Decision on Shoreditch development postponed as its future hangs in balance

The Grade II* listed ‘Philip Webb Terraces’ on Worship Street. Photograph: Google

The fate of a major Shoreditch redevelopment is in limbo after Hackney politicians voted against council planning officers advising them to block it.

The decision over whether to build a new 19-storey office block and other commercial buildings in the heart of East London’s ‘Silicon Roundabout’ was postponed on Wednesday (4 February) despite the local authority’s planning officers’ recommendation that politicians reject the scheme. With significant amendments now agreed by the developer, Linea Properties Ltd, the application will be resubmitted and decided at a later date.

Linea had pledged the ‘Shoreditch Works’ project would deliver enough space for 4,150 workers, while adding 40 new residences. This would increase the site’s total number of homes to 78, with 35% available at social or ‘intermediate’ rent.

However, officers judged the “obtrusive” Verso tower would be too tall and deemed the wider scheme “incompatible” with the area’s character.

They argued that demolishing the existing, cheaper post-war office buildings on Curtain Road and Scrutton Street, though not thought to have any “architectural or historic interest” in themselves, would “erase an interesting layer of industrial history” and damage the local business and employment “ecosystem”.

Council planners highlighted that there was only one family-sized home at social rent in the plans. The proposals also failed to meet Hackney’s quotas for affordable housing (50%) and workspace (10%). Officers added that elements of the developer’s 9,000-page application were “lacking in detail”.

But by the end of the five-hour committee meeting, Linea had committed to “significant amendments” and councillors voted against the officers’ recommendations by five to two, postponing the decision.

Three members of the public sent in letters objecting to the scheme, while conservation groups including the Victorian Society and Historic England argued it would do harm to the historic, Grade II* listed low-rise terraces on nearby Worship Street. These were designed by architect Philip Webb, designer of William Morris’s ‘Red House’ in Bexleyheath.

Though the developer had committed to refurbishing these heritage buildings, this was scheduled at the end of the project – raising officials’ concerns the pledge would be dropped if the financial circumstances changed down the line.

The Hackney Society shared “grave concerns” about the buildings’ scale, density, and the impact on carbon emissions. Islington Council also objected due to the plan not being clear enough on how the development would affect the “special character” of nearby Bunhill Fields cemetery, where celebrated poet William Blake and author Daniel Defoe are buried.

Linea Properties said they could not afford to deliver the project in line with the council’s affordability quotas, but the council’s independent consultants reviewed the scheme and disagreed after calculating that they could and still be left with a “small” surplus.

Designs for the 19-storey ‘Verso’ building. Photograph: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

The developer disputed that there was a major impact on the area’s “surviving historic fabric” and argued the negative effects on heritage buildings would be “very minor”.

The council received 61 letters backing the scheme. The Shoreditch Trust wrote in support, while the City of London praised the “commendable” plan, deeming the height and density of the new buildings “suitable” for an inner city site. City Hall supported it “in principle” but said it currently did not comply with its development strategy, the London Plan.

Following the meeting, Hackney’s regeneration chief and deputy mayor, Cllr Guy Nicholson, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “[The developer] committed to create more affordable workspace and bring forward the phase of the development that would include refurbishing [the] terrace of listed buildings”.

These “significant amendments”, he said, would now be resubmitted as was required under planning law. The final decision on Shoreditch Works will be made at a future planning committee meeting.