• ASTONISHINGLY it has only just come to light, after discovering last-minute word changes buried deep in different documents, that 100 Avenue Road developers Essential Living (EL) plan to send around 50 construction lorries per day into Swiss Cottage Green Space from the A41.

This will be via the children’s adventure playground near the library, turning around up by Hampstead Theatre to go back out on to the A41 – for up to three years.

It appears we have all been blind-sided by the false premise that only the 14 lorry movements per day would use the open space from the Winchester Road access.

Because that is all EL have shown us in their site logistics plan. This glaring omission cannot be blamed on a typo! It looks like the plan is to assault the open space and the amenity on all fronts.

Why did Camden officers not report these facts when they recommended this Construction Management Plan (CMP) to the August planning committee?

In response to our request for clarification of this huge discrepancy, Camden officers inform us that the “the developer is preparing a further set of plans / schedules that will more clearly articulate the movements… proposed in the CMP (which) may be ready in the next couple of weeks”.

This timing is unacceptable as it will too closely coincide with when officers write up their next report to recommend the CMP for the September 20 planning committee meeting, leaving insufficient time for the community and our councillors to digest and respond to such substantive changes, which could, in effect, amount to an entirely new plan, which by rights ought to have an entirely new public consultation.

At the very least the next CMP hearing should be postponed until the October meeting when hopefully the CMP is fully clarified and understood by all.

JANINE SACHS
Chair, Save Swiss Cottage