Griff Rhys Jones joins campaign against tower block demolition

Griff Rhys Jones, left, with members of the Save Museum Street campaign group outside under-threat Selkirk House in Bloomsbury

A DEMOLITION project to flatten a 1960s tower block in Bloomsbury should be a test case as to whether councils are applying their own net-zero policies, campaigners said this week.

Broadcaster and comedian Griff Rhys Jones was speaking on Monday at an emergency meeting organised by campaign group Save Museum Street, as they continue efforts to convince the developers Simten not to knock down Selkirk House on New Oxford Street and replace it with a large tower. He said: “They must listen.”

The star of shows including 1980s comedy sketch series Alas Smith and Jones is president of the Victorian Society and said the company should scrap a business model which moves office tenants from old blocks to new, creating an unsustainable cycle of demolition and rebuild.

Objectors added that the plan is environmentally unacceptable and would emit more carbon than one million trees could soak up over a decade, blot out views and loom over historically important streets and listed buildings protected by conservation area rules. Instead, they say, all the work is unnecessary as Selkirk House could be retrofitted.

If the plan goes ahead, they say it will hit the council’s aim to be net- zero by 2030.

Save Museum Street has gone further by commissioning architects to draw up alternative plans.

At the unveiling at St George’s Church, Bloomsbury, Mr Rhys Jones and colleagues revealed suggestions including a rooftop public park, garages converted into theatre and film studios, and a visitor attraction. Royal Mail’s underground train which runs from Paddington to Mount Pleasant already snakes beneath the building. The designs show how a mini-station for visitors could be included.

Tweaks to the scheme, some forced by the listing of a handful of buildings under threat, have not addressed objections and a new application means previous views lodged no longer count.

Mr Rhys Jones said: “The changes made are so small. It shows us the problems with planning in the UK. Camden must listen – they are the first stop for this, not a national inquiry, not Michael Gove, but Camden. They must listen to the green argument about the embedded carbon.

Alternative plans for the building have been put forward by the Save Museum Street group

“The idea that the centre of London needs a further 24,000 square metres of office space made available is a myth, as is the myth that this development creates jobs. It may create jobs in the building trade, but that is temporary. What it really means is these offices are presented to the commercial world and they say, let’s move here. They then vacate other offices, which then in turn become development schemes. They say ‘the only way we can make it popular is to knock it down and build it bigger’. This creates a major green issue.

“Bloomsbury is a mixed area, it is not a rich man’s ghetto. There are expensive houses but they are alongside Peabody homes and council housing. That provides us with a vision for the future, a place where we live and work together in one area.”

Mr Rhys Jones, who lives nearby, cited how many towns and cities in the United Kingdom had become “doughnut-shaped”, with the centres offering no living spaces and being dead at night.

He said the West End had not yet become that, but a scheme of this type added to the trend.

He said: “People want to live in city centres. We need to create environments that are capable of being lived in, not vacant commercial areas where humans are not welcome after working hours.”

Architect Simon Sturgis, who has studied the plans, said if Camden passed the project, they could kiss goodbye to their policy to reach net-zero in six years’ time. He said: “If they are serious about reaching that target, why are they considering this scheme?

“This is a particularly bad example. The aims must be to retain existing resources and make them work better. You could say aesthetically Selkirk House is not a thing of great beauty; but it could be imp-roved.”

Calling the project, due to be considered by a planning committee in the autumn, “preposterous and appalling”, architect Jim Monahan said other options include reducing the height of the current tower by three metres by removing cladding that reaches above the roof line, offering more housing, and getting the building back into use quickly.

He said: “The principle is to show there are other ways to approach the site. The idea is to reduce the height and make a public roof garden with fabulous views. It would bring people in and be an economic generator for the area The next two floors would be for housing, again, boasting grandstand views over London. It could be an attractive and culturally rich scheme. The current proposals of shops, offices and cafés is, in comparison, as dull as dishwater.”

Selkirk House has most recently been used as a Travelodge hotel but is currently empty.

A spokesman for Simten said: “Our proposals represent a thoughtful, considered and balanced app-roach to bringing this long vacant site back into active and sustainable use.

“The proposals have been developed over four years and will deliver a significant uplift to provide new, high-quality, healthy workspace for around 1,700 people, alongside homes, shops, cafés and restaurants. The application retains the basement, and the new buildings are designed to meet high environmental standards.”

They had looked at a retrofit option and believed it would bring “substantial structural, safety, and design, challenges” that would be carbon-intensive and create a building lacking quality and longevity.