Huge towers rising over 40 storeys into the sky have secured planning permission in Blackfriars.
The development, 18 Blackfriars, will include a 44-storey office block, and residential blocks of 40 and 22-storeys.
The office block will be 195 metres tall, dwarfing the neighbouring One Blackfriars and South Bank Tower buildings.
Southwark councillors voted unanimously in favour of the development at a planning committee meeting on Monday, April 29.
Developer Hines will build the scheme on what is mainly a brownfield site at the southern end of Blackfriars Bridge.
The two residential buildings will separate private residents from those in affordable and social rent homes.
The 40-storey Stamford Building will house private households with the rest in the 22-storey Paris Building.
Of the 433 new homes, 273 will be private, 104 social rent, and 56 intermediate. Intermediate are typically 80 per cent of market rates.
The two buildings will be tenure blind. This means ‘both buildings represent a high standard of design quality,’ according to planning documents.
At the planning meeting, Cllr Sam Dalton asked how the design would ensure “divisions don’t arise between affordable residents and private residents” if the buildings were separate.
Katharine Woods, a spokesperson for planning consultancy DP9, said the children’s play space was open to all residents.
She added that there were “shared spaces throughout the development” such as a roof garden on the podium connecting the two residential buildings.
Cllr Darren Merrill asked whether there were provisions to ensure service charges do not increase so much it makes affordable rates unaffordable.
In March, a Guardian article reported residents on Lendlease’s Elephant Park development, in Elephant and Castle, had seen service charges increase by 38 per cent.
A council officer highlighted a clause in the planning permission saying service charges would be capped and only subject to inflation-level increases.
The development will also provide 2,400sqm of affordable workspace to a local, ‘socially-minded’ enterprise at a peppercorn rate.
Father Lee Chantler, Rector of the nearby Christ Church Blackfriars, said his congregation’s reaction to the development ranged from “great to apathy but nobody against”.
He spoke in support of the development, saying he had “faith” in Hines’ “ genuine commitment to this community” after conversations with the developer.
Nobody spoke against the development at the meeting but some online objectors criticised the buildings’ heights.
Writing on the Southwark Council planning portal, one commenter said: ‘Towers FAR too high … do not relate to buildings near by … scale wrong.’
‘It will overshadow all of the very few green spaces in the vicinity,’ another wrote.
Ross Blair, Senior Managing Director and Country Head of Hines UK, said: “Our plans will transform an undeveloped piece of land, most of which has lain empty for over twenty years, into much needed new homes and first class, sustainable and tech-enabled offices, built around a central hub which we hope will become a brand new convening space for the local community.”