HIGH Court judges will consider blocking a controversial development that campaigners say will wreck the historic feel of Covent Garden and should never have been passed due to stringent rules over carbon emissions.

Developers Simten won permission to knock down Selkirk House in New Oxford Street, a 15-storey block built in the 1960s for the Trust House Forte hotel group.

Now the High Court has given permission for architect and founding member of the Covent Garden Neighbourhood Association Jim Monahan to present the opposing case to judges.

The GLA and Whitehall have refused to call in the project – meaning the judicial review on September 10 is the last resort.

Mr Monahan told Extra: “The planning department needs to be reminded they should be independent professionals not lackeys to private developers and agents to the whims of leading Labour councillors. A successful Judicial Review will oblige politicians and their planning officers to think again.”

He said that the historic area deserves better, adding: “Covent Garden and Bloomsbury are too precious to be sacrificed to ugly greed.

“The idea that a lumpen, speculative tower block of such crudity can be dumped onto two of London’s most important conservation areas, damaging unique views of the highest graded protected buildings like the British Museum and Bedford Square, is so outrageous that every possible means must be used to stop such vandalism.

“I would not be able to live with myself if I did not try every means available to disrupt this wanton and crude vandalism.”

He added that the squares and streets had survived for decades due to careful management.

He said: “The Blitz did not destroy Bloomsbury and Covent Garden, but ignorance, greed – Camden’s planning department – and speculative tower blocks will.”

The campaign argument against the Selkirk House development says it would wreck unique views and damage 30 listed buildings.

He said: “Bloomsbury and Covent Garden are unique areas of Central London. If they can not be protected, there is little hope that the plague of tower blocks that have so crudely damaged London’s skyline in the east and along the Thames will not now march through the whole of the West End and wreck every conservation area.”

The 74-metre tower includes offices and 44 new homes.

Permission was granted in November in the face of scores of objections from civic groups and Historic England, the Georgian Group, Save Britain’s Heritage and the London School of Economics.

Objections included its height and the carbon cost of demolition.

Owners Simten said the project would create a future proofed office building that would negate the carbon impact by being suitable for office use and without any need for extra conversions.

They said the current block had ceiling heights that made it hard to rent out and the block was not up to the modern demands of big businesses who would take floor space.

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We will be robustly defending our decision to grant planning permission which we consider to be sound. Due to the impending proceedings, we are unable to comment further.”