You won’t find this image on Ocado’s expansion plans website now – they’ve mysteriously taken it down.

But this screen grab from last month clearly shows that the Tufnell Park site is mainly for Ocado’s new 1-hour Zoom service.

Ocado’s first Zoom site is in Acton. This Essential Retail article from February states the Acton site is delivering more than 3,000 orders per week. It’ll likely be more than that now.

Another Essential Retail article from November last year lifts the lid on how these orders are delivered – not by Ocado vans – but by cars and motorbikes.

Zoom would increase the intensity of activity at the site to another level. It would mean motorbikes and cars buzzing in and out of the site all day long just metres from the playground and classrooms and nearby homes.

In the article Ocado’s head of Zoom George Dean boasts

“Potentially we can open up these Zoom sites in really tight urban locations”

In this Grocer article from July this year, Ocado CEO Tim Steiner stated that:

“There’s clearly demand for a dozen or two dozen Zooms just in London alone.”

And:

“The company’s property teams are currently seeking further potential Zoom locations.”

Ocado’s Zoom sites are completely unsuitable for ‘tight urban locations’. Zoom makes what would have been a nightmare for the children even worse. HGVs coming down to restock the warehouse through the night, 100 Ocado vans coming in and out twice a day, Zoom motorbikes and cars buzzing in and out all day long. It combines to make for an incredible intensity of traffic at the site and surrounding roads.

Children need peace and safety to learn and grow, not hundreds of vans and motorbikes next to their classrooms and playground for years on end.

Given Ocado’s growth ambitions, what happens in this campaign to stop Ocado opening up a dangerous and damaging depot next to a primary school has implications far beyond Tufnell Park.