Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:20:48 +0100
To: OSD@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Subject: FAO Baroness Neville-Jones: Realistic Disasters Scenario list, Olympics 2012 (Greenwich Park)Baroness Neville-Jones DCMG PC
Minister of State for Security and Counter-TerrorismDear Minister
There is little public awareness, outside Greenwich itself, of the extensive and largely unmapped warren of Tudor and medieval subterranean conduits and voids that lie not far beneath the surface of Greenwich Park; this is mainly because the local council and The Royal Parks have not been interested in conserving and maintaining them (or, even, knowing where they are) but the politics of it all is not what I am concerned about at present, except to say that political rather than risk-based considerations about the Olympics appear to be influencing decision-making at Government level to what is now a really unsafe degree.
I am writing to you to say that, if this underground network of tunnels does not feature on your Realistic Disasters Scenario list for the London Olympics, they should be on your list. Neither the ODA/LOCOG nor Greenwich Council has conducted any analysis of the risk presented by these conduits and voids, although in recent years other parts of the network of tunnels around Blackheath and Greenwich have suddenly and without warning collapsed into sink holes, some of them very large. The pressures on the surface of Greenwich Park that will be caused by the Olympic equestrian events - large crowds of people clustered around the jumps, half-ton horses pounding round a narrow course at high speed - are vastly greater than the Park has experienced in the past 500 years. These conduits and voids present a special hazard, a high impact risk in terms of the likelihood of a sink hole collapse and the cost of meeting compensation claims. A sudden collapse of the covering of a void (potentially 30 feet wide and 8-10 feet deep) could result in the Olympic equestrian events having to be cancelled, perhaps only - in the worst case scenario - after horses have had to be destroyed and riders and spectators hospitalised or killed. On live tv, before a global audience of millions. Not only would the London Games be remembered for the wrong reasons but the British Government would "lose face" and, in my view, the litigation from the other side of the Atlantic would go on forever: eg by the US Olympic team, and by companies such as Macdonalds and Coca-Cola (for loss of revenue from their food etc outlets on the Greenwich Park site, and for the "contamination" of their brand by being associated with an Olympic disaster).
If you wish to become better acquainted with this risk, you could do worse than talk to the person who knows most about the conduits, Dr Per von Scheibner. By way of "introduction", please read/view the following:
Statement of Dr Per von Scheibner
27 January 2010
http://www.nogoe2012.com/appendices/2010-01-27-NOGOE-objection-annex-B-conduits.pdfSaving Greenwich Park (Part 2)
http://youtu.be/t2R9MsyVy0Q"The Danger posed by the Underground Conduits.
http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/node/895
The conduits or tunnels under the Park were built in the early18th Century but there is also likelihood of earlier Tudor and Medieval conduits . LOCOG says that it is aware of the conduits and the course is designed around them. Dr. Per von Scheibner probably knows more than anyone else about these tunnels, having made a study of them, and been down some of the them 15 years ago using access points which are only lightly covered over. His conclusion is, "They’re pushing their luck". The weight of a horse and rider landing on two legs is similar to driving a pole into the ground. He says the important point is that no one knows where all the conduits are nor where the air shafts (access points) are. So how can a track be designed around them? Is this scare-mongering? It’s quite possible that there may be no access points on the cross country course but the jumps pose a special danger from the exceptionally high density of foot traffic gathering around them."
LOCOG did commission a geophysical survey - but only of that area of the Park where they want to erect the stadium, ie just south of the Queen's House. Not the rest of the Park.
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:31:24 +0100
To: OSD@homeoffice.gsi.gov.ukLOCOG have said (in their Method Statement) that they will carry out geophysical surveys of the conduits in Greenwich Park and reinforce high traffic areas in the vicinity of the tunnels. But they seem to have failed to understand that because these (hundreds of years old) tunnels are not maintained, cracks form and soil falls through causing a blockage in the tunnel; a void forms, and the tunnel caves in from below, irrespective of the strengthening above ground which may or may not be strong enough to withstand the sudden collapse of what is underneath it. Overground surveys may identify the existence of tunnels but not their condition.
Second, apropos the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975: we still do not know who is going to sign the Safety Certificate. Will the signatory carry out tests of their own? How else will they know whether or not they are signing off a safe venue?
In Greenwich and Blackheath, these tunnels are All. Over. The. Place. The particular geological make-up of the ground - sand over chalk under limestone rock - made it easier to dig out the sand because the rock above meant no need for supports. Although the conduits in the Park are said to have conveyed water to the palaces, some of the earliest tunnels elsewhere in Greenwich might have been defensive (the Danes' periodic invasion and occupation of Greenwich, between 1009 to the early 1400s, was very traumatic for the locals and may have left a powerful folk memory about the need to have hidden means of escape. But over hundreds of years the tunnels have deteriorated.
Interesting article, A Sand Mine At Greenwich, by Rodney Le Gear, here (look at the extent of the mine in the diagram): http://tinyurl.com/3ydawvc
