Crossrail demolition warning sent

Homeowners living near the proposed route for the Crossrail project have been told their houses could be demolished to make way for the tracks.

They were given the news a week before public consultation on the east-west London line is due to end.

Crossrail want to add tracks to the existing District Line route in Richmond, south-west London.

However, the bill to allow work to start is not due through Parliament for another year.

Christina Kent-Egan says her children are worried

Local resident Christina Kent-Egan says her family have been told they could lose part of their garden and warned to expect years of disruption.

"We are going to be driven out of our family home.

"We don't know where we're going to go. Our children cannot sleep.

"They're very distressed. One of them has started drawing trains with monster faces and teeth devouring our house and garden, our lives."

Crossrail is proposing a route across London from Ebbsfleet and Shenfield in the east to Heathrow and Kingston in the west, which will pass through Richmond.

I doubt they'll give us enough to buy an apartment or flat in a place like Richmond Ted Smith

There is also a proposal for a Crossrail line 2, which would create a network of services linking Clapham Junction in south-west London to Dalston in the north-east of the city.

Around 50 residents have received letters from the Crossrail project saying they may have to give up their homes.

Ted Smith, who has lived with his wife Shirley in the same house for 40 years, fears they will not be properly compensated.

"I doubt they'll give us enough to buy an apartment or flat in a place like Richmond. Where do we go?," he said.

A bill to discuss the plans is expected to go through Parliament in late 2004.

Crossrail said the letters sent to Richmond residents were part of the consultation process.