RESIDENTS are gearing up for a last-ditch attempt to stop a three-storey operations centre being built on a car park.

The Certificate of Lawfulness needed for the London Transport Operations Centre in Parsonage Road was granted by Three Rivers District Council on August 9 this year.

But residents of Parsonage Road, Swann Close and Langdale Lodge said this week that they are about to face two years of "bedlam" when the development is built, and have vowed to fight the plans to the end.

Patrick Taylor, spokesman for the group of residents, said: "London Transport and Three Rivers District Council are riding roughshod over us, hiding behind the letter of the law.

"It may well be that an obscure sub section, of the Town and Country Planning Act, says, that it not a change of use to replace a little used car park with a building, three storeys high, used potentially noisily, 24 hours a day, but, the fact is that this is nonsense.

"When an egg becomes a chicken is it still an egg?

"When the corner shop is demolished, and in its place a supermarket is built, is it still a corner shop?

"The comparisons are numerous, the answer the same a resounding no.

"We are being expected to accept, meekly, this affront to our intelligence and invasion into our lives."

Mr Taylor and fellow residents have printed a leaflet to inform everyone affected about the plans, and have also started a petition against the building of the centre, which is due to start in November.

Among the objections to the development are that it would be in visual contrast to local period buildings and that because it would be used 24 hours a day it would cause disruption to local residents.

Because London Underground owns the car park on the site, the Operations Centre did not require planning permission as it, like other organisations such as British Waterways, has certain rights under permitted development.

Therefore the company applied for a Certificate of Lawfulness in June, which it required in order to proceed with the new building.

The certificate was granted by Three Rivers District Council on August 9, 2005.

London Underground wrote to residents in June when it submitted its application for the certificate, to make them aware of the plans.