Campaigners against a proposed development of office blocks and 500 new homes on the site of the former Bishopsgate Goods Yard in Shoreditch have been given fresh hope after councils objected to plans for the site.
In separate meetings last week, Hackney and Tower Hamlets councils said the scale of the buildings in the mega-project – which also include plans for a 25-storey hotel and a park modelled on New York City’s ‘High Line’ – would be too overbearing.
In Tower Hamlets’ case, the council voted to reject the recommendations made by their own case officers. “I wasn’t expecting it at all,” Jonathan Moberly of Reclaim the Goodsyard, a community group opposing the plans, told Hackney Post.
Moberly felt two letters from local traders made a crucial difference, as did “drilling in” to the detail of the housing in the developers’ plans. “They were quite shocked when I said only 38% [would be] affordable housing.”
Susanna Kow, his colleague, said, “We are not sitting on our laurels, but I breathed a sigh of relief that Tower Hamlets voted responsibly in the end.”
“Heritage is not just about the buildings and setting. Local communities are important. Otherwise they might as well give us another Oxford Street.”
Hackney Councillor Vincent Stops told Hackney Post that the proposed buildings would be “overbearing down Shoreditch High Street” and threaten the local conservation area.
“It was always the case that there was just too much development,” Cllr Stops explained. “That’s where they come undone. Now, they would argue that we’ve got to have this much square footage in order to pay for all the good stuff. But that doesn’t mitigate the harm that we think there is.”
Final planning approval rests with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, but the councils’ objections will be considered at a public hearing before the mayor’s decision on December 3rd.
