Plans to improve one of the London Bridge tube station entrances have been put on hold after the property development that would have enabled it was blocked.
Proposed new entrance (c) AHMM
The entrance is on Borough High Street and provides access to the Jubilee and Northern lines, but has a narrow entrance that faces directly onto an equally narrow and busy pavement. Plans for a new office tower behind the entrance building would have allowed a new doorway to be cut into the rear of the building, thus creating two doorways for passengers to use.
Existing office block overlaid on Google maps
It had been expected that about half of the people who use the Borough High Street entrance would have used the rear doorway route, significantly reducing pressure on the main pavement outside the front of the station.
Existing entrance changes being proposed (c) Planning application
While the New City Court property development would have seen a rather unremarkable 1980s office building demolished, the size of its replacement was pretty tall, and Southwark Council initially rejected the planning application. Recently, an appeal by the developer was rejected by the Secretary of State for Housing and Planning.
In the latest report by TfL’s Programmes and Investment Committee, TfL confirmed that the developer would not proceed with the scheme and would cease working on the project.
“pretty tall” indeed, and not at all pretty 🙂 30+ storeys (latterly reduced to 26/27) in a 5-6 storey conservation area (CA): immediately adjacent to and degrading a Grade-1 listed part of Guy’s Hospital; ‘moving’ Keats House 2-6m and only retaining the facade; ripping the back off a CA-listed Georgian terrace in St Thomas Street; destroying a historic, medieval Borough High St “Yard” …This never was about losing a 1980s office block or not 🙂 Other than GPE, the developer, choosing to name their scheme after the least consequential building within the CA streetscape that they sought to destroy 🙂 The council’s 400-page statement of case makes interesting reading …3 years of negotiating with GPE in an effort to have them bring some benefit to outweigh the significant harm to the original and oldest part of modern London. Never mind that this ‘back door’ station entrance won’t further expand. There’s the more popular one opposite outside Borough Market, and main station entrance just round the corner. Far more important that TfL uses its expertise and money to sort out the road junction and surface travel (Borough Market, Swk Cathedral…)
About time too. People must realise that destroying nice places and building horrible properties is the joint responsibility of Soutwark Council and the current Mayor of London. How dare anyone else try to muscle in on their responsibilities and which they both do so well and at great cost to the general public.