• OPERATOR of the proposed supermarket delivery hub fleshed out its proposals to run a 100 per cent-electric fleet in place of diesel vehicles originally planned, at a joint ward-partnership meeting on Tuesday, (Ocado site ‘plans to go all electric’, January 24).

What wasn’t mentioned at this public event, was landlord Telereal Trillium, responsible for drawing up the controversial lease with Ocado. Telereal is owned by the William Pears Group.

A grandson of the Pears dynasty, Sir Trevor Pears, is responsible for the strategic direction of the Pears Foundation which, among other matters, supports research into the treatment of heart disease.

A British Heart Foundation report published this year stresses the “seriously detrimental effect to heart health” of particulate matter found particularly in diesel exhaust emissions.

It’s astonishing, therefore, that TT ever agreed the use of its land for such an operation slap-bang up against a primary school. So far so good, then, that Ocado appears to have listened to local opposition from parents and staff.

Or did Sir Trevor get wind of the proposal and step in to stop it? After all, it was only last year that the government launched its clean air strategy, with air pollution as the top environmental risk to human health in the Britain.

With a reminder that electric vehicles are themselves not emissions-free, producing as they do the most damaging, particulate (PM2) pollution from brake- and tyre-wear and dust from roads, Sir Trevor should go further and intervene to abort the progress of this wretched lease.

It’s not only air quality being put at risk. More vehicle movements to and from the site, increase the road-danger risks, particularly to young children.

MEG HOWARTH
N7