Controversial plans for a major redevelopment of Liverpool Street station have opened for public consultation.
New entrance from Liverpool Street (c) Sellar / Herzog & de Meuron
The £1.5 billion plans, put forward by Sellar, the developer of the Shard and the Paddington Cube, would see a large hotel and office block built above the station, while the historic hotel would have the ground floor opened up to create a new entrance into the station.
Inside the station, the current open concourse would have a new floor inserted to create more floor space, while the 1980s roof would be replaced to support the new oversite development.
Although passenger numbers are still sharply down on pre-pandemic numbers, the developers say that the station still struggles at times with overcrowding.
They say that their plans would double the floor space inside the station, and with a twin floor, there will be 10 escalators, up from the 4 at the moment, and 6 additional lifts. The number of ticket barriers would increase by 40%, which would help reduce overcrowding at the gateline. They also say that the station would be step-free throughout, including adding step-free access to the London Underground.
To deliver that though, they want to demolish nearly half of the 1980s station and the replica Victorian effect building next to the station. A new station concourse would then be built, designed to support a large building above the station, which would be a mix of hotel and office space.
(c) Sellar / Herzog & de Meuron
That oversite development has provoked a lot of concern though, particularly the scale of the buildings and that the eastern side would give the appearance of sitting on top of the historic hotel when seen from close up.
Proposed overside development (c) Sellar / Herzog & de Meuron
Of the £1.5 billion development, they expect that around £450 million would be spent on upgrading the station for passengers, with the rest going on the oversite development. The aim is that the entire station rebuild would be delivered by the property developer, with their profits from the oversite development covering the cost of the station upgrade.
The Victorian train sheds which are due for restoration by Network Rail will not be touched or built over, as the development sits entirely over the 1980s station concourse.
The current consultation will focus primarily on the upgrades to the station infrastructure. Evolving designs by Herzog & de Meuron for the new office, retail and leisure scheme will also be shown, with more developed proposals to be displayed at the second consultation planned for January.
The consultation is here.
If approved, the initial development programme estimates construction beginning in 2024 with completion in 2028/2029.
Looking towards the concourse (c) Sellar / Herzog & de Meuron
The current ground floor with expanded gateline (c) Sellar / Herzog & de Meuron
Really like the look of most of this. And as a daily user of this station, it really can’t come soon enough. It’s been neglected for far too long and is a really unpleasant experience.
Why not build some office blocks over Guildhall? This project is disrespectful of the station’s heritage and its setting. The little public space in front of the station is being built over… two other bulky office blocks making a mockery of the listed hotel… in return the developer offers a grand total of 6 new escalators to Network Rail! Almost the opposite of the careful restoration of St Pancras. Glad to see John Betjeman’s campaign to save Liverpool Street has been revived. The consultation is also biased and unprofessional. Not a single render of the development.
Re your last point it’s mentioned in the article!
“Evolving designs by Herzog & de Meuron for the new office, retail and leisure scheme will also be shown, with more developed proposals to be displayed at the second consultation planned for January.”
I agree with the above, disrespects the handsome station frontage by dwarfing with 2 ugly, squat blobs and gives very little back to the traveller. The blurb on the consultation doc is disingenuous (it is very typical “vacant developer speak”). Compared to other recent restorations such as St Pancras (or the gorgeous earlier one at B’ ham Moor St); it is simplistic and a disservice to the historic fabric of the site and a mockery of the travelling public.
100% AGREED WITH YOU STEVE! Looks like a big waste of £1.5 billion really especially if it destroys the beautiful history of this station.
NO – just NO, not at any price – leave the original ( & reconstructed ) W side open to the sky through the glass roof.
NOT another dingy hole, as West side has become
Why not redevelop the 80s entrance without adding the two hideous squat cubes on top? That way the station can get an upgrade without the station becoming another soulless glass cube
There’s a consultation link in the article for you to respond and show how the upgrade of the station could be funded without the oversite development.
It is a bit of a perverse logic that for a heritage building to be restored / adapted, it needs to be overbuilt with an office block to provide funding. No private landlord would get away with this, so why should the same rules not apply to Network Rail?
And why does the station need more retail? The reason there are not enough ticket gates is that Network Rail inserted too much retail. It is easy enough to correct this without destroying the whole frontage of the station. Let’s not be naive about this, this is just Sellar seeing a real estate opportunity to overbuild the station with two office blocks without having to buy a plot of land, which costs more in this location.
As to the access to the station, there is easy access to the east, west and south. The missing access is to the north. For that one has to rebuild the Broadgate Exchange Building. To allow a taller building here next to the Broadgate Tower cluster would make sense. This solves the ticket gate barrier problem at the same time. So there is another solution which does not require the grade-II listed hotel and frontage of the station to be raped, and this solution would also be self-financing.
A further issue is that a large part of the glazed shed will now be replaced with a vault-like ceilings. The renders are misleading in that they make it appear as if the ceilings are letting through light, but in reality they will be covered in perforated white ceiling tiles that will look grey and dirty after a year (as Network Rail cannot be bother to keep its stations clean). Victoria bis.
100% agreed with you! Proposals are just ridiculous and actually destroy the history of this very historic building. Looks like a severe waste of £1.5 billion.
Oh no!
It looks like we’re going back to the days of the late Fifties and covering up all the thrills and spills of the Victorian twiddly bits. Cover those front room doors with thin sheets of fibreboard for those wipe clean moderne lines people!
That excrescence, the white blob over the arched building front facing the platforms in the last render is what I’m talking about.
Nope, can’t have that old thing showing. Cover it with white tiles which, as explained above, will soon be a lovely diesel smoke grey
When will the egos of these ‘blobs on the brain’ “starchitects” be taken down a peg (or twelve) and a balance between them and we users of their products be reached?
Second last render, I meant.
Well done for finding the consultation website. I Googled and checked Sellar’s site but nothing and none of the trade journals even included a link
This redevelopment proposes (in real terms) knocking down the station’s historic entrance and putting something just far too modern and unsightly …it’s severely detrimental to the surrounding area!
However, the internal designs for the structure look good and have good reason to add the additional floor. The developers must NOT be granted permission to demolished the front/opening of this historic station.
The renders appear to show a ton of natural light coming in through the ceiling despite the fact there will be office blocks plonked on top. So what gives? is this an honest mistake or are the developers trying to device the public?
Deceive*
It’s amazing to me how the architects have gotten away with not showing what will be removed. From the scant drawings here, it looks a lot like they are going to wipe out the twin towers and the courtyard entrance. Can’t tell, but I’ve surfed a number of websites now and haven’t seen any drawings except those which are drawn from so far away that you can’t tell what’s going on, leading me to believe that this is deliberate obfuscation.