• THREE current planning applications submitted to Camden Council will significantly damage the crucial effort to urgently reduce carbon emissions:

— The application for 1 Museum Street (2021/2954/P) proposes the demolition of a 1960s office building – Selkirk House – in order to build a new, much larger, office building at huge carbon cost (28,000 tonnes CO2).

What the applicant does not say is that the building was purpose-built as an office and that similar buildings are being retrofitted and refurbished for continued use. An example is 44 Moorfields, a 1960s office building owned by the British Red Cross.

— Another application (2022/1041/P) proposes the demolition of the conservation centre built by the British Library in 2007 at a cost of £13million.

The developer of the site, adjacent to the library, wants to “relocate” the conservation centre in order to maximise the amount of office floor space they can build.

The proposal shows no understanding of the need to prevent unnecessary waste of energy and materials.

— The third application is the O2 Centre (2022/0528/P), where the existing shopping and leisure complex is to be knocked down to make way for a high-rise residential development, despite the fact that it is only 35 years old and is used by local people.

These applicants should take a leaf out of the British Red Cross’s book, and act responsibly. The greenest building is an existing building.

This is because construction causes a very large amount of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere, primarily through the manufacture and transport of construction materials.
Mining and extraction of materials also causes great ecological damage.

Viable buildings should not be demolished and rebuilt just to turn a profit. If a building needs improving this can generally be done through refurbishment and retrofitting, which requires a much smaller quantity of high-carbon building materials.

All of us who live in Camden share a responsibility to hold the council to account in its role as planning authority, which requires them to prevent harmful development and to protect the environment.

To object to any of these applications, go to the Camden Council website – “planning applications search” on the planning page.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY CAMDEN
www.climateemergencycamden.org