City rails against Broadgate listing
Make’s 5 Broadgate proposal conflicts with EH’s listing recommendation
Chairman claims Lipton’s criticism of Make scheme is motivated by wanting to see his buildings immortalised
The City of London is stepping up its campaign to ensure Make’s plans to replace 4 and 6 Broadgate are realised in the wake of English Heritage’s recommendation to list the entire 1980s complex.
City chairman Stuart Fraser said this week that original Broadgate developer Stuart Lipton’s outspoken criticism of the 65,000sq m Make scheme in BD was “very damaging” for the Square Mile.
Fraser revealed that he would meet communities secretary Eric Pickles next week to tell him that Arup Associates’ Broadgate offices needed to be torn down and replaced with the new building, developed by British Land as a new European headquarters for Swiss bank UBS.
And City chief planner, Peter Rees, told BD this week that if culture secretary Jeremy Hunt agreed with EH and listed Broadgate at grade II* it would leave Make’s plan “dead in the water”.
Fraser said: “The Broadgate buildings aren’t worth preserving or listing. They aren’t of great architectural merit. Listing Broadgate will send out the wrong message. UBS would probably give up. Eric Pickles is very keen on bureaucracy not getting in the way of economic development.”
Lipton said in March that he thought Make’s replacement was the “worst large building in the City” of the past 20 years, but Fraser claimed Lipton was motivated by preserving his legacy as an architecture patron.
He said: “Stuart has been great a friend to the City but [his intervention] is very damaging. This is his baby so it must be quite nice to have a grade II listed building which will immortalise your name.”
EH’s report on Broadgate said it could be “confidently regarded as one of the most important and successful developments of its period. EH does not lightly recommend listing.”
But Fraser said EH “did not need to pay attention” to the economic consequences of listing commercial developments and said the heritage body’s resolve had been stiffened by Lipton’s support. “Certainly having a renowned architect/developer on board must have emboldened them in that sense.”
Make’s proposed £340 million building would have four trading floors each capable of holding 750 traders. Hunt’s decision on listing is due later this summer.
Ministers in a spin over Broadgate
Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state, DCMS
Hunt will take the ultimate decision after colleagues John Penrose and Ed Vaizey both declared conflicts of interest. Hunt – who earlier this year waved through Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of BSkyB – is not believed to be a fan of post-war architecture.
George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer
Osborne, who just so happens to be a godson of British Land honorary president John Ritblat, would normally have nothing to do with a listings decision, but is Broadgate different? The financial sector claims its future competitiveness depends on part of the complex being demolished and rebuilt.
John Penrose, heritage minister
Penrose should have been the politician deciding the fate of the Peter Foggo-designed complex but was forced to withdraw because his wife, Dido Harding, is a director of developer British Land.
Ed Vaizey, culture minister
Penrose’s DCMS colleague Vaizey, who is also an RIBA honorary fellow, might have been expected to step in but has declared his “close personal friendship” with Broadgate developer Stuart Lipton.
Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communities & local government
Pickles may also find himself dragged into the debate after the City of London signalled its intention to lobby him.
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Readers' comments (7)
Every time a new building is proposed in the City of London, English Heritage try to block or undermine it: Heron Tower, The Heron, 20 Fenchurch Street, Pinnacle, Crown Place and now this. All English Heritage does is cause extra costs and delays. Other financial centres around the world will be laughing when they see the kind of crap the City of London has to put up with.
But it would be great if Make could have put their A-Team on this job rather than their F-Team.
who wouldn't want Optimus Prime in the centre of London...
Well done EH - hopefully this is a vote for common sense. Bigger isn't necessarily better (actually usually it isn't, it's normally a whole lot worse which is certainly the case here).
City - get used to it, GREED is cool no longer!
List away, I've got a tenner on this....
One aspect of this case has not, to my knowledge, yet been raised either in design, political or financial circles - and it is related to the fact that the part of the Broadgate site in question was a Railway Station until 1985.
When Broad Street Station was redeveloped in the eighties, an opportunity was missed to augment platform capacity at neighbouring Liverpool Street. This could have been done with relative ease since the Liverpool Street platforms are actually several metres below street level already.
I am therefore surprised that the City of London and British Land have missed a trick here, by not proposing this under the new development. Adding platform capacity, even if initially delivered as a safeguarded basement for fit-out at a later stage (as done under Foster's Moorhouse Building for Crossrail Moorgate Station), would significantly strenghten the re- development and sustainability case for this project.
Snce the Eighties, rail passenger numbers through Liverpool Street have increased to the point that there is a real shortage of capacity at one of the major City gateways.
In my humble opinion, British Land, should revert to the City and Government with such a proposal, and add Network Rail and the DfT to their support base.
If I were Make, I'd know that architects don't always need to wait to be told what to do, and I would get started now on such a sketch proposal and take it to British Land.
I like Max Fawcett's idea of augmenting Liverpool Street in the Broadgate redevelopment process. It is the awkwardness of the way Broadgate's public spaces are necklaced round the station that is its chief defect, and the cause of its lack of a relationship with an increasingly successful Bishopsgate - the main route north to rocking Shoreditch. A bigger plan for Broadgate and Liverpool Street (the 'throat' of which is limited to only a few tracks) is worth exploring. But the City and its surrounding boroughs don't have very strong creative relationship while Network Rail have one track minds. Teehee.
As for English Heritage's proposals to list Broadgate, these redevelopment proposals have been with us for some time - two years at least. EH's precipitate recommendation to list makes London look highly unsafe for long-term investment. All this could have been sorted long before the City Corporation gave the Make scheme planning consent. Very irresponsible of English Heritage to undermine London's reputation in this way.