The former fire station, now a luxury venue

• I AM one of the residents living opposite the Chiltern Firehouse hotel and would like to make some comments, following your article, about the proposal to put chairs and tables outside their restaurant, (Top hotel’s ‘café-chic’ bid comes under fire, February 21).

First of all, to compare Chiltern Street to a Paris boulevard is risible. The space between the hotel and the flats facing it is less than two-thirds of any of the surrounding streets.

We can hear ordinary conversations in the street clearly and we are already plagued by noise coming from the current outside restaurant in the courtyard.

I would also like to add that the hotel owns the pub next door to it and has already got a licence to put tables and chairs there.

Approval of this application would increase the blight we suffer already from the hotel’s nightclub and shatter the “quiet enjoyment” of our homes – already under severe threat.

GLORIA MAY
Chiltern Street, W1