by Cllr Julian Fulbrook
Dozens of heavy trucks every day heading our way as a result of the latest demolition plans from Great Ormond Street Hospital.
No-one denies the fantastic medical work that doctors and nurses do at the hospital, particularly in cancer treatments for children.
But GOSH should not inflict five whole years of this convoy misery, swinging into Lamb’s Conduit Street, rumbling along Great Ormond Street, and then exiting down through Boswell Street! The noise and vibrations, dirt and dust, and polluting exhaust fumes will make life unbearable for local families in these narrow, residential streets.
Despite local protests for five years that there is an obvious alternative route from Guilford Street and inside the hospital down through Powis Place - the “archway plan” - GOSH have repeated their tired mantra that “There is No Alternative”. But there is! It simply needs an archway at the end of Powis Place within the hospital grounds.
And this was a hospital that in the 1980s moved its entire nineteenth century St Christopher’s Chapel, stained glass windows and murals, brass gates and all, to a new location when there was an earlier demolition scheme. Re-opened by the Princess of Wales in 1994 this chapel manoeuvring was a much admired engineering feat, a world-first move of such a huge structure. Click here for an article about the chapel's history and how it was moved to the new location.
By contrast a simple archway to let the lorries through is child’s play.
Join local councillors and many community representatives in protest at this cavalcade of GOSH trucks. Check for updates at https://www.holbornvoice.org.uk Send an email to the Camden case officer: patrick.marfleet@camden.gov.uk
To see the planning application and related documents on Camden's website click here
Or go to Camden's planning page and put 2022/2255/P into the Application Number line.
In particular, look at the “Deconstruction and Construction Management Plan” which demands the removal of all residents’ parking bays in Great Ormond Street and Boswell Street, the suspension of all single yellow line loading and unloading spaces, and the felling of trees.
You can send comments to Camden about the application here. Comments can be made until 15th June 2022.
The GOSH plan says “It is fundamentally important to build strong relationships with the local community.” Having unilaterally wound up the residents’ consultative committee, because GOSH did not like the insistence on the alternative “Archway on Powis Place” proposal, this impending environmental catastrophe does not look to be a neighbourhood friendly attitude!
No GOSH, No!