Carver, The urban archaeology of the London Crossrail Project The urban archaeology of the London Crossrail Project Approach, organisational management, challenges of integration Jay CARVER BaHons / MIFA, Crossrail, Project Archaeologist Abstract: Crossrail is a brand new metro railway across central London, UK. It comprises 118 km of new and refurbished line, 37 stations including six new stations in central London. The project started its life as a Cross London Rail Links, a joint venture between the Mayor of London’s transport authority, Transport for London (TfL) and the UK Government Department for Transport who each held a 50% stake in the organisation. In 2008 Crossrail Ltd (CRL) became a fully fledged subsidiary of TfL. Crossrail is therefore a public works project but it includes significant financial contributions from the private sector. The new railway passes through the heart of the West End of London and along the north edge of the Roman and Medieval city where deep construction for several new stations has required the careful assessment and evaluation of the archaeological sequence at some key historic locations. Important historic buildings and industrial archaeology sites are also being investigated. This paper provides a description of the organisational framework that the archaeology programme operates in and looks at the project design, management structure, access and programme risk constraints that have affected the project planning. I will look specifically at how the various stakeholders have agreed to control impacts on archaeological sites, the coordination of the multiple consultants teams and contractors who are undertaking archaeological works for the project. Results so far and some of the key challenges are also discussed. Keywords: Crossrail, archaeology, project design, Public/Private sector, programme risk. Introduction to the project This paper was presented to the conference to contribute to a session on how archaeology in our European towns is organized for major infrastructure projects and to look at how we can address issues surrounding archaeology and construction. This paper takes a lead from earlier studies such as work by the Council of Europe (COE 2001) and the transnational project Discovering the Archaeologists of Europe (AITCHISON 2009). Crossrail is a UK example project which demonstrates how the public and private sector can combine to achieve a balance between successfully addressing the needs to respect the archaeological heritage and historic buildings, and the needs to protect public and private expenditure associated with project delays. The Company Crossrail was originally established in 2001 to promote and develop a new London rail transport link to meet the needs of people and businesses throughout the South East of England (Fig. 1). It is now a fully owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL), the public transport body of the city authority, which is promoting the project through a combination of public finds and private sector partner funding. 518 15th International Conference on “Cultural Heritage and New Technologies“ Vienna, 2010 Fig. 1 – Crossrail Route Map (Copyright: CRL Ltd). Project Funding The funding framework was put in place in October 2007 when the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced that Crossrail's cost will be met by Government through Department for Transport, Transport for London and London businesses. A third of the cost is being met by a grant from the Department for Transport and London businesses will contribute through a variety of mechanisms, including the Supplementary Business Rate. There are also considerable financial contributions from some of the key private sector beneficiaries of Crossrail including The City of London Corporation and BAA Plc (owner of London Heathrow Airport). The Canary Wharf Group and Berkeley Homes who will also each contribute to new stations built on their land in London Docklands and at Woolwich. The £15.9 billion budget for the project is a fully inclusive cost, allowing for both contingency and expected inflation. In terms of management of archaeological costs, although the assigned budget is a small proportion of the overall direct costs, the funding arrangement puts pressure on archaeologists to ensure processes are in place to manage the archaeology budget carefully. Archaeological evaluation is central to identifying high risk areas, although unexpected finds can still have an impact on tightly planned construction programmes. The following sections will look at how the project design contributes to these objectives and looks at some of the organisational tools used to manage these risks. Getting Approval The project approval and planning process operates outside of the normal UK planning framework. The Crossrail Hydrid Bill required to construct and operate the railway was introduced to the UK Parliament in February 2005 and like all UK legislation was fully considered by the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Bill contained a description of the works to be done and where they are to be carried out, and identified the land needed temporarily or permanently. The Crossrail Bill was a so-called hybrid bill which is used by the Government on behalf of railway companies and transport agencies to obtain authorisation for major projects deemed to be in the national 519 Carver, The urban archaeology of the London Crossrail Project interest, but which would also affect a large number of private interests. Such bills have been used periodically for other major infrastructure projects such as the Channel Tunnel, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and the Dartford Tunnel. The procedure adopted gives individuals and bodies, such as businesses, local authorities and lobby groups an opportunity to oppose the bill or to seek its amendment before a Select Committee in either or both the House of Commons and House of Lords. Consultation and information Consultation exercises have been carried out at key development stages of the Crossrail project and information has been made available through a range of communication media before and during the Parliamentary phase. Crossrail carried out extensive stakeholder and public consultation in advance of the Parliamentary process. In 2003 and 2004 exhibitions were held to explain the proposals at over 30 different locations. Over 200,000 invitations were distributed to the properties of residents and businesses along the proposed route, information was provided for schools, a 24/7 telephone helpdesk and a web site were established, and Crossrail staff attended meetings with councilors, local residents associations and businesses to discuss specific local issues which may arise out of construction of the railway. Crossrail Bill Supporting Documents To support the Bill, Crossrail produced an Environmental statement (CROSSRAIL 2005a) and a series of information papers that set out the likely impacts on key environmental topics including archaeology and the built heritage environment (CROSSRAIL 2007a; 2007b) The existing archaeological evidence was summarised in a specialist technical report (CROSSRAIL 2005b) that defined the archaeological map through which the route of the metro would pass and highlighted the key receptors likely to be affected, including all historic buildings, conservation areas, areas of archaeological priority and ancient monuments (Fig. 2). In addition many of the hundreds of boreholes drilled to inform the route for the underground sections of the railway were archaeologically monitored and analysed to build up a detailed deposit model for the key locations affected by buried archaeology (Fig. 3). This gave us the opportunity to begin to enhance the known archaeological histories with detailed level information for archaeological survival and represented the first phase of site evaluation. Similar to development control conditions usually applied by local planning authorities, the Crossrail Bill introduced a set of Environmental Minimum Requirements (EMRs) (CROSSRAIL 2008), to govern the construction of Crossrail. These comprise a series of documents setting out the General Principles of the Construction Code, the Planning & Heritage Memorandum and the Environmental Memorandum. Together these provide a series of controls which contractors and others working to build the railway will work under. The EMRs were developed by CRL in liaison with the Local Authorities and Statutory Agencies responsible for environmental regulation in the UK including English Heritage. The Planning and Heritage Memorandum has been signed by eighteen local authorities that wished to become qualifying authorities for the purposes of the Act. 520 15th International Conference on “Cultural Heritage and New Technologies“ Vienna, 2010 Fig. 2 – Crossrail ES route mapping example (Copyright: CRL Ltd). Fig. 3 – Archaeologist logging sequence and recovering samples from geotechncial borehole Crossrail works Liverpool St (Picture by Maggie Cox -Copyright: CRL Ltd). A Register of Undertakings and Assurances also forms part of the EMRs and provides an undertaking that "any nominated undertaker“ of the project will be contractually bound to comply with the controls set out in the EMRs. 521 Carver, The urban archaeology of the London Crossrail Project To manage and implement the environmental requirements of the Crossrail Act the project has adopted an environmental policy backed up by environmental objectives, and an Environmental Management System (EMS). The EMS is consistent