Controversial proposals to redevelop Liverpool Street station have been approved by an overwhelming majority.
The City of London Corporation’s planning committee decided after a two-hour meeting on Tuesday afternoon to grant planning permission by 19 votes to three.
The £1.2 billion scheme, proposed by Network Rail and designed by Acme architects, involves erecting a vast tower block on top of part of the station.
It sparked a record number of almost 5,000 responses from the public, about three-quarters in opposition.
The application will now pass to London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan and is also likely to need the approval of Communities Secretary Steve Reed.
However the biggest challenge it may now face in becoming reality is over its finances, as the cost of construction is thought to exceed the likely income from the office block by about £200m.
The tower block will stand almost 97m tall and be designated as a “tall building”.
After the meeting, the Liverpool Street Station Campaign said it was "prepared for the long haul" and would continue to fight for a station that respected its heritage and was the best possible design for passengers.
Griff Rhys Jones, president of the Victorian Society and of the Liverpool Street Station Campaign, said: "This is sad day for the City of London.
"A disfiguring billion pound office block on top of a major heritage asset is not essential to the City's development plans, it is doubtful whether it will easily provide the profit to 'improve' the concourse, and can only realise a small amount of extra space for the passenger. Its focus is retail opportunities which the commuter doesn't need.
"The Corporation planning committee have bowed to developer ambitions, set a bad precedent for London and ignore the user."
SAVE Britain’s Heritage said: “What a missed opportunity to consider less disruptive and damaging approaches to funding the station upgrades that passengers deserve. We will be carefully examining the committee’s decision and will consider our next steps.”
During the meeting, William Upton KC, a member of the City’s planning committee, questioned the viability of the scheme, which he claimed was “under water by £200 million”.
Mr Upton said: “There are a lot of numbers that don’t seem to be before us. How can we not think you are going to come back with something else?”
He said he was “anxious” about what might happen to the Andaz hotel, which will be surrounded by the new office block, and added: “This is a really tricky scheme to justify. I think the level of harm is greater than officers are putting forward.”
But planning committee chairman Tom Sleigh said he was “firmly in favour of this excellent application”.
Mr Sleigh said about the current state of Liverpool Street: “It’s a dreadful station. It’s in a terrible state of disrepair.”
He condemned the “cut and paste” campaign of objectors, saying: “A lot of people seem to think the Victorian station is being demolished. It is not.”
The meeting heard from the applicants and a number of objectors prior to the committee making its decision.
John McAslan, who redesigned King’s Cross station and Penn station in New York, said the Network Rail scheme for Liverpool Street was “speculative” and “ruinous to both the station and the context”.
He said it would cause “irreversible harm to the listed part of the station” and a decade or more of disruption to commuters and businesses.
Sir Simon Jenkins, speaking on behalf of the Save Liverpool Street Station campaign, said it was “extraordinary” that the scheme under consideration would cost more than an alternative proposal from Mr McAslan.
“Everything about it looks odd,” he told the committee. “I beg you to defer it.”
Peter Norman, for the Andaz hotel, said Network Rail had “ignored” its neighbours. He questioned whether the benefits outweighed the harm.
Mr Norman said: “Is the pain worth the end result? It’s not. Network Rail’s application is critically flawed.”
But Ellie Burrows, managing director of Network Rail’s Eastern region, said the increase in passenger numbers at Liverpool Street presented a “significant challenge”.
Passenger numbers are expected to increase from 97 million “entries and exits” a year at present to 131 million by 2041, according to Network Rail projections.
Ms Burrows said: “The station simply wasn’t designed to be the busiest station [in the UK]. A single train delay can cause major congestion during rush hour.”
She said the proposed scheme was the only one that could be delivered without damaging the station’s Victorian train shed or requiring the station to be shut.
An estimated 200 members of the public attended the meeting, which was held in Guildhall.
Simon Burrows, a City of London member for Bishopsgate ward, said the station was “clearly not fit for purpose”.
Supporting the scheme, he said: “We can’t afford to kick the can down the road. Liverpool Street redevelopment is absolutely critical for City growth.”
Fellow ward member Ben Murphy said that the station was in a state of “managed decline”, with buckets collecting rainwater and broken escalators a familiar sight. He said there were “substantial benefits” with the scheme.
Concerns were raised that a number of responses in favour of the scheme had come from people who appeared to work for Acme or Network Rail.
City planning officials admitted they had not verified the backgrounds of any of the thousands of respondents.
The committee was shown illustrations indicating that, at some times, there was a “complete breakdown of pedestrian flow within the station”.
About three-quarters of nearly 5,000 submissions made by the public were opposed to the proposal.
Under the plans, the part of the station roof that was built in the 1990s would be demolished but new “cathedral-like” entrances - with large, vaulted brick archways – would be built.
There would be a publicly accessible roof garden – primarily at the weekend - on the “double storey” top floor of the glazed tower block, which would have 88,000 sq m of office space over 13 floors.
The roof garden would be closed to the public on Thursdays, with limited access Monday to Wednesday.
The committee was told there would be “significant upgrades” to transport infrastructure, including TfL services such as the London Overground.
There would be “transformation of a transport interchange”, including the “decluttering” of the concourse.
Network Rail told the committee there would be a 23 per cent increase in the most critical concourse space and of 73 per cent when all space in the station was counted.
