Already beset by corrupt players and match-fixing, could cricket be in for another buffeting? Surrey County Cricket Club is reported as asking its planning consultants Savills for advice on whether, as well as stopping play at The Kia Oval at Kennington, wind turbulence generated by massing skyscrapers at Vauxhall Cross could pose a greater health and safety risk to players and spectators than local planning officers may realise.

Cricket administrators already want to know if the Mayor, Boris Johnson, will press the Treasury not to sanction the building of the Northern Line Extension beneath The Oval.

On wind turbulence, the question is whether Lambeth planners adequately assess the risk of cumulative wind-tunnel effect inherent in concentrating so many skyscrapers at Vauxhall Cross/Nine Elms.

Developers and therefore their planning consultants are tempted to downplay the turbulence tall buildings can cause by concentrating upon the effects of an individual building, and then only on surrounding streets. Effects can be massaged by concentrating upon average wind speeds, calculations which conveniently overlook the occasional gusts which can do real damage at some distance from an individual building or, as at Vauxhall Cross, from a cluster of skyscrapers.

The risk is especially during storms, this at a time when weather is becoming increasingly extreme and unpredictable.

Confusion may be compounded by the fact that some cricket administrators appear to think because many proposed skyscrapers are in Wandsworth, and The Oval is in Lambeth, they are too far away to affect The Oval.

Yet although developers are clamouring to build a cluster of tall buildings at Vauxhall Cross in Lambeth, the Wandsworth border begins at Vauxhall Cross. So too do many of Wandsworth’s projected skyscrapers.

Questions about local-authority planners’ grasp of wind turbulence risk were raised at the recent AGM of The Friends of Vauxhall Park. Much nearer Vauxhall Cross than The Oval, this park has huge plane London Plane trees.

Meanwhile, back at The Oval, a correspondent, ‘BeeVee’ emailed The Vauxhall Society website:

One issue that nobody appears to be picking up on, is the potential of the downwind effects of the group of proposed tall buildings, to alter wind conditions at The Oval cricket ground, about 700 metres away from the nearest proposed tall building. It would be a disaster, were the conditions to become unplayable through gusting, swirling or any other changes in the downwind patterns of flow.

‘BeeVee’, added that he is attempting to verify the wind-speed figures presented as the basis of all planning-application wind assessments.

He went on: ‘I feel the highest wind speeds [given] do not reflect the real maximum speeds that may occur locally, especially during storms. If this is the case, then the derived conclusions for the local wind conditions are potentially incorrect and would be disastrous for all.’

Vauxhall’s skyscraper count (at the time of going to press, and minus The Octave Tower, Bondway, rejected at Public Inquiry):

www.vauxhallandkennington.org.uk/news.shtml

UK Wind Engineering Society: www.windengineering.org.uk

The Oval’s development plans: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oval