A sycamore in Museum Street

• MUCH is being made by Simten developers about the huge public realm improvements that will result from the building of a massive tower on the site of One Museum Street.

While it is hard to imagine what mitigating environmental benefits could possibly be had from the dominating and overshadowing effect of such a huge monster on our doorstep, we now learn that – even before works can commence at ground level – 10 trees will need to be felled.

This wanton ecological vandalism will be “easily” explained away by the fact that the trees will be replaced.

The fact that a number of these trees are well established, some over 50 years old, and with larger canopies, means that they are already contributing to a more sustainable environment.

They also pleasantly soften the urban streetscape and help to provide a calming presence in such a traffic-dense and frenetic part of central London.

But, as with everything about this dreadful development, the only thing that the developers and senior Camden planners can think of, is to pull everything down and start again.

The absurdity is taken to an extreme in that two hornbeams will be felled despite having been planted only two years ago by Camden.

Yet the self-same planners and politicians continue to tell us all about how seriously Camden is taking the climate emergency.

Claiming that such action is totally consistent with strong biodiversity and protective planning polices towards the natural environment, reminds one of the saying by an American major, who, justifying the annihilation of Bến Tre in Vietnam claimed, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

Next month the developers will be taking councillors on a tour of their planned development area. This will coincide with the time of year when each species of tree puts on a marvellous display of varied colours, brightening up the shorter daylight hours.

Just, maybe, when looking at the line of sound sycamore trees in Museum Street with a very pleasant maple specimen on the corner of West Central Street and a substantial London plane in High Holborn, some councillors might start to think that the idea of knocking everything down, including trees to “facilitate” (more planners’ jargon) to build a hugely damaging tower block and housing that fails to comply with a host of planning policies on amenities, is not such an enlightened idea after all.

NOEL GORDON, WC1