Developers are planning to build scores of new tall buildings across London over the next few years in a remarkable skyscraper boom that shows no sign of slowing.
From the City to the suburbs, towers of at least 20 storeys — the industry definition of a tall building — are going up at a pace that has huge implications for the capital’s skyline for decades, if not centuries, to come.
The “race for space” in the sky is being driven by London’s chronic shortage of new housing, and modern, sustainable office space, as well as the high price of land and green belt planning restrictions.
But it has also alarmed some conservation and heritage groups and led to calls for Sadiq Khan to use his planning powers to do more to block schemes not of the highest quality.
Figures compiled for the Standard by data consultants Glenigan show that 230 high-rise projects of 20 storeys or more have been granted detailed consent since 2017 — including 76 in the past two years alone, at a rate of more than three a month.
Separate figures from New London Architecture reveal a similar picture, with the number of applications or consents for developments with at least one tall tower included in them growing from 31 in 2021 to 58 in 2022.
Activity has been intense in the City where the capital’s skyscraper craze began with the then record-breaking 183-metre NatWest tower — now known as Tower 42 — completed in 1980.
It is only the sixth tallest building in the Square Mile and stands to be eclipsed further as developments go up around it in the so-called “eastern cluster.”
There are 26 towers of 75 metres or more either under construction, with consent, or likely to be given the green light in the Square Mile.
Just this week developer Brookfield Properties said it was planning to build a 54-storey skyscraper at 99 Bishopsgate that will be the fifth tallest building in the Square Mile if it gets the go ahead.
The biggest concentration is in the eastern cluster where 11 skyscrapers are under way or have the green light, creating a Manhattan-style skyline in a once low-rise metropolis where St Paul’s Cathedral was the tallest building until 1963.
The 290-metre tower at One Undershaft, which will almost match the height of The Shard, is set to come before City planners later in the spring and is thought almost certain to get the go-ahead.
According to Gwyn Richards, planning and development director at the City Corporation: “It’s a hugely vigorous pipeline, probably close to the busiest we’ve ever been. The evidence increasingly suggests there is an under-supply of top grade A office space.”
Nevertheless, proposed schemes have caused outrage. One recent bitterly contested example was the 285-metre glass tower at 55 Bishopsgate, close to the Gherkin, which was approved last August by the Corporation despite objections from Historic England and St Paul’s that it could impinge on views of Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece. It will be the City’s third tallest tower.
There has also been an outcry over developer Landsec’s 24-storey £500 million office tower at 55 Old Broad Street, which was approved in November. But new towers are far from confined to the City.
Last August, US developer Hines submitted plans for three Foster + Partners-designed towers in Blackfriars Road of up to 200 metres that could create a new skyscraper cluster on the South Bank.
Henrietta Billings, director of heritage group Save, said London suffered from a “lack of oversight and planning at the more strategic level, not just looking at towers on their own merit in isolation, because they have such an enormous visual impact across London”.
The Mayor’s office said: “The Mayor believes that tall buildings when built in the right places have a role to play in London, given the scarcity of land.”
Reach for the sky...or rein in the carbuncles?
THE CASE FOR
Earle Arney, founder of London-based architects AFK:
Buildings that taper into the sky aren’t new. Throughout history, they have created a strong sense of identity. But London and other cities around the world are changing fast — and the days of single-use tall towers will be a thing of the past.
We should start to imagine tall buildings as “vertical villages” supporting a rich mix of uses. These villages need to be punctuated with “village commons” that provide spaces for interaction to promote well-being, as well as being centres of innovation and community.
To unlock their potential, we need to uproot the belief that all tall buildings have to be a single-use type. They are the key to making London more accessible and solving some environmental challenges.
By accommodating more people in cities, tall buildings help us protect the Green Belt — and are an incredible way of breathing new life into the city.
THE CASE AGAINST
Barbara Weiss, architect and co-founder of the Skyline campaign:
As far as London’s skyline goes, it is clear that the game is up, leaving our great and unique capital well and truly blighted.
Take a look at Nine Elms, Elephant and Castle, Lewisham, the Shell Centre, even the City littered with every shape or form of inappropriate tall building. Last year, Paris passed sensible legislation, limiting building heights in the historic centre to 37 metres.
It is difficult not to regret, by comparison, the opposite approach adopted by our Mayor.
But while there is no going back, a few rays of hope have come for the growing legions of skyscraper objectors, causing punishing delays and cancellations.
Time has come for all those who love London to take a hard look at what has been achieved in “disrupting” to such an extent the unique urban fabric that distinguishes London from any other city in the world.
