Controversial London Wall scheme gets green light but Gove presses pause

Michael Gove has cast doubt over the future of the City of London Corporation’s plans to demolish the closed Museum of London building and neighbouring office block Bastion House, London EC2. The corporation’s planning committee today signed off plans to build a 780,000 sq ft office scheme on the site, but the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities issued an Article 31 holding direction, preventing approval while he considers whether to call it in.  The scheme, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Sheppard Robson, proposes two new buildings on the site – the 17-storey New Bastion House and the 14-storey Rotunda Building – with a public plaza in between. The designs show gardens climbing up the façade of the buildings, which the architects said would create a green gateway at the threshold of the brutalist Barbican Estate. A smaller, third building of five storeys is also planned on the north-west corner of the site. The scheme had come up against a wide range of opposition, including from campaign group Barbican Quarter Action, which said the development would end up “severely compromising the Barbican’s distinctive igloo roofscape”. Green Party London Assembly member Zack Polanski claimed that tearing down the buildings and replacing them with the scheme would “release over 45,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere”. Local campaigners had lodged more than 800 objections to the City of London Corporation’s plans on environmental and heritage grounds before it went to committee this morning. Chair of the City of London Corporation’s planning and transport committee, Shravan Joshi, said: “Today’s resolution to grant permission for the London Wall West proposals brings us closer to our goal of meeting demand for 1.2m square metres (12.9m sq ft) of new office space by 2040, a figure backed by industry experts taking into account projected jobs growth and new working-from-home patterns. “The City of London is a global economic powerhouse and it is vital we continue to signal to investors that we are keeping it that way by delivering a centre of collaboration and innovation for the hundreds of thousands of people who work here.” Demolition of the site was expected to begin in 2028, with completion scheduled for late 2033. The Museum of London is set to move to Smithfield in 2026 when Smithfield Market is relocated to Barking and Dagenham.  More planning in the City of London >> Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro / Sheppard Robson