While Sophie Blain's support for the work we are doing at South Kensington is very welcome (Kensington & Chelsea News, October 9) she is wrong to claim that this is a project "distinct" from Exhibition Road. The two are inextricably linked.

Most people who visit the cultural institutions of Exhibition Road do so via South Kensington - and South Ken itself depends on that traffic for much of its trade. Indeed the futures of both are so clearly bound up together that logic requires a scheme that unifies them.

If we only went forward with South Kensington, as Sophie seems to suggest, it would be like building a magnificent new doorway while leaving the house itself unloved and uncared for, for decades to come. That is not what the institutions of South Kensington want. And, based on the feedback we have had, it is not what most local people want either.

On the question of "extravagance" there is no dispute that our plans for the area are ambitious. But this is arguably the capital's most significant cultural quarter and the London of 2012 must look and feel like a world class city. Of course, without a bit of ambition and dare I say, extravagance, Exhibition Road and its splendid institutes might never have existed in the first place.

Cllr Daniel Moylan Deputy leader and cabinet member for transportation Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea