The current mayor’s planning applications from London City Airport in Custom House and MSG Sphere in Stratford have both triggered vociferous campaigns.

In both cases residents in the surrounding communities are expressing concerns about the deterioration in their quality of life and the environment if the planned developments go ahead, while the applicants are justifying the development due to the resultant new employment opportunities and new opportunities for local small and large businesses that will result from each development.

While regeneration is needed, welcome and vital to ensure the long-term future sustainability of our area of East London, the current applications raise the question of when does regeneration become over regeneration and adversely effects the quality of life of the people that it should be bringing new opportunities and an improved quality of life to.

In an ideal world residents' needs and developers' requirements would dovetail together but in the real world this is clearly not always the case.

In such circumstances it is crucial that all arguments for and against are firstly considered equally but surely when the residents concerns are justified and not just a case of not in my backyard and the developers plans are justified too the decision surely must favour the residents who live in the immediate area 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For them there is no respite or escape.