Afternoon:
10°c
Theatre to get revamp in £1bn new look for Victoria
Ruth Bloomfield3 Feb 2009
A BILLION-pound plan to transform the streets around Victoria Station is due to be agreed this week.
After years of negotiation Westminster council is expected to approve plans for the 2.5-hectare site to the north of the station, which includes five new tower blocks.
In return, developer Land Securities has agreed to hand over £2.5million to revamp the Victoria Palace Theatre, current home to Billy Elliot.
The application will be heard by Westminster's planners on Thursday. A report on the proposals for the site which is bounded by Victoria Street, Buckingham Palace Road, Bressenden Place and Allington Street, recommends they approve it.
Planners believe that the new towers would do "limited" harm to local views and a spokesman for Land Securities said that once permission was granted work would begin next autumn.
The Greater London Authority supports the scheme in principle although it is concerned about the lack of affordable housing. It also wants the developer to make a contribution to the Crossrail project in return for the permission.
However, English Heritage has raised a "strong objection" to the proposals, which it says will do "serious" harm to the "historic environment" . The Commission for the Built Environment says: "The scheme needs more work before it can be considered both a convincing and high-quality urban design."
The developments on the site are a 13-storey block in Buckingham Palace Road, a 19-storey office building in Victoria Street and three blocks in Bressenden Place - two 14-storey and one 12-storey.
As well as shops and flats, there will be 35 affordable housing units and almost 1,000 parking spaces for bicycles. The Thistle Royal Westminster Hotel will be knocked down to make way for these new buildings.
To enhance its green credentials all the new buildings will use rainwater or grey water to water communal garden areas and there will be charging points for electric vehicles.
The development is a scaled-back version of what Land Securities proposed last year but had to revise after it was decided that plans for three skyscrapers, the tallest at 134 metres, would ruin views of Buckingham Palace.
