Agenda item

Report of the Chief Planning Officer and Development Director.

The Committee considered a report of the Interim Chief Planning Officer and Development Director in respect of 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJ - Part refurbishment and part demolition, excavation and redevelopment involving the erection of an additional four storeys to provide a ground plus 13 storey building with publicly accessible route through the site, incorporating gym and swimming pool (Use Class D2) at basement levels, gym and flexible floor area uses (Use Classes A1-A5, B1, D2) at basement level, retail (A1-A5) at ground floor level with access to offices and rooftop restaurant and public viewing gallery, office accommodation (Use Class B1a) from levels 1-13, roof top restaurant (Use Class A3) and publicly and privately accessible roof terraces, landscaping and other associated works.

Officers presented the scheme highlighting that it supports the circular economy as it part adaptation and part new build, retaining the super structure and floor plates in so far as possible, reusing materials and working with existing foundations. This would all be secured by conditions. The scheme would be reimagining an existing, dated building, turning it into an animated, outward facing development in a pivotal location, maximising the opportunities of the gateway to the Culture Mile and the north/south route from the Tate Modern.

With regard to plans to the existing and proposed plans for ground floor level, in the north-east and southern elements, the curved corners were retained as part of the existing buildings that is adapted. In the south-west corner, the staggered footprint of the newly proposed intervention was visible. The vehicle loading area which currently existed on Angel Street was to be reused and there was also a cycle entrance on the Angel Street elevation. Three atria defined the entrances on the south, east and west and an important new public route from Saint Martins-Le-Grand to King Edward Street would also be established. Members were presented with some flexible floor layouts for approval to respond to market conditions, with retail offerings which would wrap around the south, east and west and plans showing how the development could be more robust by dividing into smaller retail units which would also include a north-south public route if it was felt that sub-division would respond better to market demands. The public routes would be open from 6am – midnight every day and would be covered by Section 106. At the southern end of the plans was dedicated public access to the public roof terrace.  

Escalators would take visitors up to the first floor with office space intended from 1^st-12^th floor. Cycling storage and a gym would be situated at the lower ground floor.

Basement level plans were fully compliant with the London Plan in terms of secure cycle parking storage and showers.

Proposed first floor plans showed that escalators would take visitors up via escalators, through as secure entrance to the office lobby, then into lifts that would take office workers up to all other levels. Office space would look down on to the retail area at ground floor as well as the public through route and the Grade I listed Greyfriars church.

Floorplans for other levels showed that the retained/adapted envelope of the existing building would be consistently visible as would the stepping back of the south-west corner where there would be multiple roof terraces with greening. Visitors to the dedicated public access roof terrace would exit lifts at 12^th floor level and would then follow a staircase upwards to access the roof terrace area. The public roof terrace would be 568 square meters and could accommodate 120 users. There would also be a meadow to the right of this which is the largest outdoor space at roof level. This would not be accessible but would be very visually attractive. Roof level would also include a restaurant and office terrace area. The roof terrace would mirror the 50 Fenchurch Street model within Section 106 as set out within paragraph 18 of the report and would be open from 10am -7pm or nautical dusk. A management plan would be established for the public roof terrace and the restaurant terrace area within Section 106.

With regard to the public realm and trees, Members were shown images of the trees to be removed and replaced at ground floor level – three of these were on the west side of the site, on private land. They were plain, category A trees which had been underperforming in this location and had not reached their full maturity. There were also four trees on the Angel Street elevation at ground floor level which were underperforming Beech trees and would also be removed and replaced. There were four existing trees on the south-west corner of the site that would be retained and supplemented by the planting of 19 new trees. This would result in a total of 30 trees around the site on a mixture of private and highways space as detailed at paragraph 4 of the report, turning what was currently a quite hostile island site into a much greener area particularly when coupled with additional planting as part of public realm around the south western corner.

Members were shown elevations to provide a sense of the massing increase on site. The west elevation, on the left-hand side, showed the retained architecture and extended architecture which had a much more vertical feel. The right-hand side depicted a more dynamic series of tiered volumes. The most pronounced increase in massing and height was primarily to the north part of the site towards the Angel Street elevation. The east elevation showed a stepping down in massing from the north down towards Newgate Street. The south elevation facing Newgate Street also showed the fusion between the new architecture and the adapted/retained building. The Committee were also shown sections of the building – the east/west section which showed a 2-3 storey increase in some parts of the building. There would also be a curated art wall in this location. The north/south route was also shown. It was noted that there was no impact on St Paul’s depths in this particular view. 

With regard to St Paul’s heights, Members were shown a 3D visual of the western elevation of the site facing Greyfriars church and where the existing building broke through the St Paul’s Heights policy area. It was highlighted that, whilst there would still be some exceedance in this area, this development would actually reduce this. Some areas of existing exceedances in the St Paul’s heights policy area would be entirely removed, opening up a new vista of St Paul’s and its dome. In relation to other views, Officers highlighted that the existing building was within the existing area/viewing threshold for Alexandra Palace. The proposed building would also therefore break through the threshold in terms of a quantative assessment. In terms of the qualitative assessment, the proposed building would come slightly closer in closure to St Paul’s but, when looking at the context of other emerging developments such as the Aylesbury Estate buildings, the harm caused would be negligible in the view of Officers with the appreciation of St Paul’s retained. The view from Blackfriars Bridge was not an LVMF view and, at present, to the north west tower, one could see Bastion House which sat quite low and in proximity to the north west towers of St Pauls. In the proposed view, the development would sit in front of Bastion House but not in front of St Pauls creating a very slight change of setting with a negligible impact. There would also be a slight impact on the view from Southwark Bridge which is an LVMF view. At present, the tower of St Augustine church near St Paul’s was visible, in the proposed view there would be some massing appearing in the background behind this. St Paul’s Cathedral would, however, remain appreciated and very distinctive in this view, with Officers therefore concluding that there would be no demonstrable harm caused. Officers went on to report that the view from Millennium Bridge was another important view, where the proposed view depicted some massing including the ballustrades for the roof terraces, below the silhouette of St Paul’s.

Proposed views from King Edwards Street depicted the larger glazed features of the new development and new geometric bays introduced to complement the curved architecture of the building. The greening of the elevations were also clearly appreciable in this view.

Officers depicted a number of other existing and proposed views of the new development including from Cheapside, Newgate Street, Greyfriars churchyard, Gresham Street and Saint Martins-le-Grand and finally the Golden Gallery.

Officers concluded by stating that the benefits of this application were multiple – it embraces the circular economy through a creative adaptation, was targeting an outstanding BREEAM rating and exceeding the urban greening factor. A free public roof terrace would be introduced, providing a cultural dimension which would be supported further by the installation of a new digital art wall in the public route. The public route itself was another benefit of the scheme. The development would also bring economic benefits in terms of the active retail offerings which would complement and support the Cheapside retail offerings. The development would offer increased office space and the architectural changes would result in a much more aesthetically pleasing design in this important part of the City. Finally, Section 278 works would support some hugely beneficial pedestrian enhancements around the site. The scheme would therefore bring social, environmental, economic, architectural and cultural benefits and was recommended to Members for approval today.

The Chair thanked Officers for their presentation and, in the absence of any registered objectors, invited his fellow Ward Member Tijs Broeke, speaking in favour of the development, to address the Committee.

Mr Broeke, Common Councillor for the Ward of Cheap began by stating that he had been impressed by how the team had worked alongside local stakeholders to develop and evolve the scheme. In particular, he felt that the links to Culture Mile, the improved connections through creating a new public route and the creation of a free public roof terrace would all constitute a significant improvement to the current site and surrounding area. He clarified that there were four main reasons why he was speaking in support of the transformation plans – firstly, the transformation approach is reducing the environmental impact associated with a full demolition or rebuild scheme whilst also introducing sustainability improvements to the existing building. The design also enhanced the public realm and was much more attractive for the local area and created new, modern office space. At the same time, the transformation would create a new retail experience on the ground floor connecting the site to One New Change and Cheapside through a new public route and, importantly, linking it as a gateway to the Culture Mile. Most of all, the transformation of 81 Newgate Street would allow City workers, residents and visitors to see London from a new perspective. The transformed building would create additional space for retail, culture and leisure, including the new roof terrace with spectacular views of St Pauls.

The Chair thanked Mr Broeke for his contributions and opened the debate on the application.

A Member questioned the accessibility at ground floor levels, stating that it looked from the plans as though the main entrance and retail units were all accessible by stairs from street level. In general, she stated that she applauded the fact that this was a refurbishment and not a wholesale demolition scheme and that the stone façade was to be reused – as such she intended to support the application and its improvements to public realm with additional planting a– however, she added that she did find the gratuitous use of greening disappointing which was possibly not appropriate in the City and this location. She went on to comment that a lot of planting on buildings to date had mutated from biodiversity to survival of the fittest and she hoped that, in the execution of this scheme, the planting was well considered and constrained. With regard to access, Officers confirmed that the east/west route would be ramped at grade through the building and that there were entrances to retail units via this route. Because this was a circular economy scheme, the economy would have to work with the existing building levels which made it difficult and, at present, there was a difference on the east, west and south elevations where the pavement levels were higher than the interior spaces. Where there were entrances on those elevations, there were steps into retail space and lifts were also situated at each of these locations. The Member questioned whether this was legal. Officers reported that there was a condition imposed that the whole development needed to provide level access to all parts and confirmed that it was fully accessible but would rely on the use of lifts in certain locations, it did therefore comply with all legal requirements in terms of accessibility. With regard to greening, Members were informed that there were conditions around the maintenance of this in perpetuity.

Another Member stated that the City Corporation had, in the past, seriously considered eliminating the gyratory and bringing Angel Street back into better use. He questioned whether this scheme would preclude this. Officers reported that this scheme had been very much designed as flexible and able to link into an enhancement to St Pauls Gyratory should this come to fruition in the future. This was set out in paragraph 19 and would be fed into Section 278.

The Committee then proceeded to vote on the recommendations before them. The vote was conducted by rollcall led by the Town Clerk with those Members present and eligible to vote asked to also confirm that they had been present for and able to hear the entirety of this item.

Votes were cast as follows: IN FAVOUR – 23 votes

                                                 OPPOSED – 0 votes

 There were no abstentions.

RESOLVED  - That Planning permission be granted for the above proposal in accordance with the details set out in the attached schedule and subject to:

a)         Planning obligations and other agreements being entered into under Section

106 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 and Section 278 of the Highways Act 1980 in respect of those matters set out in the report; the decision notice not to be issued until the Section 106 obligations have been executed.

b)         Officers be instructed to negotiate and execute obligations in respect of those matters set out in 'Planning Obligations' under Section 106 and any necessary agreements under Section 278 of the Highways Act 1980.