Westminster Slate Land Sec Victoria Scheme
Published on 07-12-2007 by Skyscrapernews.com
Land Securities massive plans for Victoria Station in London have been savaged by local Westminster Council.
The Victoria Interchange Development master-planned by KPF would if approved contain 146,760 square metres of office space, 36,233 square meters of retail space, 77,324 square metres of residential space and 6,596 square metres of leisure in a whole cluster of buildings outside the current station with the tallest rising to 128 metres in height.
Councillors at the planning meeting however were not impressed and attacked the scheme on a whole raft of issues including the lack of affordable housing, something that these days is considered essential for a development.
The attitude of the developers towards this had been that because they were contributing to the rebuilding of the station and the area around it there was no need for much renewable housing, a belief now called into doubt.
The scheme was also attacked on the basis of the lack of a bus station. Victoria currently has a very busy and famous bus station so rebuilding the site without one raised eyebrows. Loss of the existing Victorian heritage was also picked on.
There were also numerous attacks on the height of the towers that despite having been reduced from 160 metres were still considered too tall. Giving ammunition was the visual assessments commissioned by the developer that were included in the planning application, that stated the effect of their scheme from many prized locations such as the Mall was considered "adverse".
It's clear now that KPF will have to go back to the drawing board and master-plan the scheme all over again taking into account what they've been slated for. The only question is why no-one on the project realised before where it was going before it got to this stage.
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