• ON Thursday Camden’s planning committee gave a bloody nose to developers Essential Living and their principal backers, private equity fund M3 Capital Partners.

To the delight of local supporters who packed the chamber, councillors rejected the Construction Management Plan for the skyscraper planned for the 100 Avenue Road site.

Councillors accepted the strength of arguments on the impact of lorries being routed over local roads and the nearby green space, the lack of protection for trees near the development from the heavy vehicle movements, the failure to offer “physical barriers” to segregate pedestrians from vehicles on the pedestrian area during construction, the future of the daily Swiss Cottage market and the weekly farmer’s market, noise, vibration and the impact on the Swiss Cottage Open Space, our only “green lung” and play area.

The developer still insisted on using already crowded roads, particularly Winchester Road and the pedestrian space, to route the construction traffic through the Open Space, rather than the A41.

Contrary to assertions at the committee, there is no written evidence from Transport for London, the strategic authority for the A41 Finchley Road, supporting the developer’s contention that, if the developer spent more money on the construction plan, TfL would oppose the use of the A41 instead of using local residential roads.

In fact TfL “have no objection to all lorries using the pit lane of the A41 so long as the bus lane and traffic lanes are not blocked”. (Response Mayor’s Question Time 2018/1347).

If this is to be used as an excuse for the developer to shoehorn in a further application, the least locals should expect for transparency is that firm evidence from TfL is provided supporting these assertions.

But it is solely the developer’s assertion that they can’t do the development in under five years if they do not use local roads.

I thank our supporters, and councillors who, in a wonderful advertisement for the power of democracy to stand up to powerful vested interests, stood up for people on Thursday.

JANINE SACHS
Chair, Save Swiss Cottage