The O2 Centre site on Finchley Road

• TWO years ago, Landsec, owners of the O2 Centre, since 2010, the developer proposed plans for 1,000 new homes on the large car park of the 1998 centre in Swiss Cottage with “replacement of the O2 Centre itself” phased.

The proposals have this year been further extended to 2,000 new homes by use of centre site space itself.

The backing from Camden Council geared towards an agreed quota (35 per cent has been discussed) of affordable housing units (AHUs); comparing with Essential Living’s (EL) 100 Avenue Road site a 184-property scheme in early 2019.

With 100 Avenue Road demolished EL later, during the pandemic, relinquished its promise to build 36 AHUs, down to only 18. The project to date is on hold, with failure of negotiations and the Swiss Cottage community left with a hole-in-the-ground building site!

Sadly it is very likely that Landsec may do the same as EL, reducing AHUs, with Camden again forced on its core AHU driver into another business negotiating failure. That’s not even taking into consideration the fundamental problem of inadequate consultation.

The vast majority of local area residents simply do not wish this horrendous, sprawling, concrete jungle on there doorsteps together with the certain loss of major amenities.

The stand-out biggest fear is that work to demolish O2 just as 100 Avenue Road will happen and then project goes into meltdown with breakdown in negotiations with Camden on matters such as AHUs.

The redevelopment of the vast car park space could, if done correctly, be seen by many as a progressive betterment to our area; but current plans are simply horrendous.

In all cases consultation was made, but not listened to, by a “one-way-communication” council, as recently demonstrated on its own owned and managed buildings of the Chalcots, also in Swiss Cottage, where 87 per cent of residents simply do not support the proposed choice of new “tilt & turn” inwards-opening windows to be installed in planned £100million future work.

NIGEL RUMBLE, NW3