The Chronicle's ADAM COURTNEY quizzed King Street Developments after last night's meeting of the Save Our Skyline protest group.

These are the answers he received to his emailed questions.

ADAM COURTNEY: Does KSD honestly believe the scheme will be of aesthetic benefit to the area?

KING STREET DEVELOPMENTS SPOKESMAN: Yes, of course: removing the ugly Town Hall extension, which has tarnished the Town Hall for decades, and replacing it with a new public square will create a focal point and a new public space at this end of King Street to be enjoyed by all.

The scheme has been designed by one of the country’s leading and award winning architects, Sheppard Robson, in a way that will allow the new buildings and walkway to complement the existing environment and listed buildings.

AC: Is there any scope to reduce the height of the buildings?

KSD: The scheme is appropriate for the town centre location, and also necessary to pay for all the public benefits including the civic offices and new square. If the scheme is reduced it will not be financially viable.

AC: Why has the height changed so often?

KSD: The height of the KSD scheme has changed once; the scheme that we submitted for planning is higher than the original bid scheme by two stories on the taller buildings.

AC: Are you misleading people with your images of the scheme?

KSD: No, the images we’re using are completely accurate. They will quite rightly be scrutinised as part of the planning process, but we are totally confident that they accurately represent the scheme as they have been independently verified by a recognised townscape assessor. We have offered SOS use of our images, but they have declined this offer in favour of continuing to use their images, which we believe are inaccurate and misleading to the general public.

AC: Why are the council and KSD rushing this through planning?

KSD: Now we’ve submitted the application to the council, it will be up to the planning department to decide when to report it to the council’s planning committee for a decision. The government target for making a decision on major applications like this is 13 weeks and we don’t anticipate beating this.

AC: Why is there a 120-space car park for the 'community' supermarket?

KSD: The supermarket is just a little bigger than the Sainsbury’s in Kings Mall, and will mainly be used for ‘basket’ shopping. Despite being located in a town centre location it is inevitable that some people will want to use their cars to stock up with groceries, and therefore a modest car park has been proposed.

AC: Why didn’t you use the Nielsen Index in the report on the cinema?

KSD: We used Dodona who are recognised experts in their field, with customers in over 50 countries across the world, and we have no reason to doubt their findings.

AC: Were you surprised by the strength of feeling at the meeting last night?

KSD: As with any regeneration project, people inevitably have strong views, but we were encouraged by the fact that there were significantly fewer people at the meeting last night than the one in October, now that the planning application has been submitted and everyone can see exactly what’s being proposed.