SAVE YOUR RIVERSIDE SUBMISSION ON SECTION 48 PUBLICITY

The Save Your Riverside action Group was set up as a result of Thames Water’s purchase of Chambers Wharf. Thames Water is considering using Chambers Wharf as one of their major construction sites for the Thames Tunnel which is often referred to as the Super Sewer.

This action group was formally created at a meeting held at Riverside Primary School on 7th April 2011 which was attended by over 110 local residents including Sir Patrick Stewart. The meeting was also attended by Riverside Ward Councillor Anood Al-Samerai. At the meeting a unanimous vote was passed in favour of fighting Thames Water’s proposals for Chambers Wharf. It is important to partake in the life of your community to make it a better place. Even if you are a student and don't really have time for this sort of activity. Luckily, you can always type something along the lines of 'do my assignment cheap by essayservice.com' into the search bar. This will present you with plenty of options to free some extra time by outsourcing your written assignments. It is way easier and more effective to buy essay domyessay.com online than it is to write them yourself. Improving your research and writing skills is important. But you should always consider your priorities when short on time.

The Save Your Riverside Action Group does not question the need for a cleaner river. We question Thames Water’s proposals for implementing their mandate to clean up the River Thames and the impact this would have on our community. We believe that there is reasonable doubt that alternatives to Thames Water’s proposals have not been adequately considered and strongly believe that proposed construction sites should not be in residential areas. It is imperative to conduct exhaustive research on the subject matter before forming an opinion. If you don't have time to do so yourself - you can use online tools to do the footwork for you.

The group has grown rapidly and now has over 500 members. There is one of the best service essayhub.com. The group is made up of local residents, businesses and stakeholders.We are all united in our fight to save Riverside from the negative impacts of the Chambers Wharf development.The Save Your Riverside Action Group is fighting Thames Water’s proposals for Chambers Wharf because:We believe that there is reasonable doubt that alternatives to Thames Water’s proposals have not been adequately considered and strongly believe that proposed construction sites should not be in residential areas.We are concerned about the potential impact on local businesses, residents and the environment.We believe that the consultation process has been inadequate and does not reflect the views of the local community.We are calling on Thames Water to rethink their plans and come up with a solution that is acceptable to the local community. This situation caused a resonance that even caused dozens of essays to be written on this topic. By the way, the best tool for your papers is a professional online essay writing service. With their help, you will be able to focus on other important tasks while still getting a great grade for your essay.

Public Meeting

Section 48 process

1. Save Your Riverside are a community group, centred on Chambers Wharf but with supporters from all along Southwark riverside. In February 2012 we responded to Thames Water’s (TW) Phase 2 Consultation exercise. We made clear that we support cleaning up the Thames, our disagreement is about the proposed methods of doing so not the objectives. We have not changed our strong opposition to what we consider to be TW’s wrong decision to seek consent to use Chambers Wharf as a major construction site for the tunnel, so it is not necessary to repeat the arguments we made then in detail here. Moreover as the pre-application publicity report points out the s.48 process is not another formal consultation process though TW says “we are still interested to know whether people have any views” and that these “will be taken into account” before the application is finalised. A college paper writer from PaperWritingService wrote about this in detail in his article.Given the robust “we are the professionals we know best” manner with which TW has resisted making any significant changes to its preferred scheme despite the strong objections expressed all the way along the tunnel route in response to the Phase 2 consultation, there can be little public confidence that TW is going to alter its consistent insistence on solutions which suit its engineering and commercial preferences and convenience with any regard for impact on local communities apparently running well behind in its priorities.

Summary of SYR’s objection to a major construction site in Southwark

2. Nonetheless for the record in summary we reiterate that we believe that if TW were so minded they could adopt a tunnelling strategy which would avoid the need to have a construction site in Southwark. As we have said before it is ironic that with no CSOs in Southwark, the borough is still faced with a major construction site. If despite this Chambers Wharf were used as a major construction site, TW’s decision to flip from driving west from Abbey Mills to Southwark to driving east from Chambers Wharf tells us everything about the priority TW’s gives every time to the company’s own costs and convenience over adverse impact on local residents. In confirming their intention to seek to use Chambers Wharf as a major construction site TW have failed to give proper weight to the substantial social, environmental and economic damage which this proposal would cause to this densely populated residential area with its three schools nearby. We remain acutely concerned at the prospect of one of the most advanced green residential developments in London, with its important contribution to local housing need, being postponed for at least a decade and a half (and quite possibly compromised by the construction then operation of the tunnel); by the dangers to residents and environmental impact of substantial numbers of lorry movements taking place on inadequate local roads over many years: in the case of Riverside Primary School (one of the best in the country and adjacent to the site) the serious physical danger to schoolchildren and the damage that would be done to their education represented by at least 64,000 lorry movements going past the school is incalculable; by the inevitable disruption, pollution, noise, vibration, dust and odour that residents and our excellent local schools can expect to endure as a result of the proximity of the construction site (whatever effort may or may not be made to mitigate these factors) not least during 3 years of continuous 24/7 work; and by the inevitable blighting effects that a major industrial site operating for years in the midst of a residential area would have on local trade, tourism and property values.

3. Our comments below on possible mitigation measures which should be explored and incorporated in any consent that the project may be given in due course, should be regarded as without prejudice to our conviction, based we believe on compelling evidence, that the proposed use of Chambers Wharf is wrong and should be ruled out in favour of the several alternative ways in which a tunnel project could be constructed.

Tunnelling drive options

4. In our response to Phase 2 SYR set out a range of engineering alternatives to TW’s proposals, including TBMs meeting face to face, or docking with each other, or a hybrid TBM to drive from Abbey Mills to Battersea. TW has responded to this in section 7.6 of the site selection main report, describing the alternatives as “unconventional”. What is entirely conventional is TW’s resistance to exploring techniques well proven elsewhere in the world. Instead TW merely gathers sufficient information to form its dismissal argument, falling back yet again on tired arguments about health and safety and project risk stating “These alternatives are not compatible with the aspirations of the project”. Well TW should know that the aspirations of the residents of Southwark are not compatible with their proposals. The implication that countries we have cited where innovative tunnelling techniques have been successfully employed like the USA, Japan and Denmark do not have similar health and safety requirements to the UK is patently nonsense.

5. Although TW says (in Phase 2 supplementary report) “we have specifically consulted experts….the clear outcome from these studies was…some options are not feasible”. Who were the experts, and were any of them independent of TW? Why have the “studies” not been published? We have seen no evidence that TW has conducted a thorough investigation into alternative tunnelling strategies. It can only be concluded that TW have never really been bothered to take any serious interest in alternatives beyond their own conservative engineering outlook because they have no sincere interest in reducing local impact. As a monopoly undertaker which seems quite capable of throwing its weight around in the engineering world the company’s behaviour diminishes the already tarnished reputation it seems not to care it has acquired.

6. We have asked TW repeatedly for detailed information on the relative costs of the myriad of alternatives that exist for the different tunnelling drive options, each of which of course has important implications for the constructions sites required. Despite the company having no competitors TW has resolutely refused to disclose this key information, hiding as ever behind an unconvincing though certainly opaque fig leaf of “commercial confidentiality”. We call on TW yet again to publish this information in sufficient detail for meaningful comparisons to be made between alternatives on financial as well as on engineering and other criteria including local impact. As consumers and taxpayers footing a large part of the bill for the tunnel we have every right to demand that this information be placed in the public domain, so that everyone - including the Examining Authority - can be more fully informed than TW has hitherto been prepared to deliver.

Site Selection

Site selection

7. Appendix R of the report on the site selection process makes ironic reading. The Chambers Wharf site is assessed as suitable for engineering purposes, albeit requiring a 3 large cofferdam projecting into the river to provide adequate working space and a barge dock. However the site was assessed as less suitable in planning terms (with particular concern about local schools), and less suitable from a flood risk, ecology, air quality, noise. land quality and water resources perspectives. And of course less suitable from in respect of socio-economic and community factors “due to the close proximity of a large number of residential properties either adjacent, overlooking or opposite the works” with accompanying adverse impacts on properties in the vicinity and on the local schools. However the site is “an available and feasible brownfield site” which just happens to have been purchased by TW.

8. This appendix demonstrates that when it comes to site selection, engineering convenience (not necessity) is regarded by TW as king. When coupled with the convenience of ownership of Chambers Wharf and the strong opposition experienced by TW at their original choice, King’s Stairs Gardens, these factors apparently trump TW’s own assessment that Chambers Wharf is considered a less suitable site on a range of other criteria not least the close proximity of hundreds of residents and several schools. TW may seek to present its site selection process as objective, balanced and fair, and may even believe it. In fact it is nothing of the sort, it is driven by TW’s top priority of reducing any risk there might be to what it sees as project success regardless of adverse impacts on anyone in the path of its TBMs. TW has never given an answer to the question “what if neither Chambers Wharf nor King’s Stairs Gardens were available to them as construction sites?”. The truthful answer would not of course be that the tunnel project would have to be abandoned as impossible without a major site in Southwark, instead TW would find alternative ways of doing it. We respect the professional ability of TW’s engineers to solve problems and there can be no doubt that it would be well within their capability to develop alternatives that result in much reduced impact on local communities. We urge that that is exactly what TW should now do. If TW does not it will be a massive failure by the developer to achieve solutions which not only meet engineering requirements but which also minimise local impact.

Choice of drive sites

9. In the familiar phrase which TW uses when it finds it expedient to do so “further technical studies” have led TW to conclude that although Abbey Mills featured as a main drive site westwards at the Phase One consultation, transporting material to and from the Abbey Mills site on the River Lee is now considered “at worst not feasible and at best highly undesirable” as materials would need to be reliably barged over a 2 to 3 year period (surely a similar timescale for a drive site at Chambers Wharf?). It strains credulity to expect it to be believed that TW’s engineers had not noticed earlier that as presently configured the Lee would require larger numbers of smaller barges if Abbey Mills were a drive site for the main tunnel. The transport strategy refers to TW learning lessons at Abbey Mills from how the Lee tunnel is making use of the river. Neither the s48 documents or the Engineering Options Report - Abbey Mills Route (EOR) address the feasibility of adapting the Lee to take larger barges. We have heard the argument that the Environment Agency would object to this; has TW asked them, and if so what is their answer? TW now argues that driving from Abbey Mills incurs more project risk. Where is the detailed evidence on which this judgment has been based? TW claims that engineering convenience is set against other criteria including socio-economic impact. TW now appears to affect some new-found concern for the socio-economic impact of 4 driving from Abbey Mills despite being content to do so at Phase One consultation. We urge TW to publish the details of how they have balanced all the criteria for driving from Chambers Wharf against driving in the opposite direction. The EOR refers to “optioneering workshops” amongst people with expertise in all the relevant fields. Yet this was a closed process within TW designed to serve TW’s priorities. How can the public, and those persons who would be impacted by alternative options, have any confidence in this process unless TW publishes in detail exactly how their conclusions were reached, including information on relative costs? We urge TW to now publish this important data. Until TW come clean on these issues SYR remains highly suspicious of the real reasons why TW would rather use a residential site close to central London opportunistically purchased in 2011 compared to a downriver site which has been in TW’s and its predecessors’ ownership since the 1860s.

10. On a similar point were Chambers Wharf to be used as a construction site then if it were to be connected to the Greenwich connection tunnel it is appropriate that as proposed the tunnel be driven from the long-standing water company premises at Greenwich Pumping Station (“because we own most of the site”) with Chambers Wharf receiving the tunnel. However as we pointed out in our Phase 2 submission, If as we believe there is no need for TW to use CW as a major construction site at all there are technically feasible alternative routes for the Greenwich tunnel, for example to Shadwell or Limehouse.