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I cannot accept that there is no alternative to the Lough road site ; there are clear alternatives, two of which I have already identified. I am sure that, if we combed the whole of central and inner London for alternative sites, we could come up with a considerable number of other alternatives.Mr. Corbyn : I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware--although he has not mentioned it--that during the Monnery road and Lough road inquiries the issue of likely future demand for ready-mix concrete was also mentioned. I wonder whether we are planning for over-production of the material and whether we may end up with far too many facilities for producing it to meet the demand.
Mr. Smith : My hon. Friend is correct. We all know what has happened to the construction industry in recent years. There is 25 per cent. over- capacity in office space in London. The demand for concrete has fallen substantially in recent years. We hope that the construction industry will pick up, although I doubt that it will, given Government policies. We must seriously question whether there is a need for the two plants to continue in existence or whether the need for concrete in the inner London district cannot be met by other existing plants, without dumping a new one in the middle of a residential district.
There are other worries, some of which the hon. Member for Keighley mentioned. There is much concern about the dust that may be generated by the development. I accept that British Rail and the concrete companies say that the activity will be enclosed, the essential operation will be boxed in by protective layers and the process will be subject to dampening.
However, two factors must be borne in mind. First, no such plant has ever been built. There is not a concrete plant in this country with an enclosed operation and the damping-down facilities proposed by British Rail for the King's Cross site. The inspector's report identifies the problem and states that he cannot make a judgment on whether such mechanisms will work, because there is no such plant up and running for him to look at.
The second factor is that, if the protective devices are to work, there must be immaculate housekeeping at the site and everything must be done entirely by the book. From the moment they set foot on the site to the moment they leave, people must abide by the rules. I expect that, in the normal course of operations of a concrete batching plant, there will be quite a lot of hasty, perhaps understandable, breaches of the guidelines and rules. The necessity for closing doors and ensuring that everything is shut may be forgotten in haste. It may well be that the site will not be run absolutely according to the rulebook each and every day in each and every year. Therefore, there is a danger that dust will be created, with a serious impact on local people.
Mr. Waller : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the concrete batching plant will be subject to the increasingly stringent regulations set out in the Environmental Protection Act 1990? The enforcement authority will be the London borough of Islington, which as an ultimate sanction could require the closure of the concrete batching plant if the regulations were not met. Will that not be a considerable incentive for everyone involved with the plant to ensure that the rules are obeyed?
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Mr. Smith : I am sure that the excellent environmental health officers of the London borough of Islington will do everything possible to ensure that the site is operated in accordance with the rules and the commitments presently being given by British Rail. But what will happen when there is blisteringly hot weather in the summer and all the doors and hatches in the concrete batching plant, which are supposed to be kept shut, are open because of intolerable heat? One can fully understand how that might occur.
Roller shutters will be constantly opened and shut to allow access into and out of the various site facilities. Are we to say that no dust will ever escape when those shutters are raised or lowered? I would not accuse anyone of bad faith, but in the normal operation of such a site it will be impossible to maintain the absolute standards on dust that British Rail promises.
Mr. Corbyn : In response to the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller), my hon. Friend made an important point about the likely dust levels inside the plant. We are moving into uncharted waters here. Does my hon. Friend agree that Islington's excellent environmental health service will be put in an impossible bind? It will have to ensure reduced dust levels surrounding the plant while being required to look after the health, safety and welfare of those who work in the plant, where dust levels will be high. I wonder whether we are building a plant that will be a complete monster for all concerned.
Mr. Smith : My hon. Friend makes a valid point. One of my sadnesses is that the creation of the concrete batching plant will not provide any employment for local people--it is intended, probably rightly, to move the existing employees from the King's Cross site to this site--but their health and safety must be considered.
I have already touched on the problem of site noise. The site is directly next door to residential accommodation. Noise will come not simply from train deliveries and shunting operations but from lorries coming empty to the plant and leaving full from it. They will rev their engines in low gear and grind their gears coming up out of the low-lying site to reach the levels of the main roads surrounding the site. There will be many noisy operations on the site, such as the descaling of the revolving drums on the backs of the lorries. Local residents will have to put up with all that.
In addition, there will be the impact of train movements. People living in the surrounding area already experience considerable noise disturbance from the trains using the main-line tracks. The vibrations can be felt as far away as Hartham road, which is a considerable distance from the site. Although everyone in the area accepts that no one living in close proximity to a railway, as I do, can expect a wholly quiet, noise-free existence, they are entitled to ask questions about the extent of the additional noise which is likely to be imposed on them. We are talking here not just of inter-city trains or normal transport but of trains carrying extremely heavy materials on to the site.
There is an additional problem. Some houses in the immediately surrounding streets are already experiencing subsidence from the vibrations from the railway lines. Therefore, in addition to noise and disturbance, there may well be gradual structural damage to properties immediately beside the lines.
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It is worth noting that only a few years ago British Rail sold land for housing, which is now known as the Heddington Grove estate. A year later, it deliberately set about preparing these proposals for a concrete batching plant and associated works that will make life a misery for those who live in those houses.Mr. Michael Brown : I have a copy of the London county council planning and building regulation document of 22 January 1963--document TV51 --which specifically designates the land for housing. There is absolutely no doubt that in those days the London county council architects department had information about the site from the principal housing architect :
"Railway surplus lands, borough of Islington. Proposed use : housing."
Mr. Smith : The hon. Gentleman, who has done much more research into this matter than British Rail ever dreamed of, is right to draw particular attention to that.
In addition to the noise of train movements, traffic will be generated by the lorry movements into and out of the site. British Rail airily tells us in its environmental assessment that that will not affect residential roads. I am afraid that the planning inspector disagrees. He notes that the traffic generated by the concrete batching plant at Lough road would include a considerably higher proportion of heavy goods vehicles than would be generated by any other form of industrial development on the site. He accepts that point, which has been made forcefully by local people.
The inspector goes on to address the question of where the HGVs will go and what will happen to some residential streets. He lists those most likely to be affected as Mackenzie road, Hemingford road and North road, and adds that there will be others. All are residential streets. The inspector points out that they are reasonably wide residential streets. That does not mean that people do not live in them. In all those streets people living in houses and flats will face a massive increase in disturbance from traffic as a direct result of the plant. It is nonsense for British Rail to claim that there will be no impact on residential streets.
The direct access to the site will be from Caledonian road. At rush hours, it is extremely busy, with long queues of traffic stretching past the site. There are residents on Caledonian road, although it is a main traffic artery, and they, too, will be affected. Obviously, the traffic that at present uses the road--not necessarily HGVs--will try to find other ways of bypassing the extra traffic jams that will be created by the HGVs that will use the road as a result of the construction of the site.
Clearly, there will be a dramatic traffic impact on all the surrounding residential areas. It is high time that British Rail owned up to that fact. The additional traffic desperately worries many people who live in the surrounding area.
Other issues have to be addressed. There is the disruption to the flow of existing traffic that will be caused by some of the proposed railway works. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North will want to say a little about the changes to the Hornsey road railway bridge which are proposed in the Bill and which affect his constituency.
I defy anyone to look at the before and after drawings of the Hornsey road railway bridge that are contained in
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the environmental assessment published by British Rail and not be horrified at the proposed change to the Hornsey road bridge which forms the immediate sight line for all people walking or travelling up and down Hornsey road from Holloway road. That change will have a dramatic impact on the visual environment of the area.Mr. Corbyn : My hon. Friend has obviously looked at the environmental impact notes published by British Rail. Does he agree that the Hornsey road bridge drawings are completely misleading and that it is about time somebody in British Rail learnt how to do three-dimensional drawings so that we can see the impact of the change? That would be a great step forward. At first glance, there appears to be no difference whatever.
Mr. Smith : Certainly there appears to be a difference. I suspect that in reality the difference would be far worse than what is already rather alarmingly portrayed in the documents.
In addition, a clause in the Bill abolishes rights of reverter in connection with the proposals. We all know what the Committee on the King's Cross Railways Bill said about the abolition of the rights of reverter. It was dubious about that concept in relation to the King's Cross Railways Bill. I suspect that any Committee that might conceivably be established if we were to give the Bill a Second Reading would wish to take a similarly sceptical attitude to the abolition of rights of reverter in the Bill.
Mr. Michael Brown : Is not the answer to the question posed by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) contained in the language used by British Rail, which would be worthy of a good estate agent or even a bad one? Describing the new Hornsey road bridge, it says :
"The current bridge comprises three brick arches and has some visual character."
There is no doubt that even British Rail is basically admitting that the bridge is rather attractive, but the next sentence gives the game away. It says :
"The new bridge would be of a radically different design." Does that not give the game away? Is that not, in estate agents' speak, basically admitting that the bridge will be a visual horror?
Mr. Smith : That is correct. A cursory glance at what is proposed in relation to the bridge, which is of considerable visual importance to the amenity of that area, will lead anyone to the conclusion that what British Rail proposes will be an absolute horror.
Mr. Cryer : Would my hon. Friend care to glance at the list of costs supplied with the Bill by the promoter, in which he will see that the bridge will cost just under £2 million? I can assure my hon. Friend that that would go a long way towards providing the rolling stock on the Leeds-Bradford electrification. That cannot be provided at the moment because the Industrial Bank of Scotland, which is arranging for the leasing --following the Government's insistence that the rolling stock should be leased--is saying that it wants a guarantee that, if the railway is privatised, the organisation that takes over the railway from the passenger transport authority will be able to pay for the leasing of the trains. Is it not a remarkable contrast that an important electrification scheme in the north is being placed in great difficulties because of that
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bizarre leasing insistence by the Government, yet British Rail is prepared to spend almost £6 million on something that is unnecessary?Mr. Smith : My hon. Friend correctly identifies the overall cost of the works in the Bill of some £5.5 million, a high proportion of which relates to the Hornsey road railway bridge. Is it not barmy that here we have a proposal which will do no one any good, which is not material to the King's Cross main proposal for a channel tunnel station, which will do enormous damage to the lives of people in the immediate area and which no one in that immediate area wants, yet it is gobbling up £5.5 million which could much better be spent on other railway improvements, the purchase of rolling stock and such like, for which people are crying out in other parts of the country? One must seriously ask whether British Rail has its priorities right.
Mr. Cryer : My hon. Friend mentioned investment. I assure him that, if the rolling stock programme for the Leeds-Bradford
electrification--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. The Leeds-Bradford line is not included in the Bill. I allowed the hon. Gentleman to develop his initial intervention, but I hope that we can return to either the siting of the concreting plant or the passenger terminal.
Mr. Cryer : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is with the Bill a list of expenditure amounting to £5,342,000 and I should have thought that it was legitimate to show where that money could be better spent as an example of the way in which costs are incurrred by the Bill.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : The hon. Gentleman has already given one example and appeared to be repeating it.
Mr. Smith : I am sure that my hon. Friend is simply seeking to assist the House in setting our discussions in an appropriate context.
I know that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are fond of and know well the streets and estates of Islington. You will, I suspect, share my horror at the Bill. I stress--this is an extremely important point to remind hon. Members, especially my hon. Friends, of--that the Bill has virtually nothing to do with the channel tunnel station at King's Cross and the onward use of that station for links to the north-east and the north-west. The minor matters of access points could easily be dealt with elsewhere.
Mr. John Gunnell (Morley and Leeds, South) : In the past 75 minutes, my hon. Friend has spoken mainly about planning issues, which I assume were fully considered by the planning inspector at the inquiry. Were the points that my hon. Friend has made now at such length made at the planning inquiry and did the inspector address the remarks made by my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), who represent the borough of Islington?
Mr. Smith : I made representations to the inquiry. I did not say as much as I have said in the House, but some of what I have said tonight I also said to the inquiry.
If the Bill did not proceed tonight, the main King's Cross proposal would not be damaged or delayed in any way. If it is passed, the Bill will lead to the establishment of a concrete batching plant which is fiercely opposed and
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resisted by local people. The plant is not needed at the proposed location in any event, because alternatives exist. At times, it will generate dust, fumes, noise and disruption for people living nearby. It will result in train movement that will disturb and distress those people. It will generate damaging traffic impacts in the surrounding residential streets.Much of the Bill deals with the protection of highway authorities, undertakers, telecommunications services and water authorities, but it contains nothing about the protection of local residents. It must not be assumed that, just because the local residents live in an inner-city area, they should be forced to put up with what no one else would endure. They are being asked to put up with work going on just beneath their windows, throughout the day and possibly at night. I believe that their interests should be taken into account, and I am here to represent them. Because I know what they think, I believe that the House should refuse point blank to give the Bill a Second Reading.
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Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : I oppose the Bill, and I ask the House to consider seriously what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith). Most of the works envisaged in the Bill would take place in his constituency : as I said in an intervention, the constituency boundary lies on the Holloway road, and the northern part of the scheme falls within the Islington, North constituency--that is, the works around the Hornsey road bridge and the new line that links up with the main line near Finsbury park.
My hon. Friend's last point was important. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) is not in the Chamber now. He said that there was already a good deal of noise and disturbance in the borough of Islington. That is true. Islington is an inner-city area, and a good deal of road and railway traffic goes through it. We know that because we live there and have to suffer it. Over the years, however, efforts have been made to reduce the number of heavy vehicles driving through the borough, with some success--I refer particularly to the night-time lorry ban--and conditions have improved slightly.
It is ridiculous to suggest that, because there is already a lower standard of life than there should be in an inner-city area, the establishment of a concrete batching plant there does not matter. Does that mean that people living in an area of poor environmental quality must be consigned to live permanently in an area of ever-decreasing environmental quality? That surely is not the function of the Bill, the House or individual Members of Parliament. Would Members of Parliament want a concrete batching plant to be established in their constituencies alongside a new housing development? Would they want British Rail, by sleight of hand, to sell the housing development land to people who moved in on the basis that they were moving into a residential area, and that further housing would be built? That is what the land search would have revealed, as was pointed out earlier by the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown). British Rail has behaved very unfairly. British Rail is very good at lobbying tactics. It spends an awful lot of money and time on such tactics, and it has
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managed to convince a good many hon. Members that only the narrow self-interest of a few London Members prevents it from establishing direct links with the channel tunnel ports and route. That is complete nonsense. During the debate on the King's Cross Railways (No. 1) Bill, it was clear that some hon. Members honestly believed that freight traffic would go through King's Cross, and that our opposition to the terminal that the Bill proposed would somehow prevent industrial development in the north-east, north-west, Scotland and Wales. That is utter and complete nonsense. Fortunately, my hon. Friend was able to expose it for what it was.British Rail now suggests that, if the concrete batching plant cannot be put in Lough road, the opportunity to revitalise the British economy by means of the channel tunnel connection with Europe will be lost and that that will be due to the selfishness of a few residents who live alongside the proposed concrete batching plant site in that road. It is about time that British Rail was called to account for its lobbying methods and its misinformation.
My constituency includes Monnery road, the previously proposed site for the concrete batching plant that was referred to by my hon. Friend. Reference was also made to it in the inspector's report. We were told exactly the same story--that unless the Monnery road residents were prepared to put up with a concrete batching plant alongside their homes, vast lorry movements each day, the delivery at night of aggregates and all the dust that goes with it, they would be responsible for the failure of the King's Cross enterprise. That was complete and utter bunkum. Their campaign, in which I was delighted to play a part, was successful. They persuaded the inspector not to grant permission for the use of that site. Unfortunately, Willment Ready Mix Concrete and the other company have moved down the road and are trying to develop the Lough road site.
I do not believe that serious consideration has ever been given to finding alternative sites. British Rail is keen to move the concrete batching plant away from its existing site because land values north of King's Cross for office development are potentially higher than the value of disused railway land around Lough road. We are expected to welcome this concrete batching plant into the borough of Islington because money can be made out of the sale of the existing site.
Mr. Cryer : Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not entirely British Rail's fault? Is it not largely the Government's fault through imposing financial restrictions on British Rail that force it to look at every means of obtaining revenue from selling off its land? Obviously it favours selling off the most valuable land areas--hence British Rail's promotion of the Bill. If the Government provided adequate investment for British Rail, the Bill would be unnecessary.
Mr. Corbyn : My hon. Friend has made a very good point. He made a similar point on previous occasions, and he was right to do so. I share his general support and enthusiasm for railways and for rail transport in general, believing it to be more environmentally friendly than road transport and also believing it to be the proper way to develop this country's infrastructure.
Mr. Gunnell : Except in Islington.
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Mr. Corbyn : No, my hon. Friend is entirely wrong. I am not opposed to the development of the railway infrastructure in Islington, nor is my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury. We spend a great deal of time encouraging people to use the railways in our borough because we suffer the consequences of selfish motorists driving in and out of London, polluting our atmosphere, when they should be travelling by train. We are talking here about an industrial development taking place in a residential area because British Rail has been told by the Government to maximise its income from the sale of its land around King's Cross site. To suggest, as I am sure my hon. Friend did not intend to do, that we are putting forward a "not in my back yard" scenario is simply not true. What we are asking the House to consider is whether it makes good sense to put the concrete batching plant on the proposed site.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred in his speech to the problem of the dust created in the area surrounding the proposed concrete batching plant. It is a very serious issue. Wherever a concrete batching plant may be sited and however well it may be managed, it will produce a lot of dust, for those who live in the area, for those who work in the area, or for those who live in the roads along which the concrete is subsequently delivered. They may also be affected by the slurry that is dropped on the roads, which subsequently dries out.
Background dust levels throughout inner London are excessively high. We are conducting studies into the increase in childhood asthma and respiratory illnesses in inner London areas. The results are startling and frightening. I suggest that those who adopt a rather cavalier approach and say that one can resolve the dust problem by encasing the building in a steel shell should think again, because the dust is carried beyond the building. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury--and I think that he agreed--even if one were to encase the building in a steel shell as proposed, there will be occasions when shutters must be opened or closed to allow the trains or lorries in or out. Another problem is the likely high levels of dust within the plant, making it extremely dangerous for those who work there. We should think more about the health and safety of everyone involved. If the plant is on a restricted site as proposed, it will be difficult to solve the dust problem.
In his report, which was sent to the Department of the Environment at the end of the inquiry in May this year, the inspector examines in detail the dust problem in a case made by the London borough of Islington. He states that concrete batching is now a prescribed process under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and that these plants will require authorisation from the council under that Act. Under this procedure, the council will be able to ensure that the best available technique not entailing excessive cost is used. It is accepted that the appellants are likely to meet acceptable standards.
That is true, because they are so vague. He goes on to deal with the
"serious problems of increasing dust levels all around this particular plant if the construction goes ahead."
I ask those supporting the proposal to think seriously about the dust problems that are likely to accompany it.
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I believe that the Lough road site was chosen merely because it happens to be there--for no greater or lesser reason than that. It happens to be there and happens to be a convenient piece of land which British Rail finds that it can use. In our consideration of the Bill, I should have thought that we would first consider the sanity of moving the plant at all. As I said, I think that the move is motivated largely by the potential land value gains that could be made by moving the site from the King's Cross area.Secondly, we should consider the danger of the site's proximity to existing housing, schools and churches. It is a residential area, and any hon. Member who has been involved in campaigns to try to improve the environment and look after his constituents must be aware of the strength of feeling that goes with opposition to such a plant. Although the inspector's report does not always draw the conclusions that some of us would wish, it at least recognises the strength of feeling.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury asked, are the children who live in the area to sit in a school where the windows cannot be opened? Who is to clean the windows every day to ensure that sunlight gets in when the dust flies around in the dry heat of summer, as already happens?
There will also be increasing traffic movements in the area. It is proposed that there will be three train movements a day running down the new line to deliver the aggregate to the plant itself. There will also be a large number of lorries leaving the site throughout the day. Those lorries filled with wet concrete will have two hours at the most to reach their destinations. In some cases, contractors demand one-hour delivery times.
It is already a heavily trafficked part of London. Most roads in the borough run north to south. Like most roads in north London they are routes in and out of central London. There is increasing pressure on the borough from people trying to use it as a bypass to the City through the Marylebone road, which means more pressure on east-west roads.
A considerable amount of work has been done on the borough's roads--width restriction, road humps and other measures--to try to reduce the amount of heavy goods vehicles using the side roads. If the plant goes ahead, I predict that there will be far more pressure to prevent heavy goods vehicles using residential roads. Such proposals are usually opposed by the emergency services, in some cases for understandable reasons. In turn, that generates greater traffic on the remaining main roads, greater congestion and greater difficulty in delivering the concrete within the one or two hours prescribed.
The construction of the Holloway relief road which accompanies the proposal will increase traffic along the Hornsey road and across the Holloway road. I believe that it will become something of an alternative route into central London. Many of us do not want that. We do not believe that the future of the city lies in increasing road traffic by constructing such roads. The construction of the road is a by-product of the building of the concrete batching plant.
Mr. Waller : I must correct the hon. Gentleman. The London borough of Islington gave itself permission to construct the Holloway access road before the planning inquiry, and it objected to the proposal for the Lough road site. Bearing in mind the fact that the Holloway access
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road will generate more continual noise than anyone expects from the concrete batching plant, I wonder whether the hon. Members for the two Islington constituencies objected to the borough's giving itself permission to construct the road.Mr. Corbyn : I have never favoured the construction of that relief road, because of the increase in traffic that it would bring in London. In general, I am against the construction of new roads in London, because they simply increase the traffic problem. We must look for a public transport solution to London's problems. The hon. Gentleman's question does not present me with a difficulty. Although the council has granted itself permission for the construction of the road, the finances are not available, whereas part of the money involved in the construction of the concrete batching plant will be spent on the construction of that road-- unless I am sadly mistaken, in which case the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) or my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury will quickly correct me.
Page 24 of volume II of the environmental statement gives existing noise levels for nearby residential users. Later, the same document estimates likely noise levels if the proposed works go ahead. I am in no position to challenge the figures or the method used to produce them, but I believe that there will be an increase in noise for people living in tower blocks on the Harvest estate--the large estate to the north of the Holloway road, which contains 18-storey tower blocks. Those people already suffer considerable noise from both roads and railways. The roads immediately surrounding Hornsey road--Annette road, and others--will suffer increased noise, as will the roads immediately surrounding the plant in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury. Expensive works are also proposed involving the building of a new railway on existing track bed north of the Holloway road to link with the main line nearer to Finsbury park. A new bridge is to be constructed over the Hornsey road and the Holloway road, using bridge buttresses, which remain although the bridges were demolished years ago by British Rail. It seems short-sighted to demolish a bridge and subsequently have to rebuild it at considerable cost.
The designs and drawings in the environmental statement are misleading. My intervention in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury may have been misunderstood. I was trying to say that the drawings pretended to show that there was not much difference in design between the existing bridge and the proposed new bridge span, whereas the result will be an ugly bridge span built at considerable cost which will cause great disruption during its construction. With the amount of money involved, and the kind of construction methods available, I should have thought that BR would at least recognise that it could do something better and more imaginative.
Perhaps the hon. Member for Keighley will be able to help me on my next point when he replies to the debate. At the moment there are many small industrial premises under the arches of the line to the north of the Holloway road around Hornsey road. I know many of the people who work in them and operate small businesses from them. Some years ago there was an attempt massively to
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increase rents, which would have put most of them out of business. But most have survived by a process of negotiation andcampaigning--and in some cases rents have changed. I am not sure what effect there will be on these industrial operations during the construction. Will they be able to remain after the construction of the new line and bridge? They are important employers, and they provide opportunities for small businesses to operate in the area. Once again we are examining a Bill to do with King's Cross, even though we have been through lengthy processes of a similar sort in the past two Parliaments. Many of us have been unhappy about the planning procedures and the costs involved, not to mention the time taken up. British Rail has always tried to pretend that every obstacle put in the way of its grand design for King's Cross is a deliberate attempt to destroy the whole initiative.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury rightly concluded by saying that there is a world of difference between the construction of the King's Cross terminals and the location of the concrete batching plant. The proposals in the Bill are wholly unreasonable. If British Rail puts this plant in a wrong area such as ours, it will create dust and noise, it will increase traffic in the area and it will greatly damage the environment and health of local people.
We who live in inner cities do so because we want to--because we like them. That does not mean that we like the noise and pollution that go with them. It is not right or fair that plants such as this should be put on inappropriate sites, to the detriment of the environment. The many people from the community who gave evidence to both the Monnery road and Lough road inquiries conclusively showed their concern and their determination to improve their
neighbourhoods.
This evening hon. Members will have heard what we who represent the borough have to say and I hope that they will recognise that our points are valid. British Rail has not made the case for locating the concrete plant where it wants it. The Bill should proceed no further. There should be a serious examination of the need to move the plant ; of alternative sites for the plant ; and of the adequacy of the site proposed, with its attendant dust and noise problems. Finally, we should also look into the likely requirement in future for ready-mixed concrete. Unfortunately there is a slump in the construction industry. London is blessed with a 25 per cent. surplus of office space which is likely to worsen if more office building goes ahead. I am sad to say that there is no major house building exercise because local authorities are denied the funds with which to undertake one.
One wonders whom the whole enterprise is designed to serve. Instead of a concrete batching plant on the site we should like something more useful in line with what local residents have suggested. Perhaps efforts should be made to solve the appalling housing problem faced by people in our borough and throughout inner London. The site was originally earmarked for housing and that is what it should be used for. That would go some way to providing decent housing for people who are homeless or sleeping on the streets, for the concealed homeless who have to share with others, and for those who live with small children on the
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top floors of tower blocks. They deserve a better chance in life, and this is a small opportunity to improve the lot of a few people. By contrast, the option represented by the Bill would damage the lives of a large number of people, which is why I ask the House to reject it.9.22 pm
The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris) : I should like to take this brief opportunity to outline the Government's view of the Bill and to acknowledge the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller), whose opening remarks admirably set the scene for the debate and whose subsequent interventions showed his mastery of his brief.
It would be churlish of me not to acknowledge also the conscientious, as ever, defence of constituency interests mounted by my hon. Friend--if I may so call him--the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) and by his colleague the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). I noted too a number of pertinent interventions by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown). Perhaps he will catch the Chair's eye at some future point and say more. I also acknowledge the contribution of the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape), whose interventions were as constructive and helpful as ever. I hope that that does not damage the hon. Gentleman's reputation any more than is reasonable, although, at this time of night, it is probably not too dangerous a compliment to pay him.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley has explained, the works in the Bill are related to those in the King's Cross Railways Bill which is currently before a Select Committee in another place. The Government reaffirmed in the Second Reading debate on 1 June their belief that King's Cross is the best location for the London terminus of the proposed rail link. We believe that King's Cross would be the most efficient interchange for international passengers seeking to travel on beyond London and for domestic passengers seeking to travel to central London.
Given that the works form a necessary part of the project which has already been endorsed by the House and passed to another place for consideration, it seems only equitable and sensible that the Bill should be allowed to proceed to Select Committee stage for detailed consideration.
Mr. Chris Smith rose --
Mr. Norris : Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, perhaps he will allow me to suggest that a number of the detailed points that he raised might be more appropriately considered in the Bill's later stages.
Mr. Smith : The Minister said that the works in the Bill were "a necessary part" of the King's Cross project. They are nothing of the sort. Some of the works, such as the access points, are related to the main project, but the concrete batching plant and the railway link to it have nothing whatsoever to do with the main King's Cross project. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that.
Mr. Norris : I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the inevitability or otherwise of the link between the two Bills. I reaffirm the Government's view that the works in the No. 2 Bill form a necessary part of the project. I note
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in passing that, although my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State granted permission for the plant following appeal, and although as such it does not fall within the private Bill procedure, a Bill is required for the railway lines that will enable the project to be joined to the east coast main line and thus allow the concrete to be transported by rail rather than by road. No doubt the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury would broadly welcome that, subject to the reservations that he has outlined.It is not my place or that of the Government on occasions such as this to argue the merits or demerits of the Bill. I simply intervene to suggest the Government's overall attitude to the Bill. As I said earlier, it is clearly appropriate that the detailed points raised by the hon. Members who have contributed to our debate should be raised in later stages with the Committee. I therefore commend the Bill to the House, and ask that it be allowed to proceed in the usual way to Committee for more detailed consideration.
9.28 pm
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