Stanhope and Mitsubishi’s Victoria Street project approved
Stanhope and Mitsubishi Estates London’s plans for the redevelopment of an office building in Westminster have been approved.
The former home of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 1 Victoria Street, SW1, will be redeveloped into a 10-storey building with almost 640,000 sq ft of office space.
The scheme will also provide space for retail, restaurants, leisure and medical offerings, as well as new public realm space, including a pocket park.
Stanhope and Mitsubishi Estates London’s plans for the redevelopment of an office building in Westminster have been approved.
The former home of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 1 Victoria Street, SW1, will be redeveloped into a 10-storey building with almost 640,000 sq ft of office space.
The scheme will also provide space for retail, restaurants, leisure and medical offerings, as well as new public realm space, including a pocket park.
Approval did not, however, come without opposition. Two out of the six members of Westminster City Council’s planning committee voted to refuse the application.
Chair Ruth Bush said it was her “considered opinion” that the application should be refused on design grounds.
Bush said the development’s location in a World Heritage area made design grounds even more important to ensure sensitivity to local architecture.
Considering this, she said that the proposed designs “had been done without the necessary imagination and respect or understanding”.
Rachael Robathan similarly voted to refuse due to the “overbearing” nature of the designs.
Others, however, commended the plans, with Jim Glen describing the proposals as a “huge improvement” on a “particularly unlovely stretch of Victoria Street”.
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Image © Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
