Sellar to cut down controversial tower on £1.5bn Liverpool Street station redevelopment

Large parts of Sellar and Network Rail’s £1.5bn redevelopment of Liverpool Street station have been scrapped in favour of a “much more heritage-led” design, Building understands.

A highly controversial 20-storey office block on the site has been reduced in height, while the contemporary additions to the Victorian station’s interior are understood to have been removed under new designs being drawn up by lead architect Herzog & de Meuron.

The changes have been in development since spring this year after an initial planning application submitted to the City of London in 2023 generated a huge amount of opposition from heritage campaigners, statutory consultees and members of the public.

More than 2,200 objections and just 29 letters of support have been sent into the application from members of the public opposing the scheme’s perceived impact on the grade II-listed station and its adjoining grade II*-listed former Great Eastern Hotel.

Two neighbouring councils, Westminster and Hackney, have also advised the City to refuse the application while government heritage advisor Historic England argued the scheme would “profoundly damage the character of the station as a whole” if built.

The criticism has focused partly on proposals to demolish large parts of the station’s 1980s extension, which was built in a Victorian style, and replace it with a series of white-coloured arches as part of a comprehensive redesign of the station’s concourse areas.

Building has been told the project has now moved on from these plans and has devised a new approach which would retain much more of the existing station.

“What we have now is a way of keeping much more and it will be much more heritage led, so there’s a discussion around which bits are of high value, which bits could potentially be replaced,” a source said.

The scheme’s other controversial component was an office and hotel tower which would have been cantilevered over the former Great Eastern Hotel under the 2023 application.

This will be retained under the plans but with reduced floorspace, while both its height and massing will be cut back.

“Essentially we have been able to position [the overstation development] so that doesn’t have such a big impact and there’s not the same extent of oversail of the hotel,” the source said.

“It’s still a substantial scheme, but essentially the whole thing has just been reconsidered and rejigged, so it’s quite a different approach.”

It is understood the scale of the design changes will require an entirely new application to be submitted to the City, which had been aiming to make a decision on the revised scheme in February.

The new application is now expected to be submitted by February at the earliest, with the City and the applicant team looking at a planning committee date in the spring.

The rethink of the scheme over the past six months has involved a much greater level of input from Network Rail, which had previously allowed the Sellar and Herzog & de Meuron-led design team, which also includes Scott Brownrigg, to work up the approach for the redevelopment.

Network Rail boss Robin Dobson is understood to have appointed his own team of consultants looking at how to expand capacity at the station, which has seen passenger numbers increase beyond pre-pandemic levels since the opening of the Elizabeth Line station.

If approved, construction could start as soon as next year but is more likely to begin in 2026.

Herzog & de Meuron, Network Rail and Sellar have been contacted for comment.