Plans include new exhibition space in refurbished 1980s control room
Lambeth council has approved plans by 5plus to refurbish the headquarters of the London Fire Brigade.
The grade II-listed building at 8 Albert Embankment had been earmarked for a £500m residential redevelopment designed by Pilbrow & Partners but this was scrapped in 2024.
The brigade now plans to move its headquarters back into the 10-storey building, where it was based for 70 years until 2007.
5plus’ plans for the site will modernise the building with the first two floors to be refurbished as fire station space and the upper floors to become office space for the brigade’s headquarters.
The proposals also include a refurbishment of an existing 1980s extension to the main fire station building which previously functioned as a control room.
The extention will be transformed with a new facade of vertical fins and would house exhibition space on its ground floor.
The space would be used to display the LFB’s collection of more than 20,000 objects recording the history of firefighting in the capital from the Great Fire of London in 1666 to the present day.
A proposed four-storey newbuild extension containing fire station facilities which had originally been proposed in early public constulations was shelved last year and is not part of the application.
London Fire Brigade is the project client with the team including Pick Everard as project manager and QS, BWB on sturctures and MEP, re-form as landscape architect and Turley as planning consultant.
Pilbrow & Partners’ former proposals would have included two residential towers of 26 and 24 storeys on two sites to the rear of the Albert Embankment building. The LFB said any future plans for the two sites would be considered separately.
The Brigade was based at 8 Albert Embankment from its construction in 1937 until 2007 when it moved into new offices at 169 Union Street in Southwark, which were officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II the following year.
The Union Street lease comes to an end in March 2027 and the Brigade said it does not expect it to be renewed as it “does not meet LFB’s requirements into the future”.
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