Architect already overhauling Whiteleys shopping centre in west London area
Foster & Partners is set to get the go-ahead to replace a run of 1950s shops and flats in west London with two seven-storey buildings featuring a mix of shops, offices and new homes.
The practice’s Queensway Parade development in Bayswater will be directly opposite its ongoing £1bn redevelopment of the grade II-listed former Whiteley’s department store, being carried out by Laing O’Rourke, which is turning the building into a residential and hotel scheme.
Queensway Parade, for client MB (QW) Guernsey Ltd, would deliver a 10,978 sq m office building on the southernmost part of the 0.4ha site, at the junction of Queensway and Porchester Gardens.
Immediately north would be a residential block featuring 32 homes, 35% of which would be “affordable”. There are currently 27 flats on the site.
The scheme would also provide 11 new shops but total floorspace for retail and restaurant use would fall by more than one third to 2,216 sq m under the plans.
A report to members of Westminster City Council’s planning committee acknowledged the reduction in retail floorspace but said the proposed new shop and restaurant units would be “better quality” than those currently on the site and would have step-free access.
Recommending the scheme for approval, planning officers said there were no design objections to demolishing the existing 1950 building but they accepted that the height and bulk of the office building remained a key consideration.
Officers praised the quality of Fosters’ proposals and said that, on balance, councillors should approve them.
Westminster’s planning committee meets to consider the proposals on 15 November.
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