18-storey central London tower set for approval

Southwark Council is set to approve plans for an 18-storey office tower by Blackfriars Bridge in central London after planning officers backed the scheme.

The “concept workplace” building will be part of the £1bn Bankside Yards regeneration project designed by Make and PLP, reports Construction News’s sister title the Architects’ Journal.

The developer on the scheme, which has been proposed for a decade, is Native Land.

The office tower will stand on the former site of Ludgate House, a 1980s office block formerly occupied by the Daily Express newspaper.

It will contain 7,900 square metres of office floor space, with corner cut-outs providing double-height outdoor amenity space looking over for occupants. The building will have its service core at the south, overlooking the River Thames, which it fronts.

The plans replace an earlier proposal for a smaller 14-storey residential building on the site but planners at Southwark Council said the tower would still be “modestly sized” with a “relatively compact form”, pointing out that it would provide a step down from a 49-storey building that has been approved immediately to the south.

Officers recommended the scheme for approval at Southwark’s planning committee on Tuesday (17 January), saying that the 18-storey scheme was supported on the “highly connected brownfield site” and that it could provide up to 800 jobs on the site.

“The design of the new building is considered to be of the highest quality and will make a substantial, positive contribution to the skyline of London and the cluster of tall buildings at the northern end of Blackfriars Road,” the report said.

Make and Native Land have been contacted for comment.