The expanding lift - the mystery deepens.

The mystery of the lift size remains. I am still waiting for a response from FGW after an amicable meeting with the MD, Mark Hopwood, and a colleague of his, but they did say it might take up to three weeks, which runs out next Thursday(29th July). In fairness, therefore, I will not make comments until they have had time to respond. But some fascinating points emerged. Firstly, they seemed unaware that, right at the start, a CPO (Compulsory Purchase Order) had been placed on the section of the station which actually has the ramp on it. Who, I asked them, owns that bit? They thought they did. They lease the station from Network Rail, and they thought they had what they described as the whole of the historic station area. I think, however, that chunk belongs to the developer. Although I had made scribbled notes on the plan of the CPO area, which I had taken along with me, they asked if they could take it with them. It was clearly a shock to them. Secondly, they had been told that no changes could be made to the overall plan, because of the Bath Masterplan. This was of great interest to me, because I happen to know that there is no masterplan. Fortunately, I extracted confirmation of this out of Councillor Malcolm Hanney, when he was defending the indefensible pay rise of John Betty, self-employed head of Major Developments. I did warn him that he should check with Major Developments first, but that seems to have been sufficient to needle him into failing to do so. His reply was clear:

The Vision [for Bath] work sets out what the Council thinks we should be emphasising in terms of the future. I think it is a really good document. [He would say that, wouldn’t he?]

The Council, in its property ownership role (and for which I have lead responsibility) has a clear view as to how the long term value of the estate can be maximised for the benefit of residents as well as being a source of capital receipts to improve public realm and infrastructure.

The Vision is probably the closest to being the supposed Masterplan and it was underpinned by business planning and analysis. However, it was always recognised that any implementation would have to reflect changing circumstances. [My italics.]

As for the Council's property assets including the Council's ownership interest of key development sites, they will exert an influence on the nature of development in Bath over next twenty years.

What was more interesting is that the MD of FGW thought that this masterplan affected great swathes of Bath, including - and he said it, not me - Bath South Quays. No wonder B&NES has made no effort to do anything with it, if they have another developer under wraps. Or is it still Dyson? I am not alone in thinking that he has not gone away, even though the Learning and Skills Council finally woke up to the fact that his so-called school had no workable syllabus.

But back to the lift. Just to make sure that they could be under no illusion as to what had been granted planning permission, I took along an extract from the plans. I have uploaded a picture of these, so you can all see that the size is quite clearly 1100 x 1500 mm. Yet the company looking at safety issues at Bath Spa has been assured it will be 1100 x 1800. Meanwhile I had contacted English Heritage, and the planning department to make sure there was no mistake. Isla MacNeal at EH thought that someone had just mistyped 1800 when they meant 1500. Yeah, right. Eventually, I sent out an e-mail, with all the facts, including the relevant comments to all parties I thought were concerned. These are the conclusions I drew at the end of the e-mail.

1. There has, as Isla MacNeal says, been an error, in which 1500 has been wrongly typed as 1800. If that is the case, then this error needs to be rectified a soon as possible, and the new figures given back to the ICP.

2. Someone has mistakenly thought that the size could be changed without a further planning application or reference to the LPA. Again, if that is so, the error needs to be rectified and the situation clarified without delay.

3. There has been a deliberate attempt to mislead the ORR, LPA and EH as to the size of the lift, either to insert a larger lift without the need for a further application, which might, this time, bring objections from EH and the Listed Building Officer, or by inserting the smaller lift and hoping that the political decision to withdraw the safety certificate at Bath Spa Station would be too great for the ORR to make.

If this is the case, then an investigation needs to made as to whom it was who said that the lift size could be changed without further reference to EH or the LPA.

I would be grateful if Varian Tye and Isla MacNeal could reiterate the comments they have made to me to the other parties in this e-mail.

So far, only Simon Smith of the ORR - who deserves a medal for patience and diplomacy, has responded. He tells me that he had been told the size could be changed. Oh yes, and Tony Ambrose, who is leading the charge for the cyclists, has sent me congratulations.

So what is going on? I believe that Major Developments is telling FGW not to worry about little things like planning. They can swing it. The project manager of the scheme, Simon Martin works for Major Developments. My carefully considered opinion is that this department is out of control and should be closed down forthwith. Meanwhile, I will continue to dig away at this mystery of the expanding lift and will not rest till I get to the bottom of it.

But please, please PLEASE - if you feel that what is proposed for the station is a bad thing, start letter-writing and e-mailing now - I really can't go on with this much more.

So just how big is this new lift?

A mystery has surfaced with respect to the size of the lift on the up platform. A spokesperson from Network Rail informed Don Foster MP that the new one is 1100 x 1800 mm. Well, that's not what they have got planning permission for. The plans - even those slipped through at the last moment to invalidate any objections that might have been considered pertinent - not only show the drawings marked clearly 1100 x 1500, it's even there in writing. So I thought I'd better let my contact in the ORR know that Network Rail has got it wrong. Oh no, says he, the new lift is definitely 1100 x 1800. So I've sent him the plans. As this all happened last night, which was a Friday, I haven't heard back, but this is all very odd.

So what is happening? Well, it could just be an error. The lift shaft is 1880 x 2000, which as you can see is significantly larger than the lift itself, to allow for all the bits and bobs that lifts have on the outside. So perhaps someone has just misread it.

But it does leave the more suspicious of us wondering if something else is going on here. To accommodate the larger lift, the shaft size would also need to be increased by at least 30 cms - that's about 1 foot in £sd. Now Varian Tye, the Heritage team officer, made it clear in his report that he was unhappy at the amount of demolition, but had been persuaded to allow it through. Reading the English Heritage letter carefully, it is clear they had a similar view. They stated that if there were any more significant changes, they wanted to know, and might demand that the plan went to the Secretary of State - all of which would introduce delays and uncertainties.

The larger lift would have meant a doorway within the listed historic material being changed, so both Varian and EH were very likely to dig their toes in. What's more, the proprietors of the cafe have already lost some space, and the larger lift would have meant a further loss of storage space. I suspect they would have objected too.

So was the idea to build the smaller lift and then say "Oops we made it too small but that's all we had permission for"? Or was it the reverse? Were they going to build a larger lift and then say "Oops we made it too large - but then you all wanted a larger lift so what's the problem?"

Well, my meeting with the MD of FGW isn't far away, so I hope to get to the bottom of it all. I also hope to find out just who owns what around the station and who is calling the shots. One really has to wonder if anyone is in overall charge of this project. I have found out, for example, that Network Rail was unaware of some of the changes proposed by FGW and Multi at the front of the station and is minded to object. I also found out from B&NES some other facts of which the ORR were unaware. Weird as it sounds, I now seem to be acting as a sorting office for information between the various partners, since, one way and another, most of what's going on seems to end up on my desk. And it doesn't seem to be ending up with such regularity on theirs.

As I remarked to my contacts at the DfT and the ORR, this whole project is looking more and more like an out-of-control octopus, in which none of the arms knows what the other arms are doing. Let's hope I can untangle some of the knots that the octopus seems to be tying itself up into.

Stop Press - the MD of FGW responds

Late yesterday afternoon, I received a response from Mark Hopwood, MD of FGW, saying he had instructed his PA to contact me with a view to setting up a meeting. So fair play to him for that. I hope that it will be a positive and friendly meeting, and that the result will be a station which really will be an improvement for all travellers. If anyone feels that there are issues that I have not covered in previous blogs or letters to the Chronicle, then please contact me, through this blog.

Bath Spa Station - the fight continues!

It came as no surprise to anyone that the plans submitted for the lift on the up platform at Bath Spa Station were nodded through. It was clear from the start that they would be, though what went on does not cover B&NES in glory. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if the Major Developments Team actually wants the people of Bath to mutter the c-word - that's a 10-letter word, not 4 letters. Perhaps it gives them some kind of macho glow. First of all, despite being a listed building, the listed building officer of considerable seniority who is allegedly in charge of the plans for the station was not given the job - instead it was given to a planning officer - not from the heritage team, though the station is regarded as being of national importance - who has a history of ignoring heritage. It was thanks to her that the seventeenth century Burnt House Inn was consigned to history, and buildings of mind-numbing blandness erected in its place. She also ignored the vast number of objections to the lift plans, and the unhappy report from the snubbed listed building officer, who was clearly under pressure to agree to it. So congratulations, Varian Tye, for coming as close as you dare to saying you thought it was a bad idea. And no congratulations at all to English Heritage for being such a broken reed.

However, it didn't end there. New drawings were submitted shortly before the decision was taken, thus invalidating the objections. Clever stuff, especially as they didn't go up on the website until about a day or two before the decision was taken, so that no one would notice. Even so, the decision was taken twenty four hours before the statutory consultation time on these new drawings had elapsed, so planning permission has been granted improperly. The drawings are dated 11th May so no decision should have been taken until 25th May, but in fact it was taken the day before, on 24th May. Strangely enough, this was within a couple of hours of my spotting the new drawings and making a comment on the Chron website that everyone needed to slam in new objections. It appears that no one was going to be given the evening to make further cogent objections. To cover this up, the Decision Notice on the website is dated 25th May, but open it up, and you'll find the date of the decsion is 24th.

Despite the delay in getting documents up - some letters dated 11th May did not go up until after the decision was taken - the objections were removed faster than you would have believed possible.

What of my meeting with the council? Well, Cllr Gazzard and his project manager were both very friendly and understanding, and promised me a proper reply to my points in a week. About a month later, I am still waiting. So I have now started lobbying Mark Hopwood - he's the MD of FGW. I've sent off an e-mail today, in response to his somewhat terse reply to a previous mail I sent him, and I have invited him to talk to me. Yes, I said a bit more than that - such as pointing out to him that his plans are hopelessly flawed, and he must know it, and also that the DfT and the ORR think I'm worth listening too ( a fact of which he must be all too well aware) so why doesn't he actually set up a meeting and talk to me face to face? I've pointed out that I've had strangers come up to me on the platform and congratulate me on what I'm doing and I wondered if the same happened to him. I told him straight I doubted it.

Let's see if he really does want to listen to what people are saying. In the meantime, if you think that what went on over planning application 10/01383/LBA was a disgrace which brings B&NES into disrepute - and I believe that it does - then please write to John Everett, the Chief Executive of B&NES. For the moment, I am choosing not to make a formal complaint - I want to add it to a general list of what has happened in the wider scheme at SouthGate, and I am collecting evidence about the way in which local people are treated differently from developers - an offence under the Human Rights Act. But please start pestering. Above all, if you think that the plans will make the station less safe, keep bombarding the ORR - they really are listening. One again, here are the contact details.

Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London
WC2B 4AN

Tel: 020 7282 2000

Email: contact.cct@orr.gsi.gov.uk

GET WRITING, PHONING or E-MAILING!

Meeting at the Guildhall

I had a very amicable meeting with Cllr Terry Gazzard and Simon Martin - not the Man from Multi, as I thought, but the project manager. I've promised Simon I would let him respond to the points that I raised with them, so my report on that will be next week. However, it does appear that many of the changes are being driven by First Great Western, who are happily keeping their heads down and letting everyone else take the flack.

The other point is that I know many people have contacted me over this, and asked me to keep up the good work,but as far as some authorities are concerned, I am just one person - why should they take any notice of me? So if you feel strongly about this, I think you need to start pushing, and the only people now who will be able to put pressure on FGW is the Office of Rail Regulation. So they are the ones to contact. I think we should be campaigning for FGW to lose its franchise. None of the train companies is faultless, but FGW really doesn't seem to care about its passengers.

It's not just the cramped conditions - we were on a train the day before yesterday, and some of the seats were so close together that I don't see how larger size people could have sat in them. But it's the way they treat people who don't fit into their vision of the ideal traveller. I am becoming increasingly convinced that a lot of these changes at Bath Spa are to deter cyclists, whom FGW seems to dislike heartily. I am told that some guards will only let two bikes on to some trains, and some guards refuse to take them at all. I suspect, too, that wheelchair passengers and those with mobility problems, who require special assistance from station staff are also regarded as a pain, and the changes at Bath Spa may will deter them. FGW's policy is to run stations on as few staff as possible, so you can see that if, like my late Mum, you needed help to get on the train, that means you are messing up this corporate plan. What really annoys me is that they are using the very act that was designed to protect people like my Mum to put them off using the station!

So, I think it's now time for you, the reader, to contact the ORR, expressing your views. Here are the contact details.

Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London
WC2B 4AN

Tel: 020 7282 2000

Email: contact.cct@orr.gsi.gov.uk

GET WRITING, PHONING or E-MAILING!