Network Rail and the property developer Sellar want to demolish a huge chunk of the listed Liverpool Street Station to cantilever a 21-storey tower above the hotel and station. This is an outrageous and unjustified way to treat listed buildings in a conservation area. It would replace natural light with artificial. It would damage views of St Paul’s Cathedral. It would cost one and a half billion pounds. If approved it would set a dangerous precedent which would mean that no listed building in the country is safe from destruction. Worse it will embolden Network Rail to try and do the same at other city centre stations where land value is high.
Griff Rhys Jones OBE, President of LISSCA and the Victorian Society said,
The only way to fight this is through the law. Which is on our side. But that will cost money. And they will have oodles of it. I am giving two thousand. Please help give us the strength to save the dignity of Liverpool Street Station. Every penny counts.
This case raises such significant issues that we are asking the Secretary of State to decide himself. This means we need your help to raise an estimated £60,000 to meet the legal costs of a public inquiry! Please support us by contributing to our fighting fund, thank you.
If the tower goes ahead it would mean:
A huge tower looming above the station and hotel
Ten years of disruption for commuters
Partial demolition of the station
Smashing through historic Grade II* listed hotel
Plunging the Victorian train sheds and concourse into gloom under a tower
Protection of our heritage anywhere in the country is totally undermined
What is the justification for offices in the area?
Current view:
Below if Sellar and Network Rail's plans would be approved:
The Liverpool Street Station Campaign (LISSCA), which stopped the station’s total demolition in the 1970s at a public inquiry in the 1970s, has been reformed to stop these new plans.
The LISSCA committee is comprised of The Victorian Society, The Twentieth Century Society, Historic Buildings & Places, The Georgian Group, SAVE Britain’s Heritage, The Spitalfields Trust, Civic Voice, London Historians, The Betjeman Society, The Council for British Archaeology, and the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society.
The joint campaign of these major voices for heritage and conservation is extremely rare and reflects how seriously they view the threat to Liverpool Street Station and the former Great Eastern Hotel (now the Andaz London Liverpool Street).
Photo credits:
Interior of Liverpool Street Station: Joris Vanbillemont
Current exterior view: Guy Newton for the Victorian Society
Architect's render: Herzog & de Meuron
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