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• Development Process – The Leadenhall Building

Property Review

Development Process – The Leadenhall Building

Obtaining planning permissions for the Company’s development programme is a complex and expensive process involving many organisations and expert consultants.

The professional expertise needed, from architects, engineers, ecologists, environmental consultants and other specialist consultants means that securing planning permissions gets more expensive every year.

Focusing on one particular planning application, the proposal for the redevelopment of 122 Leadenhall Street in the City of London cost some £5 million alone, demonstrating the technical expertise and resource commitment which is required. The first stage in the process was the identification of the opportunity, which initially arose from changes in planning policy.

Increasingly the technical assessment work needs to be done as part of a formal, detailed Environmental Statement covering all the relevant issues, which is submitted as part of the application. Within each heading there can be a range of issues. So, for example, Transportation might include road transport, public transport, pedestrians, parking, servicing of the building, deliveries and refuse collection. A great deal of effort goes into ensuring that the technical assessment is comprehensive and accurate.

For a long time the City Corporation’s view was that tall buildings were not acceptable in the City of London. This was supported by English Heritage, the Government’s advisor on listed buildings and conservation matters. However in the late 1990s a number of factors came together to change that view. The election of Ken Livingstone as the first Mayor of London in 2000 was important as he is a serious enthusiast for well designed, tall buildings as part of his overall growth strategy for London. The City of London’s Unitary Development Plan Review and the London Plan changed the planning policy by promoting the development of a cluster of tall buildings at the heart of the City of London to rival Canary Wharf.

At Leadenhall Street the appointment of team members was key; most importantly the selection of the Richard Rogers Partnership, which had designed the Lloyds Building on the opposite side of Leadenhall Street. The sketch (shown below) was part of the original Richard Rogers Partnership submission, made as long ago as 2001. This demonstrated a grasp of the key planning issue from the beginning; the view of the building with the backdrop of the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral as seen from the west along Fleet Street; the outline of the cathedral is shown in the circle. The basic shape of the proposed Leadenhall Building, deferring to the dome’s dominance, has remained much the same throughout the scheme’s design development.

Our strategy was to work with English Heritage and the Government’s advisors on architecture, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) at an early stage, and to secure agreement to the application from the City Corporation.

We held a number of briefing sessions with owners and occupiers of neighbouring properties to ensure that they were fully informed and understood the scheme, and that we could take into account any concerns they may have. For example we met with two neighbouring churches who raised concerns about construction noise and its impact on church services. We reassured them that when services are taking place the noisiest activities would be kept to a minimum.

The application was submitted in February 2004, after over two years of intensive design development and pre-application discussion. The City Corporation’s Planning and Transportation Committee resolved to grant planning permission in October 2004 and, following lengthy negotiations on a legal agreement providing funding for environmental improvements in the local area, transport improvements, affordable housing and training for local people, planning permission was finally granted in May 2005 for a building of 47 floors and 600,000 sq ft net and a construction commitment in the order of £270 million. This increases the floor capacity, compared with the current building, by more than three times.