Crossrail Makes the Earth Move

Intriguing to see that after four-five solid years of petitioning Crossrail's Select Committee and lobbying Peers and MPs, the Spitalfields community appears to have got a result and a quiet miracle has happened in our midst. That instead of the original proposal: 120 lorries a day pounding our narrow streets to take the earth from the tunnelling process to a railway in Allen Gardens (just off Brick Lane) which would then have run 24/7 through the night, daily for around 6 years (yes, six years!) to carry this earth all the way down to Limehouse, Mile End and beyond...meaning six years of misery, noise, danger on the roads, subsidence and asthma for local schoolchildren- instead, we now have common sense ladies and gentlemen of the jury - yes, the 'spoil' as it is called, is to be transported on barges down the river Thames to be used for a bird sanctuary on Wallasea Island, Essex. Hallelulujah...praise be! A green solution even.

See story in this week's Advertiser (Local 'Newspaper of the Year' two years running I note!):

http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/content/towerhamlets/advertiser/news/story.aspx?brand=ELAOnline&category=news&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsela&itemid=WeED29%20Sep%202009%2020%3A04%3A55%3A110

We have gone from this (Evening Standard) coverage in 2004:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-12197837-crossrail-will-destroy-historic-community.do

via long months of the community campaigning: http://khoodeelaar.wordpress.com/

To this: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/company/communications-centre/press-releases/impact-of-crossrail-construction-to-be-lessened

Amazing really when you think about the amount of effort expended on persuading Crossrail not to dig a hole the size of the Channel Tunnel just off Brick lane.

The true heroes in all of this were my friend Kay Jordan (MBE), who runs the Spitalfields Small Businesses Association and is a brilliant architect by profession. She was able to take the plans apart painstakingly in front of the Select Committee, while speaking a language they understood and persuade them that the tunnel should be dug from the ends rather than from a central shaft in the middle of the village of Spitalfields. She proposed that they take the earth out of the ends of the tunnel rather than here...and that my friends was a significant victory.

Of course it helped that Tower Hamlets Council eventually saw sense and got behind the residents. It's not hard to see why. We are voters to them after all.

Secondly, my two good friends Guy Carpenter and his girlfriend Bal Khela (ex-journo for The Lawyer) and adviser with Citizens Advice - both of whom I met when we were campaigning to save Spitalfields Market from the wrecking ball (1999 - 2003) - who campaigned tirelessly throughout on no pay, working endlessly through the legal documentation, photocopying into the night - even going so far as to work with a pro bono QC of their own.

And finally, Mohammed Haque, who helped to mobilise the Bangladeshi community while George Galloway was making a complete tit of himself on Big Brother, and encourage the local businessmen to fire off legal challenges to the Crossrail proposals and hold a rally outside Parliament. (I'll never forget those local meetings of the Bangladeshi business community at the Brady Centre near Brick Lane, where every time Galloway's name was mentioned, loud 'Miaooows' could be heard resounding around the hall. Priceless).

I should really point out that we owe a big thank you to Jacqui Smith, the then Labour Whip, for coming up Brick Lane to remind us all that our absent MP was shaming himself on TV while the Crossrail bill was being debated in Parliament...this caused outrage and consternation in the Bangladeshi community who immediately responded by getting on the case and firing off legal challenges left right and centre.

Thanks for that Jacqui! We will be eternally grateful.

It was yet another New Labour own goal. They under-estimated the power of this community, which has always thought on its feet and reacted vigorously to the moral paucity and lethargy of successive governments, be they Labour, Lib-dem or Tory. You only have to read 'Spitalfields: A Battle for Land', Charlie Foreman's amazing book to get an idea of the history of failure by politicians to sort out the housing and planning issues in Spitalfields.

You can read my petition on the Parliament website, and hear it read out by me in the Lords, in front of two intimidating QC's (one looking the spit of Rumpole of the Bailey) a few years ago (there's a priceless bit where I'm speeding ahead with my presentation - possibly a bit too impetuously and the particularly stuffy QC attempts to slow me down, by saying "You'll get your day in court Miss. Broadbridge." and I respond, "I intend to your honour"...(I know what you're thinking - saucy minx)...You can only hear this on the audio version on the Parliament website though...if you can be bothered to look it up on: www.parliament.uk

The irony at the time of course was that the two QC's also just happened to be working for Jeff Rooker (Uncle Jeff) the Labour Minister, representing the Government as counsel on a case in N. Ireland because Jeff was also N.Ireland Minister. I was working for Rooker as a press officer at the time, so it was all very pally on the tea breaks. I think they thought I was part of the Establishment, like them. I kept up the act.

See my petition (No 307):

http://books.google.com/books?id=EtPsZQsFqAMC&pg=PA1066&lpg=PA1066&dq=Jemima+Broadbridge+petitioner+Crossrail+bill&source=bl&ots=Bds-QhjkUI&sig=qoQgjgRp5xErjS1OAx5n2TjcRfg&hl=en&ei=LnnKSuzJHo2e4Qa67anHAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=Jemima%20Broadbridge%20petitioner%20Crossrail%20bill&f=false

Or if you prefer to read larger print..there's an easy to read scan of my petition itself:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmbills/001/307.pdf