IT costs dent profit at Bishopsgate tower architect

Architect Wilkinson Eyre said that increased property and IT costs took the shine off how much money it made last year with pre-tax profit slipping £200,000.

The practice, which is behind plans for behind a 50-storey tower at 6-8 Bishopsgate called Prussian Blue, revised plans which were given the green light last month, said subconsultancy costs also hit the bottom line with pre-tax profit dropping to £4.9m in the year to March 2017.

Wilkinson Eyre won permission for a 40-storey version of the Prussian Blue scheme – drawn up for Mitsubishi Estate London – in 2015 before lookking to add another 10 floors earlier this year.

Turnover edged up £400,000 to £20.5m with the firm’s other schemes including its ongoing work at the Battersea Power Station redevelopment and designing a hotel and casino in Sydney Harbour for Crown Hotels.

It is also working on designs for the HS2 stations at Euston in London and Curzon Street in Birmingham as well working on plans for stations for the stretch of the high-speed line between Birmingham and Leeds.

Wilkinson Eyre has its main office in London – opposite Zaha Hadid’s studio in Clerkenwell – as well as outposts in Hong Kong and Shanghai. In a note accompanying the accounts, the firm added: “The board do not rule out the possibility of opening more overseas offices if required.”

Three-quarters of its turnover comes from the UK with the majority of the remainder coming from the Asia Pacific region.