Children outside the High Court protest against Ocado’s plans to open a distribution centre next to their primary school

• THE campaign group, NOcado, is fully supportive of job-creation for the Islington area, but Ocado’s proposed development of a depot in N19 is at the cost of residents’ and school children’s health in particular, (The Ocado plans would boost the economy, October 29).

The community at large does not agree to job-creation on these terms, as proven by 2000 signatories so far.

The campaign group is working with partners to assess the impact of the centre, given pollution, traffic, noise and light assessments have still not been provided by Ocado despite several requests over the last two years.

And neither has a full planning application been submitted despite Ocado committing to do so.

In response to the letter-writer’s suggestions, electric delivery vans are not possible in the short and longer term, being neither scalable and interestingly unenforceable.

Only 1 per cent of Ocado’s delivery fleet is currently electric, which equates to 17 vehicles in total; and their intention does not cover any commitment to decarbonise the HGV fleet.

The nature of the business of grocery delivery means that deliveries cannot take place between 9am and 3pm, school working hours, and will need to be day and night.

The building of a green wall does not prevent the fact that polluting impacts are still a skipping rope away from a playground and adjacent to a residential area.

The site is not the right place for a 24/7 delivery centre. Ocado needs to find a new site to suit all stakeholders to be the responsible business it purports to be.

THE NOcado COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN GROUP