Rayner issued an Article 31 holding directive against the scheme last week (19 November) after opponents raised concerns regarding the neighbouring Bevis Marks Synagogue and nearby Tower of London.
She will now decide whether or not to call in the application. The directive prevents the City of London’s planning committee from making a decision in the meantime. The AJ understands the committee had been due to consider the application on 13 December.
Stiff + Trevillion’s Bury Street scheme is for a 43-storey tower at 31-34 Bury Street for developer BentallGreenOak and specialist office fund Welput. The site is close to Foster + Partners’ Gherkin.
Plans were submitted in January following the rejection of earlier designs in 2021 for a 48-storey tower on the site. The City’s planning committee rejected the previous application by 14 votes to 7 amid concerns over the overbearing and overshadowing impact on the Bevis Marks Synagogue and views of the Tower of London.
Despite the design update, Stiff + Trevillion’s updated scheme has received more than 1,300 comments of objection, with campaigners raising similar concerns to the original application.
Historic England has said the current plans are ‘worse’ than the earlier version of the scheme from a heritage perspective, while a rabbi warned that the planning process had ‘caused significant stress’ to the Jewish community.
Objectors include chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who said the proposed tower would reduce views from and ‘significantly affect the natural light’ in Bevis Marks Synagogue, disrupting prayers and affecting the atmosphere inside.
He added: ‘The granting of permission to this proposal would therefore be a regrettable development with implications for rights of religious practice, precisely in the place where Jews first enjoyed these rights in England following the 17th-century resettlement. This would be a tragic irony.’
Bevis Marks Synagogue rabbi Shalom Morris said he welcomed Rayner’s intervention. He had previously said the planned tower ‘puts at risk the core purpose of the Bevis Marks Synagogue as a fully functioning place of Jewish worship’.
He said: ‘We welcome the intervention of the deputy prime minister on the threat to Bevis Marks Synagogue. The future of Bevis Marks Synagogue is now very much on the national agenda, as befits its Grade I-listed status and its historic role in British Jewry.’
Comments of objection to the scheme were also received from the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, former Cities of London and Westminster MP Nickie Aiken and former lord mayor of London, Michael Bear.
Other consultees to object to the scheme include Historic Royal Palaces, the City of London Conservation Area Advisory Committee, Historic Buildings and Places, SAVE Britain’s Heritage, the Twentieth Century Society, the Victorian Society and the Georgian Group.
Source:Stiff+Trevillion
Stiff+Trevillion’s January 2024 Bury Street scheme
The surveyor to the fabric of St Paul’s Cathedral, architect Oliver Caroe of Caroe Architecture, meanwhile expressed concern over the scheme’s impact on various heritage settings, and queried why an assessment of the tower’s damage to St Paul’s had not been undertaken.
‘Where the interest of St Paul’s and those of Bevis Mark intersect … is that this application before committee does not appear to be supported by sufficient or proportionate evidence and expertise in relation to the full and correct evaluation of the heritage context into which this major project protrudes,’ he said.
In response, a spokesperson for Welput told the AJ this month that its latest scheme sought to ‘maximise public benefits’, including ‘social, environmental, economic and heritage benefits, by considering the future use of the entire site’.
‘We have meaningfully reduced the height of the scheme’
They told the AJ: ‘We have a sincere respect for the historic, heritage and cultural importance of the area around this site and have developed our proposal with this context in mind. Most notably, we have meaningfully reduced the height of Bury House and massing through a stepped articulation to the upper floors of the building whilst also looking to restore and open up Grade II*-listed Holland House.
‘Welput is committed to stakeholder consultation and has sought to collaborate with many charities, schools, stakeholders and religious institutions, including Bevis Marks Synagogue, throughout an extensive and ongoing consultation process spanning over five years.
‘As part of this, we have commissioned and submitted many detailed reports, which have helped shape the proposals. Now that the application is validated, all detailed reports are publicly available. We continue to respond to all comments received throughout the consultation process and test public use and benefits of Holland House, and look forward to the City of London’s planning and transportation committee’s decision.’
No timeframe has been set for Rayner’s decision.
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