Kay Jordan spoke in the House of Commons five years ago [2006] defending the Brick Lane area against Big Biz agenda Crossrail hole attacks plan...

By © Muhammad Haque
Organiser
Khoodeelaar!
1020 [0950] [0920] Hrs GMT
London
Thursday
20 January 2011
Boris Johnson’s latest retailing [ see for instance Johnson's’ latest reported move http://www.24dash.com/news/local_government/2011-01-19-Mayor-of-London-plans-Community-Infrastructure-Levy-on-all-new-developments-to-boost-Crossrail-delivery ] of the claim that London’s businesses must pay even more tax to fund the Crossrail scam is not news to the East End of London. Or it should not be. For the past SEVEN years, the KHOODEELAAR! campaign has been at once anticipating this sort of touting by place men and place women serving the interest of Big Business [=Big Biz] while allowing Big Biz to loot ordinary people thus keeping environmental, social and economic disparity going on and poverty persisting in the community. We have been devising the necessary evidential and empirical responses to those and going beyond the next anticipated attack so that the defence of the community continues without being diverted by the touts, agents and stooges of Big Bizness operating to sabotage the community.
Our defence of the East End of London and our advocacy for it has been most widely published online and in the historic Khoodeelaar! Campaign Bulletin containing the key news and commentary circulated in the area in hard copy for the past seven years.
That work is as it has been exclusive, in-depth and exhaustive.
The analyses and the action programme have been consistent with the objectively defined criteria in accordance with the highest standards known to any community of people in any part of the world in the CURRENT [recent, present] decades, of morality, ethics and universally recognisable constitutionality due process and legality.

One of the organisations that KHOODEELAAR! has been actively supporting as part of our defence of the community against “Big Biz agenda Crossrail hole plot.....” is the SSBA. And as part of this we have been for the seven years working with the SSBA’s director Kay Jordan.

In 2006, we updated with Kay Jordan’s active participation the then basic CASE against Crossrail hole assault as had been plotted against the “Brick Lane area”.

The phrase “Brick Lane area” has been empirically in existence for years before the Khoodeelaar! Campaign against Crossrail.....even began. However, the phrase was RESISTED by certain sources and elements who outwardly claimed to be also opposed to the Big Biz agenda Crossrail scam but who sought at all stages to deny the reality of the social and the objectively defined political Brick Lane of the first decade of the 21st century of the particular calendar. We shall separately and on later occasions update our account of those who had been indifferent or even hostile to the phrase “Brick lane area”. During the formative weeks, months of the founding of the KHOODEELAAR! campaign, Kay Jordan stood out as the only one among the physically present and participating “members of the local community” who was familiar with the “others” . Even at that early stage, in January and February and March 2004, Kay Jordan came across as the one possessing the universal approach. She instantly agreed that “Brick Lane area” was the most appropriate and potentially the most effective one. Events have vindicated that approach and the Khoodeelaar! campaign has been enormously enhanced by Kay Jordan’s involvement in it.
In her evidence, Kay Jordan told the then “House of Commons” “Crossrail Bill” “Select Committee” about the key part that the “Brick Lane area” plays in our defence of the East End of London.

QUOTING [below] from the web site of the official record of the UK Parliament:


11300. One of the aims of the SsBA is to represent the views of its members and the wider community and all the economic and other related issues as they affect Spitalfields, and it is on this basis that I wish to present the following case in relation to the Promoters' proposals for their cross London rail link to the heart of our community.

11301. Before going into detail I wish it to be recorded that these views relate only to the detail of the works as they relate to the Brick Lane area, because we are told that it is not possible for this Committee to discuss or take evidence aboutovery clso: the need of economic justification for the overall proposals, and we consider the overall proposals to be neither economically sound nor socially justified.

11302. As an Association of Small Businesses we also wish to have put on record our opposition to the notion that businesses in London should pay a percentage increase in business rates—

11303. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Mrs Jordon, this is nothing to do with us; you said it yourself. We cannot take it into consideration.

11304. Ms Jordan: We do object to having to be considered that we will put a percentage on our rates to support a rail link tunnel connecting simply the City of London to Canary Wharf in the east and Heathrow in the west, and no amount of argument claiming economic regeneration, which has been claimed, additionality or connectivity will change our minds about this. We are convinced that the proposals are anything but what they say they are and represent the advancement of the City into the East End. They will do, as far as we are concerned, the opposite to what they say they will do and in our opinion they will devastate and completely destroy our vibrant and multi-cultural community. I will note that I put in my notes here, "I expect the Chairman by now to be saying what he is not wanting to hear from Miss Jordan," and for his sake I will now turn to the detail of the Bill.

11305. My papers are numbers 1 to 4. If you could start with one, please. This is the slide you saw much earlier when these proceedings started.[10] In fact, my office has kindly altered it to try and highlight what the Promoters were saying where our properties are affected by it. You can see a very large yellow block in the middle. Down on the right-hand side is a block where the arrow route of the traffic is, which is a converted synagogue and business centre where my office is. In fact, just behind the very large block in the middle which was going to be the hole, you will just be able see two little strips of yellow.


11306. Could you turn to the next document, please.[11] This document shows our property holding as it is affected by the railway. These are the properties that are affected. You can see large chunks of property to the left of where the main hole would be, which are workshops and flats which were the ones the housing co-operative started off with. The plots to the south, I have mentioned. The block in the north is another collection of properties that we have off Brick Lane which are subject to being probably interfered with with the first Crossrail proposal. Come along and you will see to the east of where the hole is there is a whole series of blocks which are also properties, some of which are owned by the SSPA and the very large property on the left-hand side is a community centre which is owned by the local authority but managed by ourselves.


11307. Could you turn to the next picture, please.[12] I have put this in as a graphic representation. It is an extract from a manual report of—and if I could read Bengali, then I could tell you—it is 1989. It was representing our tenants and members. You can see from Hanbury Street and Princelet Street we sit exactly in and around where this hole is, so you will see how we are affected.


11308. Could I see the next picture, please.[13] These pictures are of the properties in Hanbury and Princelet Streets. You will see the Dutch gable properties which are on Hanbury Street which were improved in the late 1980s and the single row of terrace with the big building in the background. The big building is in fact Britannia House which is, or was in fact, to be knocked down and the single row of properties are back workshops behind a terrace of property owned by the housing co-operative. These were properties we separated out in terms of residential and industrial use. You can see the tenants outside. This, in fact, was a building site that Prince Charles came to when he said something should be done with the East End. I should say that now we are certainly having something done to us.


11309. Now the next one, please.[14] Unfortunately, despite our property holding, it was not until the beginning of January 2004 that I knew anything about the proposals for a large hole in Hanbury Street. It was simply by bumping into a neighbour of ours who said, "I thought you would have been jumping up and down about the fans in Hanbury Street." I said, "What fans in Hanbury Street?" I was then told there had been some exhibition in late October that he had called in and seen but was not been seen by anybody else. That neighbour directed me to a Crossrail website. On the Crossrail website I found these two boards, and I understand these were boards that were in their public consultation exhibition. You can see on the left-hand side our Dutch gable properties looking very smart, not quite right but very smart, adjacent to it and above it is an indication of a major development which was to take place with the fans and a strange sort of tunnel arrangement underneath. This horrified me, but it was when I read the sheet on the left-hand side that alarm bells really started ringing. Whilst it was explained that this would be a ventilation shaft and it would indeed have fans that would be running day and night, the second to last paragraph, when I read it, absolutely caused alarm bells. I will read it to the Committee for the sake of the report: "The shaft worksite is also proposed to be used as a launch and retrieval point for tunnel-boring machines that will be used during tunnel construction". Now being an architect, I understood what this meant. I was absolutely horrified that the indication of these words was the fact that the tunnels will be dug from our area. One sentence, nothing else, nothing else on the website, no indication of the Pedley Street worksite other than a little green line running up the side. I was absolutely horrified.


11310. I was so horrified that in fact I penned a letter to Crossrail. In fact, I have an exhibit of that here.[15] If you could just put that up. I will paraphrase all of this. I wrote to Mr Simon Bennett saying that he appeared to have carried out consultations that were about this. We understood that round one consultation would be completed on 19 January and they will be asking for approval under that to fix the line of this railway, which nobody knew about. We had learned nothing about this. We registered our strongest complaints about it and we wished it to be known that not only was a consultation exercise a sham but we were also lead to believe that the office had been told not to consult in our area. We also demanded that round one consultation process remain open until the proposals about the Hanbury Street shaft and spoil tunnels were openly presented to the people of the Brick Lane area so we could all see what was going on. I copied my letter to a great number of local organisations, all of which are listed on this letter. I got no reply to that and, therefore, consulted a friend of mine who was a retired QC who also thought it was rather odd that nothing happened and we had not been consulted. Therefore, I wrote again to Mr Bennett on 6 February explaining that we ask again that they give consideration to further examination and to give us the opportunity to be consulted.[16] We also pointed out that there is not to be anything about the environmental effects this would have within our community within their presentation. I did get later replies. What then pursued was two or three months of hectic information gathering, not information that was presented at a public meeting but information across a great number of community organisations who met both individually and collectively with Crossrail to try and find out what was happening.



11311. Could you put up the next slide, please.[17] This slide was the one presented not publicly but to a meeting with the Spitalfields Society. Fortunately, we were able to share information. It was on that basis of this that we were able to discover that the Pedley Street worksite which is at the end of that blue line which disappeared off the top of the original presentation drawings was not only as it had been in the first round—can you show me the next one, please, it is the extent of the worksite in Pedley Street on the first proposals for Crossrail—not only was it similar to the original site, but, in fact, it was considerably larger.[18] Not only was it taking spoil from the hole, but it was taking spoil from the railway station that will be dug at Whitechapel. This is a composite diagram of Crossrail's old drawings which my clever staff were able to put together.[19] You will see the lettering and the writing are all at strange angles because they were never connected before, they were all in little bits. You find the great block of Pedley Street was something that I put together having gleaned from the various bits of information that we got at the individual discussions and meetings that we had. Could you put the next one up.




11312. Mr Mould: I am sorry to interrupt the Petitioner but, as the Committee will have noted, lest there be any confusion, those last two drawings were composites of the private bill scheme from the early 1990s on which certain earlier aspects of the current scheme—because Pedley Street is, of course, no longer part of our proposals—were superimposed.

11313. Ms Jordan: Could you go back now please. This one is a composite of your current scheme, and I may in my bag have drawings.[20] These are three separate drawings; in fact the only addition is the very large block at the top which is in my composite added to your drawings. Could I go to slide 11 now, please.[21] Having put this picture together locally, everybody was so horrified that we tried to get a public meeting called by Crossrail. Crossrail refused to do this, so in fact my committee invited them to a meeting of a few members. To that meeting we invited—because it was a private meeting, and you are refused to come to a private meeting—representatives of other organisations. This was a letter that was sent to Alistair Darling at the end of that meeting.[22] It said, and I will read some it: "At the meeting of Wednesday 26 May"—this was in 2004—"60 people from 19 local organisations met two Crossrail representatives—"




11314. Mr Liddell-Grainger: Ms Jordan, we can read it.

11315. I will paraphrase then. We expressed our concerns about the worksites and the proposals in Brick Lane here. We had heard they would not hold a public meeting. Despite repeated requests, this did not happen. At the end of that meeting the people living and working in the area passed a resolution. For the record, I would like to read that resolution. It is as follows: "The people of the Brick Lane area, the Spitalfields around the town ward in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, are not prepared to accept the environmental, social and economic impact of the current proposals by Crossrail to locate a tunnel access shaft, ventilation shaft and underground tunnels in and passing through the heart of our communities. We are appalled at the lack of understanding of politicians, engineers and businesses from outside the area of the disruption and profound impact of these proposals of many years on the lives, health and livelihoods of people living and working here. We have launched a campaign for change and we use all legitimate means at our disposal to achieve change. In particular, we will seek with energy and resolve to defeat the re-election for the political representatives not prepared to meet with us to bring about the changes we seek". This was sent in June 2004 and, as you probably know, we now no longer have the MP that was our MP of the period neither do we have the leader of the council and several of the politicians. Following that meeting and that letter, we then raised a campaign.

11316. Ms Jordan: Could I have the next one.[23] This is the first leaflet that went out, on what has turned out to be a campaign run by Mr Muhammad Haque including our campaign which has spent hundreds of hours, millions of words, hundreds of leaflets, lots public meetings—


11317. Mr Liddell-Grainger: We can take those as read.

11318. Ms Jordan: I just wish to put on record that we feel it is this campaign and Mr Haque's work that effected the change in the tunnel and the spoil removal that happened two or three days before—

11319. Mr Liddell-Grainger: It does not matter who did it. We got the message. What we are trying to ascertain is what you want.

10 Committee Ref: A124, Location of Petitioners based in the Spitalfields area (TOWNHLB-32305A-001). Back

11 Committee Ref: A124, Actual Location of SsBA properties (TOWNHLB-32305A-002). Back

12 Committee Ref: A124, SsBA Publication, People who mean business, 1989 (TOWNHLB-32305A-003). Back

13 Committee Ref: A124, Photographs of Hanbury Street and Princelet Street (TOWNHLB-32305A-004). Back

14 Committee Ref: A124, Hanbury Street Shaft-Proposed Shaft Design (TOWNHLB-32305A-005). Back

15 Committee Ref: A124, Correspondence from SsBA to CLRL, 17 January 2004 (TOWNHLB-32305A-006 and -007). Back

16 Committee Ref: A124, Correspondence from SsBA to CLRL, 6 February 2004 (TOWNHLB-32305A-008). Back

17 Committee Ref: A124, Pedley Street worksite (TOWNHLB-32305A-009). Back

18 Committee Ref: A124, Route Map-Liverpool Street to Bethnal Green (TOWNHLB-32305A-010). Back

19 Committee Ref: A124, Composite Plan of the impact of Crossrail works in the Spitalfields area (TOWNHLB-32305A-011). Back

20 Committee Ref: A124, Route Map-Liverpool Street to Bethnal Green (TOWNHLB-32305A-010). Back

21 Committee Ref: A124, Composite Plan of the impact of Crossrail works in the Spitalfields area (TOWNHLB-32305A-011). Back

22 Committee Ref: A124, Correspondence from SsBA to the Secretary of State for Transport, 7 June 2004 (TOWNHLB-32305A-012). Back

23 Committee Ref: A124, CBRUK Information Document Number 7, 31 May 2004 (TOWNHLB-32305A-014). Back