Campaigners have urged a town hall to throw out controversial plans to demolish “London’s first department store” and replace it with a £1 billion retail and housing development.
Proposals to “revive” the Whiteleys shopping centre in Bayswater have been met with opposition from locals concerned at the size and scale of the Foster and Partners-designed scheme.
The “iconic” five-storey building would be replaced by a new retail hub with 103 homes in two 10-storey blocks, a 30-room boutique hotel and a subterranean leisure complex including a cinema and bowling alley.
Although the Grade II-listed Edwardian facade and dome from the current mall will be retained, 65 per cent of the retail space would be lost.
Critics claim it will rob them of a vital community resource and “destroy” the local economy, while the twin towers would “dominate” the skyline and harm neighbouring homes’ privacy.
Residents of homes in Kensington Gardens Square, where a three bedroom flat can cost in excess of £2 million, claim those in the blocks will be able to see into their bathrooms.
Plans to dig a three-storey basement have also sparked fears of subsidence to neighbouring buildings, an increased flood risk and huge disruption during excavation.
Campaigners are unhappy at the lack of affordable housing on site and have called for foreign investors to be blocked by the council from purchasing flats to stop the area becoming “a ghost town”.
Around 100 people staged a protest last week outside the shopping centre ahead of a decision by Westminster council today on whether to approve the plans.
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Estelle Monod, co-founder of the Get Whiteleys Right campaign, said: “If the council pass these plans we would consider legal action.
These luxury towers will plunge us into pitch darkness and people will be able to see directly into our bathrooms and bedrooms. The towers are huge and must be reduced in size. The developers have to go back to the drawing board.”
Critics of the scheme have included the Victorian Society, Twentieth Century Society, Ancient Monuments Society and Save Britain’s Heritage.
In the planning application, architects Foster and Partners say: “The regeneration of Whiteleys represents a truly unique and privileged opportunity to transform an entire neighbourhood in the heart of London.
“The bland, introverted and dying mall will be utterly transformed to turn and embrace the street allowing the new shops, cafés and restaurants to spill out and create a new animated and distinctive streetscape.”
The owners of Whiteleys, property investment fund Meyer Bergman, hope the plan will rejuvenate what was once one of the three great pioneering “palaces of retail” in central London, alongside Harrods and Selfridges.
However, it has been squeezed in recent years by competition from Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush and Oxford Street. Last year only about 25 per cent was occupied on fully commercial terms.
Westminster planning officers have recommended the plans are approved when they are considered by its planning committee.
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