All change: Liverpool Street Station’s controversial makeover

0:03This week, Liverpool Street Station has had a major redevelopment plan greenlit by the City Corporation, much to the dismay of heritage enthusiasts who argue that a 320-foot-high tower block would disfigure the Victorian landmark. So, should the plan have got the go-ahead? Hi, and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. I'm Tamara Kormornick. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up, all change, Liverpool Street Station's controversial makeover.

0:40Liverpool Street Station, located in the heart of the City of London, is the busiest train station in the UK, with 98 million entries and exits over the past year. This redevelopment plan from Network Rail promises to make the station more accessible and user-friendly following the installation of the Elizabeth Line in 2022. And Network Rail plans to fund the majority of the project through renting out office space in a shiny new tower block, a controversial addition to the Grade 2 listed site. In today's episode, I'll be talking to the Standard City Hall and Transport editor, Ross Lydell, who's been covering the station's redevelopment planning application.

1:18Ross actually attended the final consultation meeting this week and managed to catch Tom Slay, the Planning Committee Chairman at the City of London Corporation, for comment. You'll hear that in a bit, but without further ado, here's my conversation with Ross. Hi Ross, welcome back to the Standard Podcast. It's so great to have you. Good to be back. Around 200 people showed up to that meeting. What was the atmosphere like and were you surprised that it went through? Walking down to the meeting, my biggest concern was that the meeting was going to last essentially all day and all of the night. It started at quarter to two.

1:58The committee papers ran to 565 pages and that was just the main report. There were another four appendices there. These papers were all laid out on a side table. There was enough paper there to probably print, you know, 25 ,000 copies of the Evening Standard. It was quite astonishing how much paperwork there was. And having long experience of many council meetings, especially planning committees that run into the night, I thought, gosh, I'm certainly not going to get home for dinner. It didn't turn out like that. The committee was run very efficiently. The chairman, Tom Slay, did a commendable job, to be fair to him.

2:34and it all went through which comes as no surprise primarily because if you take a look around the square mile the number of daring adventurous modern buildings is quite noticeable you know the city of london corporation is very adept at mixing the new and the daring and the challenging with some of the most historic parts of london so i thought on that basis it was very unlikely to refuse the scheme and that's exactly how it turned out. The whole meeting was done in a couple of hours. I guess I was slightly surprised and also relieved how sort of seamless the whole thing was and I did get home in time to have my dinner at six o 'clock.

3:17So as I said at the top of the episode Ross managed to catch Tom Slay the planning committee chairman at the City of London Corporation straight after the planning application was granted. Here's what Tom had to say. Can you tell me what the committee has just decided in terms of Liverpool Street Station, please? After listening really closely, the committee came to a very overwhelming decision, I think it was 19-3, in favour of the recommendation, which was to grant Planning Commission for the network rail redevelopment. And you personally were very strongly in favour of the scheme. Why is that?

3:48Yeah, I absolutely was. I live very close to it, so I go through it pretty much every day. I'm a ward councillor, so it sits in my patch. It's a station that is in desperate need of an overhaul. The application that we considered today was a brilliant application. It would have taken years and millions of pounds to bring to this committee. And it will completely transform the lives of millions of people who travel through that station every year. Probably more than 150 million people by about 2040. So that kind of economic regeneration that it would deliver, that kind of transportation regeneration that it would deliver, is an opportunity that was too good to miss.

4:18And we as a committee were completely convinced that that is the right scheme for the Liverpool Street Station.

4:29Could I ask you to paint a picture of what the station might look like when the works are complete? So the entrance to the station, the roof, the concourse, will there be any noticeable changes for passengers? The new setting will be much grander, it'll be in a sort of gothic style a bit more like St Pancras Station, with the giant sort of brick-made arches to walk through. So it will be really quite grand at the surface level. The only issue will be, of course, that if you're walking up, then you see this vast amount of glass above your head that will look rather incongruous against the sort of Gothic-style entrances.

5:16But on the face of it, it looks great. But the thing is, these CGI images that architects prepare always look great, and the reality is often quite different because the scale can be a bit more different in reality. What's obviously been noticeable as well is that throughout this network rail and their property PR people have chosen to release selected images of what it might look. They didn't release ever the images that were shown to the committee yesterday that drew gasps when people realised that this massive block was going to be, you know, three or four times the height of the existing Andas hotel at the front of the station.

5:54and why are network rail calling for liverpool street station to be redeveloped well there's basically one main reason that is driving this redevelopment and that is the elizabeth line what network rail wants to do is to increase the capacity of the station it says this projections are that the number of passengers using the station will increase by many millions over the coming years and also to improve quite considerable accessibility issues for the station especially for people using wheelchairs or prams or who have general mobility issues because it's not the most accessible station to get around.

6:34I think the issue is people then interchanging with the tube station and the Elizabeth line which means they're sort of funneled through the London Underground part of the station not the Network Rail part of the station. and some have said the the station is in a state of managed decline because of issues with rainwater and broken escalators I mean do you think the station's falling apart it's certainly the case that buckets on the concourse are a very familiar site every time it rains the roof leaks and there There are puddles everywhere. You know, yesterday morning, there was a large puddle on my way out of the station.

7:16That was caused more by somebody spilling their morning cappuccino than the rainwater. But every time it rains, there are buckets there, buckets of rain on the concourse. Also right now, one of the main escalators up to the sort of exit on Hope Square, where the McDonald's restaurant is, is out of action. So that causes other issues. so people can't come down onto the concourse easily either. They have to take the stairs. So not all is well with Liverpool Street. However, the south-western side, that has all been recently redeveloped and the flow there is pretty good. There's some great shops there as well.

7:56So it's not all bad, but it certainly could be better. We'll take a quick break. Coming up, I ask Ross about the objections to the station's redevelopment proposal and we discuss the elephant in the room, the scheme's funding.

8:20Welcome back. Let's head straight back to my chat with Ross.

8:26so Ross the station as it stands is grade two listed building some of the opponents the scheme have included St Paul's Cathedral among others and Grief Rees-Jones the present Victorian society has also been very vocal about preserving the heritage do you think the redevelopment of the station is a good thing for London. I think, you know, a healthy dose of cynicism is needed there. I'm not sure that really the passenger numbers will go up that much more because the reason the passenger numbers have gone up is because of the Elizabeth line. You know, the London Overground passenger numbers are not that much greater than they were a year or two ago.

9:14So let's wait and see. I think the truth of the matter here is that Network Rail had no other way to fund the improvements to the station. So yes, the station does need a bit of doing up at least, but it's not the worst in the world. Probably the rest of the country could find plenty of other stations that are more in need than Liverpool Street Station. But the only way Network Rail could afford to pay for this redevelopment is by sticking an office block on top. It's got that scheme through now. It's got the green light, just one or two little hurdles to cross to finally get it over the line.

9:49But from 2028, Liverpool Street Station is going to be getting worse before it gets better in terms of the daily experience for thousands and thousands of passengers. And Ross, the proposed plans have ruffled a lot of feathers. Could you lay out some of the objections? So primarily heritage groups have complained because they fear that some of the historic parts of the station will be damaged. Now Network Rail says it's not touching the Victorian part of the station, just the sort of the fake Victorian part of the station, if you like. When you're on the concourse, looking above you, the roof there is the 1990s roof, which is sort of a replica of the original Victorian design.

10:36The existing Victorian part of the station is further out. So as your train leaves the station, you start to roll under the Victorian roof. That will be left intact. However, there are certain heritage aspects of the station that will either be moved or damaged and hence the concerns. Primarily though, what people will notice and what drew gasps of sort of astonishment yesterday when the planning committee was looking at these sort of mock-up pictures of what it will appear like is the sheer scale of the office block that's going to go plonked on top of the existing concourse. this is going to be a sort of glass sort of monster if you like going on top of the station, they will remove part of the roof, the newer roof above the concourse, build new sort of piles to hold this office block up and it will be 13 storeys high on top of the existing height of the Andaz Hotel at the front, so essentially it will be 19 storeys in total and when you stand back from the station you'll have this enormous a glass monolith sort of staring down at you possibly the sun bouncing off it right in your eyes but the scale of it is huge and that is part of the concern basically opponents say that the office block will be overbearing and is far too big for that site

12:07let's talk about funding who is paying for this and is the office block necessary for these redevelopment changes to take place to you know improve flow of traffic and you know mobility needs and all these other benefits that would come with a rejig of the station So this is the Achilles heel of the entire proposal. The scheme has to pay for itself. The government, the Department for Transport, is not funding this scheme. Network Rail doesn't have a sort of kitty of cash to spend. It says that about£500 million worth of improvements to the station will be made under this scheme, including, you know, wider concourse, escalators, lifts, nicer places to eat and drink within the station.

12:58But those will be funded by this, what's called an overstation development, essentially the massive office block we're talking about. Now, the problem is that the cost of constructing the office block is, as it stands just now, about£200 million short of budget. The amount of money that Network Rail would get in from businesses actually wanting to rent space in its office block. However, there is a very serious question about the financial viability of this scheme. so it may not happen the concern is that because they've now got permission for a 19-storey tower block network rail would be in a good position now to come back and say in a year's time for example oh we've done our sums things have changed we need to add another three stories onto the top of this to get more offices there to get more income to pay for it all you know it's almost like they're pushing a stone up the hill they've nearly got to the top and it's one more shove and then finally it can be done.

13:56So we wait and see. The point has been raised but that is how it could all go wrong simply because of a lack of cash. And so the City Corporation has approved the scheme. It's now going to pass to the Mayor of London and then it would go to the Community Secretary Steve Reid for final authorisation. The issue for Sadiq actually is that a year or so ago at the MIPM property conference in Cannes, he indicated his support for the scheme. So what will mean he's essentially sort of scuppered himself in a way, in a legal sense. So he'll probably have to defer this to his deputy mayor for planning, Jules Pipe, so he's not accused of any favoritism or bias.

14:37I think it would be quite a surprise if Sadiq looked to block this. Similarly for Steve Reid, the community secretary of government, it would be a surprise because it doesn't fit in with the government's growth agenda if they then block a major redevelopment scheme here that's going to create lots of jobs and should boost the economy given time. So I think there's not really something to worry about there for Network Wheel. I think this plan is as good as approved. Thank you so much, Ross. No problem. And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating.

15:15if you'd like to get in touch email us at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here tomorrow morning see you then