City of London due to consider controversial Network Rail plan next Tuesday
Former RIBA president Ben Derbyshire has added his name to the list of people opposed to Network Rail’s current plan to redevelop Liverpool Street station – and backed a rival proposal by John McAslan & Partners instead.
It comes as Network Rail’s preferred proposal by Acme is due to be heard at a City of London planning meeting next Tuesday.
McAslan, the architect behind the extension at London’s King’s Cross station, said its proposals, drawn up with 2012 Olympic Velodrome engineers Expedition, would be around half of the cost of the £1.2bn Acme-designed scheme.
In a letter to the Times over the weekend, Derbyshire and other signatories, including Eden Project co-founder Tim Smit, journalist Simon Jenkins and TV executive Peter Bazalgette, wrote: “We urge the City of London to pause the planning process so as to consider alternative approaches to upgrading this magnificent grade II-listed station without destroying what makes it so special.”
It added: “There are alternatives. A bold new vision by John McAslan & Partners shows how grade-A office space and the same passenger benefits can be achieved with almost no demolition and at half the cost.”
Acme’s plans have amassed more than 2,000 objections from members of the public but they have had a better response from Historic England, which has called its plans a “significant improvement” over the previous scheme by Herzog & de Meuron. This was being worked up with Network Rail’s former development partner Sellar before it was scrapped in 2024.
Acme is proposing the construction of an 11-storey office block above the station’s trainshed as an alternative to Herzog & de Meuron’s larger proposal for a controversial 17-storey block which would have been cantilevered over the trainshed and the adjacent grade II*-listed Andaz hotel.
The current project team includes Aecom on engineering and transport, Certo as project manager, Newmark, previously known as Gerald Eve, on planning, Gleeds as cost manager, Donald Insall Associates on heritage and townscape, GIA on daylight and sunlight and SLA as landscape architect.
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