Questions of how to service proposed tower have not been …

Impression of how the One Museum Street/Selkirk House development could look

• YOU published a number of letters on October 26 regarding the planning application to demolish Selkirk House and build a larger, taller, tower in its place.

These focused on the visual and environmental impacts of the proposal, which is also against many policies.

I would like to add another reason for the council to refuse the One Museum Street development permission.

The application does not allow for the building to be serviced properly, that is, to have deliveries made and waste collected.

If the development cannot properly accommodate these then it will create dangerous highway conditions in surrounding streets, yet another reason it should be rejected.

This issue is not unique to this application.

The Centre for Sustainable Road Freight (CSRF, which is made up of academics from Cambridge, Heriot-Watt and Westminster universities) recently said that developers often underestimate the number of freight movements required and that planning authorities lack the funding and expertise to challenge them and ensure that the proposed servicing plan will actually work.

We wholeheartedly agree with the CSRF’s view.

The Selkirk House development, if approved, would be yet another example of this.

Not only will absolutely no one arrive by taxi at this massive office development, but the developer believes that there is a requirement for 70 deliveries a day because they assume that half the units will be shops rather than the cafés and restaurants we see everywhere else in the area. We believe there will be at least 81, asdid the developer in the last version of the application.

They also think that most of these deliveries can be made to two loading bays in the basement, reached by putting all the trucks in a vehicle lift.

They have not told us, or the council, how long this process will take and seem to have assumed that it will take the same time as using a bay at street level.

This defies common sense. Transport consultants we have talked to agree with our view.

If there are more deliveries than expected, or if they take longer than assumed, then the deliveries will be made from the surrounding streets.

In this location there is little space for this and so the streets and pavement will be frequently blocked, increasing the danger to all of us.

The Save Museum Street group has included these issues in its detailed objection, but our points have not been addressed by the developer nor Camden’s planning department.

If Camden grants permission without these issues being addressed it will be creating not just a visual and environmental disaster, but a road safety one as well.

DAVID KANERCovent Garden Community Association Planning Sub-CommitteeMember Central London Freight Quality Partnership