After several of what seemed interminable delays, we at last got to hear the Closing Statement from Gregory Jones QC on behalf of his client, First West Yorkshire.
There wasn't anything new of course at this stage and we've all heard the arguments rehearsed a thousand times over the last six months, or so it seems, but here it is at last, the comprehensive overview, even if limitations with the time meant that a lot of the detail had to be left out.
In the short morning session of Day 70 of the
Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 29th October 2014, there is
discussion about programming matters before adjournment until the afternoon.
In the afternoon session of Day
70 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 29th October 2014, Gregory
Jones QC makes the Closing Statement from First West Yorkshire after some
delays for the printing of documents.
There was a brief adjournment after the first
sixteen minutes which I have represented by a two second gap before resumption
for the remainder of the afternoon.
In the firstmorning session of Day 59 of the Leeds
Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 8th Oct 2014,Dawn Carey Jones on behalf of the South Headingley Community
Association and herself gives the cases against the NGT trolleybus scheme.Sue Buckle of the SHCA also supports this
case.
In the late morning session of
Day 59 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 8th Oct 2014, Dawn
Carey Jones on behalf of the South Headingley Community Association and herself
completes their cases against the NGT trolleybus scheme. Sue Buckle of the SHCA
also supports this case.
In the afternoon session of Day
59 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 8th Oct 2014,Mr Walton for the Applicant NGT and the
Inspector cross examine Dawn Carey Jones and Sue Buckle on their cases for
themselves and the South Headingley Community Association against the
trolleybus scheme.
The Enquiry is now wearing away
into the final month, or so we are all hoping.Even at this late stage the programme is suffering change and
reorganisation.I don’t envy the task
of Mr Graham Groom the Programme Officer or his second in command Mrs Joanna
Vincent in arranging this.
The loss of Ms Katie Lightbody from
this week’s schedule yesterday was something of a blow to the smooth running of
the proceedings, but fortunately we were back on track today with the
presentation of evidence from Dawn Carey Jones of the South Headingley
Community Association, assisted by local resident of some fifty years, Sue
Buckle.
My good friend Dawn has appeared
on a number of occasions for cross examination of the NGT witnesses, but today
she gave her own case.
I always learn something new when
she speaks about the area she loves, and indeed which I lived in myself for
about a decade before I moved up to West Headingley.
Her case covered a wide range of
aspects of the trolleybus scheme, from practical points which the roads
engineers and traffic modellers had neglected to pay attention to or had
detailed poorly, to the monstrous affront of the consultations which had been
almost farcically carried out.
The point of the consultation
responses was raised again and we found out that only 45 responses out of some
340 or so were actually supportive of the trolleybus scheme.Amongst these were general comments that
indicated the writer didn’t really know much about it, but just thought that an
improvement in public transport would be a good thing.The majority of the remainder were opposed,
and there were many concerned complaints about the consultation process, or
about misinformation and the inadequate website etc etc.
This is not only an important
point in respect of how it is certainly perceived by objectors that the
consultations were biased and highly flawed ~ for instance the appearance of
the landscape designs the day after the Plans Panel day in Council last
year ~ but indicates that while some people were in favour of the idea in the
most general principle, that they didn’t really understand what it was that
they were actually supporting.
This is a common and widespread
tale.Former trolleybus supporters are
like ex-smokers, more vigorous in their opposition than those who have never
been seduced by its lures.I saw Dr Maurice
King, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, local Hyde Park
resident and deep green environmentalist, in the audience today.I recall that when he first heard about the
scheme in 2012 he was gung ho for it, but a few weeks later when the subject
was mentioned again he didn’t have a good word to say for it.
You
can’t blame people for this reaction when they find out any of the many
downsides to the trolleybus scheme.
The
destruction of the fancy dress shop, the former garage, and the row of shops in
the angle of Headingley Lane and Victoria Road is a troubling matter for the
small businesses and the local residents who shop there.I particularly admire Dawn in the way she
has stood up to the misrepresentation of these buildings by Metro and the
Council.
They
are perpetually portrayed as run down, ramshackle, in need of repair, little
more than lean tos thrown up and of no importance.
If they
have been allowed to become run down, which is a much exaggerated statement (as
are so many that NGT makes) it cannot be unrelated to the fact that Metro are
the owners of them and through a mixture of their own neglect and the planning
blight associated with their uncertain future, there is demonstration of a
clear desire if not actual intent to get rid of these buildings.
And yet
there are rarely any of them left empty for long.Low rent premises in such a convenient place for passing trade
are hard to come by.I used to commonly
drop into several of these shops when I was around that area.
The
aesthetic value of the shops is also falsely derided by the NGT assessors, who
said that the frontages were cheap modern ones, when actually they still have
the original Victorian features.And
the description in the Heritage documents says they are early 20th
C, when actually documentary evidence exists that they are clearly from at
least the 1890s.These are not the only
buildings which have been wrongly dated as 20th C.Their continued occupancy and use for some
120 years is a testament to their value to the community over the generations.
Leeds
City Council and Metro, now WYCA, have no interest or concern for the needs or
aspirations of local people.If they
did they would not seek to overwrite their very lives with their own grand
designs which will obliterate the history and identity which is an integral
part of the genius loci of the place.Certainly over the last couple of years since I have started to imagine
what it was like when the young Professor Tolkien would walk these streets
ninety years ago I have been able to see greater value in the surviving legacy
of past generations.A legacy which
would be all too casually swept away for the ‘bold initiatives’ and ‘exciting
design opportunities’ of people whose only interest seems to be in making their
own marks rather than really thinking about the effects they might have on
people and place.
The
road designs that go with all this are often not even safe.Ms Jones identified that the loss of
railings in front of the LS6 Café for a trolleybus stop would tempt pedestrians
to take short cuts across this busy road.While at the same time putting the trolleybus shelter in front of the
café where people sit outside the south facing frontage, and so which would
have disbenefits to the business and cause obstruction for people queuing for
the trolleybus.Both would be adversely
affected.If you know this frontage you
will know that it is not an appropriate place to be putting a stop for an
articulated vehicle, too near by far as it is to the Hyde Park Corner traffic
lights and opposite the open end of Victoria Road.
The
litany of disregard for heritage and people is added to with their shoddy and
inadequate planning and design.The
trouble for NGT is that they have so little to work with and would have to do
so much more damage than they already purpose to in order to really make it
work, that they are continually faced with having to squeeze through narrow
bottlenecks in our Victorian streets, or to simply destroy them and have done.
Mr
Walton in his cross examination took the now familiar line trying to suggest
that simply getting a witness to agree that some sort of improvement to public
transport arrangements on the Headingley Lane would be beneficial is enough to
justify the trolleybus.He tried to pin
down Dawn Jones demanding that she offer alternate solutions, but she quite
rightly said that she was not an expert and could not make recommendations
other than perhaps a tube, but that her view was that the entire concept of the
trolleybus was flawed and a bad idea and that it was one idea which should be
rejected.
This is
what many people have said, not just long term residents who get accused of
being ‘nimbys’ (although what is wrong with valuing your community heritage and
trying to protect it is not clear to me).The trolleybus is pretty much the worst of all solutions that might be
applied to Leeds traffic issues.
For the issues go far
beyond the A660, and we must see our problems in the broader context of the
entire city.Eviscerating the string of
pearls that are the Conservation areas along the A660 is only one more of the
political agendas behind the trolleybus, in which community is to be trampled
under foot in the stampede for endless economic development which serves none but
the large corporate empires.Meanwhile
the slaves are to be trolleybussed into the work pens in the city, standing
like cattle, seven to a square meter, through the bulldozed remnants of our
communities.
Links to audio recordings of today's sessions are linked here, and an extended blog follows to make up for some of the days I have missed giving commentary on recently.
In the first morning session of
Day 50 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 24 September 2014,
Louise Howard Long and Chris Sheard for the Meanwood Valley Partnership present
their cases of objection to the NGT scheme and there is some examination by
Neil Cameron QC and the Inspector.
In the late morning session of
Day 50 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 24 September 2014, Mr
Stephen Hammond and then Mr Stuart Archbold, private objectors, give their
cases of objection to the NGT scheme and there is some examination by Neil
Cameron QC and the Inspector.
In the early afternoon session of
Day 50 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 24 September 2014, Mr
Malcolm Bell and then Mr Martin Fitzsimons give their cases of objection to the
NGT scheme and there is some examination by Neil Cameron QC and the Inspector.
In the late afternoon session of
Day 50 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Wednesday 24 September 2014
Claire Randall first represents the cases for four others and then delivers her
own case and is questioned on some points by the Inspector.
I should apologise to my readers for getting behind with these blogs and
missing a few. It is quite challenging
at times to try to keep up with the relentless and gruelling pace of the
schedule even if one is only reviewing audio recordings in one’s own time. This would not be possible should those
objectors who assist me with this project did not help so faithfully, for which
I have immense gratitude.
We have moved on to the objectors and their evidence now that all the
witnesses for NGT have been cross examined, a process which at times seemed
never ending.
I am truly impressed with the quality of the presentations of virtually
all those objectors I have heard so far, and that is not just because they are
objectors and on my side, but because when I hear them speak I always learn
something new and which gives a deeper insight into how this would affect
people if it was allowed to proceed.
Yesterday we had Deborah Fahey speaking for the Whitfields community who
would suffer a major, indeed catastrophic, impact on their community space, and
Professor Christopher Todd giving a superb presentation with slides about the
effects on local environments of trolleybuses in cities where they still exist
and comparing these with how such a project could affect our own local mature
heritage environments here in north west Leeds.
Among the other cases yesterday were two from West Park from residents
adjacent to Weetwood Court whose representatives were the first private
objectors to give their cases before the last break. The people behind these objections stand to lose parts of the
places they call home and have their lives entirely disrupted.
I was told today that measurements of distances between the houses and
boundary walls which had been discussed yesterday had been checked by the
Inspector yesterday evening. The NGT
survey map which had indicated a distance of 10m was now I understand shown to
be incorrect and that the distance was closer to the 7m held by the objector,
thus the loss of nearly two meters from the garden would have had a much more
major effect.
This is a theme which I would like to develop a bit more ~ the simple
incompetence of the people at NGT trying to promote the trolleybus scheme.
But first I will comment on a powerful witness who spoke today. I was not surprised to hear the evidence of
Mr Stuart Archbold today when he averred there had been machinations behind the
scenes based on political motives of Metro (now WYCA) wishing to increase its
power and not for any good reasons of improving transport, but I was impressed
with the vehemence in his delivery.
‘This has to stop, and it has to stop NOW!’ he said, I believe more than
once.
The passion, and indeed anger, with which he spoke demonstrated to me
that he had gone through some kind of awakening process with regard to
understanding what was going on and which could surely be the only reason behind his evisceration of the whole scheme from start to finish. He
said ‘A lot has happened since January’.
And while he did not deny to Mr Cameron’s question that he had indeed
supported Supertram once, he was quite clear that he had entirely changed his
position on this admitting freely that he had been ‘politically correct’ in
toeing the line which had been expected of him seven or eight years ago. I was glad to hear this not only to see a
whistleblower on this case, but also because political correctness has
infiltrated its Orwellian tentacles into the very fabric or our society and is
ripe for denunciation and rejection.
Toe the party line, conform… No
thankyou, we’ll consider the evidence and make up our own minds if you don’t
mind.
Rather than seeing a U-turn as a sign of weakness as the mainstream so
often seek to do, I admire the courage of someone who has the courage to step
out of line when they realise that the imposed consensus is not workable. And if you have an unworkable system, such
as existed in the old Soviet Union, then people within it have to squeeze their
minds into ever more maladaptive channels which in themselves are unworkable.
If you have been following this in any detail you will know that the
trolleybus scheme reads like something from bizarro-land. And I am encouraged to understand from my
contacts that our friends at Skyscraper City forum, whom I am led to believe
are a collection of local property developers and the like, have been quiet and
been in abeyance from their former sniping.
Not one of them has yet dared to make a comment on this blog despite
their former gossip about me on their own forum pages. It must be a position in which one feels
severe cognitive dissonance, having the truth put in front of you every day
with the recordings of the evidence that this is a scheme from an Idiocracy but
firmly trying to cling to the flimsy justifications for their own profiteering
agenda.
I am indeed massively biased. Massively
biased against incompetence, waste, deception, destruction and all the other unnecessary
evils which Leeds CC and Metro/ WYCA is trying to impose on Leeds.
Nigh on every level at which you encounter or examine this beast, you
find slipshod work and unprepared positions.
From the first consultation event I went to in December nearly two years
ago where the maps all had north pointing to five o’clock and were jumbled up
in order along the wall like a scrambled jigsaw so that viewers couldn’t get a
coherent picture of the route or the impact, to the little episode I had today
when I was giving my evidence.
The promoters have known since the before the beginning of the Enquiry
that I had some audio visual evidence I wanted to present and that I would need
not only a projector, such as has been used by other objectors, but also an
audio device attached.
I was going to say ‘incredibly the NGT technician couldn’t even open my
files in a media player on the laptop’ but then, it isn’t incredible with these
people to find that they were ignorant of something they should have prepared
weeks ago.
And there is a somewhat ironic parallel with some of the evidence which
I gave today. Forgive me for expanding
on my own case in the blog, but this is the one chance I have for this.
Much of the force of my case was focussed on the, what to me at least,
seems an almost transparent case of deliberately trying to keep information in
the dark in an attempt to prevent people from finding it out and, one assumes,
acting on it.
From the attempted refusal of Freedom of Information requests to see the
consultation feedback to the refusal of Leeds City Council/ Metro/ WYCA/ NGT to
provide any recording of the proceedings in any format, digital or analogue,
written, audio or visual.
I was reading about the Public Enquiry after the Titanic disaster the
other day. A verbatim transcript was
made of every question and every answer over the entire proceedings. That was a century ago with none of the
technology we have at our disposal today.
And yet, the drivers behind this scheme are prepared to use neither
Pitman shorthand, a stenographer, nor digital recording devices. Actions speak louder than words, and it is
clear how the ruling class of Leeds see this Enquiry ~ they would like to see
it disappear without trace and be utterly forgotten, whether they win or lose. And this is because, if they were to win, they
would not want to have the evidence hanging around demonstrating what a
disaster-waiting-to-happen the trolleybus was, when it became that
disaster. And if they lose they will
just want everyone to forget that they wasted £40m in planning and development
costs for a project on the A660 route over twenty years or so. That’s £30m on the Supertram and the £10m
that has been spent on the trolleybus along a functionally identical route and
which is basically a scaled down tram.
They will just want it to go away and not have some awkward internet
archive of the fiasco being replayed to them by an irate public demanding why
they have got our city deep into debt with a project that could be seen to be a
failure well in advance, while having destroyed some of the best parts of our
city.
When I began the recordings it was because I believed that it was an
important principle of democracy that people should know what was being said
about such an important issue to our city.
It could have all gone wrong for the objectors. The evidence for the trolleybus could have
all been tip top sparkling convincing stuff which made the Inspector smile,
while Mr Jones and the objectors tried in vain to assail the impregnable
heights of the noble and majestic Castle NGT.
If that had been the truth, then so be it that nimbys such as myself and
my luddite co-objectors be crushed like bugs beneath the wheels of progress and
the trolleybus. Our determination to
have transparent coverage of the proceedings would have been our downfall.
But this is so far from the case that has unfolded before us, or perhaps
I should say, unravelled. An endless
series of items which apparently don’t need to be calculated at this stage but
which the Promoter is utterly confident can be nicely fitted into the planning,
development and construction budget, an endless series of judgements, views,
taking it in the round and looking at the big picture and an endless series of
pieces of evidence which are presented in such a way as to deviate from the
official guidance for best practice in these matters.
No wonder the powers that have driven this wish that it would all just
sink like the Titanic, and not be remembered as that poor vessel was, as the
most famous maritime disaster in the world, or in this case public transport
disaster.
And so the core focus of my evidence today was on the egregious and
unconscionable withholding of these proceedings from being recorded and
archived in the public domain. If
important information is withheld which would affect people, it is an immoral
act to participate in that action, especially if by doing so one gains personal
advantage at the other’s expense.
So it would appear that the Promoters are both conspirators and incompetent
at the same time. No false choice needs
to be posed between alternatives when both are true.
The promoters of this scheme are attempting the
basic propaganda technique of control of information supply. But in seeking to exclude the people from
awareness of what is going on, they have abdicated any moral authority that
they may claim to have once had and demonstrated that they are not ethically
competent for the tasks they seek to carry out. It is their intention to control and dominate the population by
information control and then do as they wish.
This is actually a war on the citizens of our fair city, their minds and
their sense of reality, psychological warfare.
But it is good to find that a sense of awareness and justice is alive in
the spirit of our citizens which is determined not to allow this travesty to
proceed.
******************8
Here are the two videos which the NGT team had known were due to be played in evidence at the Enquiry but which they were incapable of showing.
This is Document 3 in my supporting documents list for my statement of
case in my objection to the proposed NGT Leeds Trolleybus System at the
Public Enquiry starting on 29 April 2014.
Subject: New Generation Transport in Leeds Ref no. TWA/13/APP/04/OBJ/998
This
video recording was taken on the 12 May 2013 at Leeds Civic Hall where a
Public Meeting to discuss the proposed NGT trolleybus scheme was held.
Here Cllr James Lewis says:
'The
bulk of the cost of this scheme is going on building the park and ride
sites, building depots and building the physical infrastructure. The
actual poles and wires and buses are in the order of 10 per cent of the
scheme, and 90 per cent is doing the other things to make the buses flow
freely and make them segregated from traffic'
This is Document 3a in my supporting documents list for my statement of
case in my objection to the proposed NGT Leeds Trolleybus System at the
Public Enquiry starting on 29 April 2014.
Subject: New Generation Transport in Leeds Ref no. TWA/13/APP/04/OBJ/998.
This
video recording was taken on the 5 June 2013 at the Headingley Heart
Centre, where a Public Meeting to discuss the proposed NGT trolleybus
scheme was held, hosted by Cllrs Richard Lewis and James Lewis.
Cllr
Richard Lewis says that 'the whole NGT scheme is actually far more of a
highways scheme than a scheme about a method of public transport'
This is an applicable document for my Statement of Case in the Public Enquiry to be held starting 29 April 2014 http://www.persona.uk.com/LTVS/OPs/RE... (This link seems to have gone down, so I shall have to look into that) I
have posted this video document here on YouTube as the pdf file
referenced above does not have a live link to this important evidence
for the Public Enquiry.
In the first morning session of
Day 47 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, Thursday 11 September 2014 Mr Bill
McKinnon for Friends of Woodhouse Moor resumes his cross examination of Mr
Kevin Leather of Mott MacDonald on the NGT Environmental Statement and is
followed by Ms Dawn Carey Jones for the South Headingley Community Association.
In the late morning session of Day 47 of the Leeds
Trolleybus Enquiry, Thursday 11 September 2014 Ms Dawn Carey Jones for the
South Headingley Community Association concludes her cross examinationMr Kevin Leather of Mott MacDonald on the
NGT Environmental Statement and is followed by Mr Chris Foren for the A660
Joint Council and then the Inspector, Mr Martin Whitehead before the lunch
break is taken.
In the early afternoon session of
Day 47 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, Thursday 11 September 2014 Mr Walton
for the Applicant carries out his re-examination of Mr Kevin Leather of Mott
MacDonald on his Environmental Statement.
In the late afternoon session of
Day 47 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, Thursday 11 September 2014 Mr Richard
Caten of Ardent is examined on his evidence about Land Management by Mr Walton
for the Applicant NGT, followed by Mrs Helen Pickering for the Drummonds and
Churchwoods Residents’ Association and then by Mr David Graham for First West
Yorkshire.There is a short discussion
about programming matters over the examination of Document B-13.
In the first morning session of
Day 46 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, Wed 10th September 2014 Mr Kevin
Leather presents his evidence in chief on the NGT Environmental Statement, is
taken through this by Mr Walton for the Applicant and then Gregory Jones QC for
First West Yorkshire cross examines him on his evidence.
In the late morning session of
Day 46 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, Wed 10th September 2014
Gregory Jones QC for First West Yorkshire continues to cross examine Mr Kevin
Leather on the NGT Environmental Statement.
In the early afternoon session of
Day 46 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, Wed 10th September 2014
Gregory Jones QC for First West Yorkshire completes his cross examine of Mr
Kevin Leather of Mott MacDonald on the NGT Environmental Statement.
In the late afternoon session of
Day 46 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, Wed 10th September 2014 first Mr Stuart
Natkus for Morley House Trust and then Mr Bill McKinnon for Friends of
Woodhouse Moor cross examine Mr Kevin Leather of Mott MacDonald on the NGT
Environmental Statement.
Firstly may I express my
continuing gratitude to all the Objectors who have, and are continuing to,
assist with the recording of the Trolleybus Public Enquiry, without whom the
documentation, and indeed my own blogs, would be extremely patchy. For newcomers to this blog I should like to
point out that there is no formal minuting of the Enquiry, no stenographer, and
no attempt in any form by NGT, Metro or Leeds City Council to provide
documentary news updates of what has been covered in the proceedings. This is utterly disgraceful and the
Executive Board of Leeds City Council should be ashamed of themselves for
refusing to make any attempt to do so.
The inadequacy of the BBC in failing their statutory duty to inform the
public is not far behind that of LCC.
The Exec Board doubtless rely on the minutes kept by the Promoter’s own
stenographer, but one doubts whether these will ever be made public, and I am
extremely glad that we have an objective record with the recordings, as I do
not believe we could entirely be sure of the reliability of the NGT minutes, to
put it as diplomatically as I can.
The examination of Mr Kevin
Leather was a fascinating experience. I
shall focus on Mr Jones’s examination as it was a long day with other
examinations which made headway, but I shall try to give a broad outline of how
the examination developed in the morning.
There are times when one wonders
where Mr Jones is taking it all, and then suddenly it becomes clear. He does like to prepare his ground well
before he goes in for the kill, and this takes time, but when you get to the
point where you can see the big picture you have to stand back in amazement and
acknowledge that he knows what he is doing.
The morning began with
exploration of Mr Leather’s position in the making of the Environmental
Statement and the fact that he relied heavily on the evidence of Mr Ward, whose
original Heritage Statement has been supplemented by the new document B-13, an
almost 400 page document of which about 300 pages were new, and Professor
Purseglove, whom it was elicited has no science degree, and is a landscape
architect whose degree was in English Literature, facts which I do not recall
having had a lot of attention drawn to them previously.
Mr Leather would not admit that
the original HS was defective or inadequate and claimed it was based on best
practice, but we were left wondering why such a massive additional document had
been considered necessary if this had been the case.
He had not actually done the
Environmental Impact Assessment or the Environmental Impact Statement himself
and was quizzed on the fact that he is basically an overview administrator of
all this rather than a technical expert.
Having laid out these
shortcomings, a quite lengthy analysis was entered into by Mr Jones, and I have
to confess that I was for a while at sea wondering where he was going with
this. However the argument had to be
prepared by laying out the work that had been done on air quality measurements
and the modelling that had been derived from that, in the first instance on
Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels. There
was a rather large amount of detail on the supposed predictions for that and we
were also given extensive reminders of how Mr Hanson’s traffic data modelling
had been admitted to have been made with a possible variation of as much as +
or – 30%, the park and ride predictions up to + or – 50%, and the local side
road traffic modelling had been admitted to be inaccurate. Further preparation was made with
questioning of whether we can really expect the baseline predictions for air
quality and emissions not to get worse in coming years as their modelling
assumes.
All rather complicated technical
stuff which I freely admit I found a little hard to follow in places but
necessary when you bear in mind that Mr Jones was building up to a
demonstration that the impact of the increased emissions, which it is admitted
would be caused by general traffic should the NGT scheme be allowed to go
ahead, causing an increase in congestion, had not been properly assessed when
it came to how it would affect those ‘receptors’ (people) in the areas where
this was expected to peak.
Put simply, all the increased
emissions were averaged so as to argue that it would not be a major impact, and
yet it was argued strongly by Mr Jones that with such a major degree of
variation in the models which Mr Hanson had provided, the impact in local
hotspots could not be reliably forecast.
All good stuff bringing the
modelling data into question, but this wasn’t the killer blow. After we had been treated to such marvellous
skill with words from Mr Leather as ‘they will be categorised into
categories’… Mr Jones winkled out the
fact that among the matters Mr Leather had been discussing with colleagues the
previous afternoon when he was unavailable for cross examination was the + or –
30% figure, which apparently he had not been aware of when compiling the data,
and had only found out the afternoon before his examination.
One can only take criticism of Mr
Jones’s lengthy style so far when you realise that a great deal of time was
wasted by Mr Leather over whether the degree of uncertainty of the data was of
any importance or not. To quote Mr
Jones ‘It is not a safe basis for relying on the Environmental Statement as
being robust when its authors are not aware when giving their judgement of the
uncertainty of the parameters’. At one
point the witness seemed to agree with this, and then appeared to change his
mind as the Inspector pointed out.
While predictions in air quality
had been based on Mr Hanson’s uncertain predictions of traffic flows it was
admitted that the probably more reliable data which had been compiled by Mr
Gordon Robertson from traffic signalling inputs had been ignored.
When it came to particulates as
opposed to the NO2 it was found that only two monitoring stations for these
existed in Leeds. Clearly this is no
basis for making any realistic predictions on how these may or may not be
affected by changes in traffic volume and flow. All Mr Leather could say was that it ‘gives a view’ on the
situation. The data that had been used
for this was not even the most recently available, coming from 2012 rather than
2013. We were also given an argument
that just because emissions might increase, this did not mean that air quality
would deteriorate. Hmmm….
I lost count of the number of
times that Mr Leather said ‘I don’t know’ and frankly his manner of delivery
led me to consider whether he is suffering from depression as he exhibits
extreme ‘flatness of affect’ to use a technical mental health term. In other words he is entirely lacking in any
expressive confidence and shows no emotion.
He hesitates for long periods in giving his replies and doesn’t speak
up. One may have not agreed with the
likes of Mr Haskins or Mr Smith when they were up as witnesses, but at least one
could hear what they said.
One trusts that the Inspector is
able to follow and understand the technical analysis which Mr Jones subjected
Mr Leather’s evidence to as this seems to be crucial to the claims of NGT. Basically, their predictive modelling is
extremely tenuous and highly unreliable it would appear, as has been the case
repeatedly with a large number or witnesses.
It takes a long time to lay out the stall when preparing to take this
apart, but in the end I believe Mr Jones succeeded in achieving this. One can imagine that Mr Leather might well
feel depressed when you consider his lack of knowledge of the background to how
his own statement was prepared. ‘I
don’t know’ appeared to be one of his favourite answers.
There was much more of this, but
I will just leave you with a fact that was elicited by Mr McKinnon towards the
end of the day. Mr Leather, and
therefore probably his whole team, were not aware that Monument Moor was a part
of Woodhouse Moor when they proposed the works that would be required there for
the NGT scheme. One is reminded of a
previous witness who didn’t know that the Dales Way began on Monument Moor, a
fact which the Inspector found out for himself independently. The lack of knowledge which these people display is alarming.
These are the kind of details
which the people who are proposing this scheme either don’t know, or don’t care
about enough to bother to find out about, even though they are in the public
domain, on Ordnance Survey maps and the like.
But one is reassured that the Inspector clearly shows an interest, and
one suspects from the tone of his voice on such occasions that he is not much
impressed at this ignorance.
I try not to get too personal
about the witnesses for the Promoter, well not too often at least, but the fact
is that these people are working for the enemy who wish to permanently mar our
beautiful heritage. So when I see and
hear a witness whose presentation is frankly dismal, and who seems ignorant
even of his own case (he had to be pointed to paragraphs in his own documents)
one cannot help but feel some degree of animosity. I believe that those who have been present at a reasonable number
of sessions at the Enquiry will agree that Mr Leather is probably the poorest
witness we have seen so far, and at times one wanted to cover one’s head in
embarrassment at his evident lack of competence.
I would urge readers to review the recordings of
the day, especially of Mr Jones’s cross examination, to see how an argument can
be prepared and then fully actioned. Slow
work at times, but the flimsy nature of the case put forward by NGT is often veiled
beneath so much technical jargon and scientistic assumption and presentation,
that a layperson could be forgiven for being taken in. I have to express my gratitude to Mr Jones
and indeed First West Yorkshire for taking the trouble to expose the inadequacy
of a case which would be catastrophic not only to the local community and its
environmental heritage should it be allowed to go ahead, but also to Leeds and its taxpayers.
