Historic Buildings & Places have joined a partnership with leading heritage and conservation bodies which aims to stop the insensitive and harmful plans for Grade II listed Liverpool Street Station and Grade II* listed former Great Eastern Hotel, now the Andaz London Liverpool Street Hotel.
The reformed Liverpool Street Station Campaign (LISSCA), which stopped the station’s total demolition in the 1970s, is being chaired by the Victorian Society. Its committee is comprised of Historic Buildings & Places alongside Save Britain’s Heritage, The Twentieth Century Society, The Georgian Group, The Spitalfields Trust, Civic Voice, and The London Historians. The LISSCA has launched a petition asking Sellar and Network Rail to abandon the plans.
We supported the successful 1970s campaign to save Liverpool Street Station from redevelopment, which led to the sensitive restoration and extension of the Victorian trainshed in the 1980s in manner that respected its historic character and form. The former Great Eastern Hotel (Andaz) was also restored in the 1990s. The significance of these restorations is recognised in the updated list descriptions for the station and hotel.
The current redevelopment proposal is for a new hotel and office building cantilevered over a substantial part of the station concourse and the hotel. The bulk, shape, size and materials of the proposed 109m high towers are not at all compatible with the conservation area or the Victorian buildings below, greatly harming the appearance, character and quality of public spaces in and around these buildings. It would also destroy the setting of one of the last cohesive Victorian streetscapes in this part of the City of London. There is the real risk that this development will establish an unwelcome precedent for the construction of cantilevered buildings over listed buildings and is something that must be strongly opposed.
Any upgrade to Liverpool Street Station should seek to celebrate its heritage, in a similar manner to King’s Cross or St Pancras, rather than overwhelm it and we call for National Rail to reconsider this detrimental proposal. A petition has been launched asking Sellar and Network Rail to abandon the plans. We ask that you please take a moment to sign it.
The full statement from LISSCA can be read here.
