Chelsea residents are locked in a battle with Whole Foods, claiming its ‘constant’ army of delivery trucks has turned their quiet street into an ‘industrial estate’.
Since a new flagship store opened on the King’s Road in March last year, they have awoken almost every morning to an ‘unbearable’ din of alarms and rumbling engines, and HGVs bringing the narrow lanes to a standstill.
Locals have been left unable to use their balconies, forced to buy double glazing windows, and struggling to get their children to school through snarled traffic.
Others said they have feared for their safety as they watched lorries demolish walls, disfigure trees and crack pavements.
After a more than a year of complaints, the council agreed that the high-end supermarket has been breaching the conditions of its planning permission, and has threatened the business with a hefty fine on every vehicle that breaks the rules.
Alix Kime, who lives in a flat directly over the delivery path, told the Daily Mail: ‘I feel like we’ve all been taken for fools. This isn’t what we were told to expect. Since Whole Foods opened, it’s like I’m living on an industrial estate.’
When permission was granted in 2021 for the new flagship branch, conditions were set to minimise disruption to the residents of Elystan Place – the sleepy road at the back of the shop, where the delivery ramp is to be found.
Deliveries were supposed to be staggered, estimated at two or three a day, and the vehicles were supposed to reverse down the ramp to offload goods before continuing along the one-way system.
A lorry attempting to reverse down the ramp on Elystan Place, while traffic backs up
Multiple HGVs squeeze down the narrow lane each day and struggle to manoeuvre into the loading area
The deliveries are for the Whole Foods Market branch on the King’s Road in Chelsea, which opened in March last year
But in reality, residents have been contending with around 30 deliveries every day, and frequently face several large trucks queueing up at once.
The delivery drivers are ‘stressed, sweating and swearing’ as they attempt to manoeuvre backwards down the ramp – an almost impossible task with the 10m HGVs – and have told residents it is their most hated delivery.
Those unfamiliar with the route often give up altogether, deciding instead to trundle the pallets from their position in the road, which produces a surprisingly thunderous racket, and is a breach of conditions.
Ms Kime lives in Thackeray court, where the lorries lumber within inches of her flat, and has been in frequent contact with the council over the problems.
She said: ‘I used to like to sit outside on my balcony and have a cup of tea, but there’s no way I could do that now.
‘The noise used to start at 6am, which was horrendous. Then their big idea was to start deliveries at 8am instead.
‘But now you get long lines of them queueing up from before eight waiting to make their deliveries – and it’s still early for so much noise.
‘It’s really bad. The alarms go off whenever the trucks reverse, and they leave their engines idling for 25 minutes sometimes because they have refrigerated containers.’
An embattled sign outside bears the scars of repeated encounters with HGVs, and the pavement has been patched over after being chewed up by enormous tyres.
A resident of the adjacent block, Ranelagh House, said: ‘I always say it’s like downtown Baghdad. It’s very dangerous.
This is the ramp down which delivery vehicles must reverse to unload their goods
A lorry attempting to reverse all the way down Elystan Place, as cars wait to be able to pass
Paving slabs have cracked and crumbled where they go under the lorries’ wheels
Four bins used by Whole Foods have been moved up against Thackeray House
‘I keep stressing to them that someone is going to get hurt or worse, because the lorries are just too big to reverse into our drives.’
He added: ‘They once did four-and-a-half thousands pounds’ worth of damage when they knocked our wall down. We just bill them straight away.’
A homeowner on the street said they often open their curtains to find the road looking ‘like an airport’ with the number of large vehicles lined up.
They said: ‘They have knocked branches off the trees and then just left them by the bins.
‘It’s all so hypocritical, because you have influencers swanning around Whole Foods, thinking they are buying organic produce.
‘But in reality, just one road back, they are knocking bits off branches, and not caring about the families with children who live here.’
Others claimed that some of the problems have arisen from the fact that Whole Foods has many different suppliers, unlike most supermarkets where it is centralised, meaning vehicles arrive holding well below their capacity.
Kensington and Chelsea Council issued a breach of condition notice to the Whole Foods branch last month, on April 20.
It identified three specific breaches, namely multiple delivery turning up at once and blocking the road, vehicles failing to reverse down the into the service yard to complete their transfers, and drivers wheeling pallets to the shop from the middle pf the street.
If the shop fails to comply by May 18, it has been warned it faces fines of up to £2,500 for every delivery that breaks the rules, as well as prosecution.
Residents report that the council has suggested relocating several paid-for car parking spaces that currently restrict the turning space for vehicles – but this has proven unpopular among their owners.
One told us: ‘We pay for this space, we pay for the convenience of it being outside our house. It wouldn’t be fair for them to move it on the account of Whole Foods after that was not one of the conditions when permission was granted.’
A Kensington and Chelsea Council spokesperson told the Mail: ‘We understand residents’ concerns about the impact of deliveries on nearby homes.
‘Following complaints, we investigated and found that deliveries were not being carried out as agreed. The operator has been formally asked to follow the original delivery arrangements.
‘We will continue to monitor the situation and take any further action necessary to ensure deliveries are safe and do not adversely affect local residents.’
Nathan Cimbala, a spokesperson for Whole Foods, said: ‘Whole Foods Market is working closely with the local planning authority to ensure we are in compliance and address any community concerns.’
