to depend on the failure of Crossrail, which we all want to see succeed. What is the answer to orbital...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

There has been real concern about the cost of the Crossrail scheme - obviously no one is against Crossrail in principle - and we are talking about soaking up a huge sum of money and putting many eggs in one basket, and that is the concern of the ALG as well when they came to the scrutiny on the London Plan. How would you answer that: that if by putting Crossrail as your number one transport infrastructure priority, that is potentially taking away money from a whole range of other schemes which, at a local level, could have a far...

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Doesn't that make it more important that you put it at the top of your list because, surely, your criteria should be different to the Treasury's? Orbirail is going to benefit people in London, particularly in inner-city areas, whereas Crossrail is largely about people getting from Heathrow Airport to the City. There are far less stops for people in London on the Crossrail plans than there will be on the Orbirail plans. The idea of measuring the benefits of a transport scheme through productivity, is biased against poorer people who are going to earn lower incomes. The Treasury's figures are...

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

How do you think Orbirail compares for cost effectiveness with the other transport infrastructure schemes that you've got? Crossrail is estimated to cost between £6-£10 billion, whereas Orbirail, if you already have the East London Line extension, is only supposed to cost something like 3% of that amount. In cost effectiveness terms, Orbirail ought to be the top of your list.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

It's proceeding but it doesn't seem to have the prominence in the draft London Plan that other transport schemes have. Orbirail doesn't appear on the London diagram in the draft London Plan; there's a list of major transport schemes with their timing and it doesn't appear on that; in the Options Appraisal document for the Plan, it's not listed amongst the major projects. It's not up there with Crossrail and Thameslink 2000; it is excluded from those even though it looked like the most important of the schemes that the Plan was going to move on.