Developer Qatari Diar is set to relaunch the £3bn Chelsea Barracks development two and a half years after the troubled project won outline planning
According to Building’s sister title Building Design, work on the scheme is being ramped up in the hope construction can start next year, with the most detailed images yet unveiled by masterplanners Squire & Partners at a public consultation.
The development parked controversy after private lobbying by Prince Charles led to the sacking of Richard Rogers as architect on the scheme five years ago.
According to BD, a reserved matters application is due to be submitted to Kensington & Chelsea council in January for the first phase of the 5ha scheme.
This includes three residential blocks of townhouses in the site’s western corner and the promenade gardens designed by Kim Wilkie.
The first phase also includes the conversion of a listed guards’ chapel into a community facility surrounded by retail.
The 154-year-old chapel is the only building remaining on the levelled site after it was given grade II protection in 2011 following a fight by campaigners.
Detailed consent for the first phase is expected to be awarded in three stages during 2014.
Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners was kicked off the job in 2009 after objections from Prince Charles to the designs, which he later described as “insane”.
Squires was appointed later that year, with the firm’s masterplan for 488 homes in blocks of up to eight storeys winning outline planning permission in June 2011.
But Qatari Diar reportedly put the whole project on hold in 2012 amid the economic down turn.
No comments yet