Airspace buildings over Crossrail stations

Developers study commercial potential of airspace buildings over Crossrail stations.

Developers study commercial potential of airspace buildings over Crossrail stations.

Though preparatory work for Crossrail will be injecting at least £50 million this year into the Greater London construction economy by way of ground investigations, design, surveying and so on, a quite different expansionary impulse is being imparted by the determination of landowners and developers to take full advantage of the commercial opportunities generated by airspace sites appearing above high value locations such as Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road stations.

In his evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee examining the Crossrail Bill, Colin Smith FRICS, a property consultant who was formerly managing director of London Transport's property department, said that there were broadly 17 sites his consultancy was currently looking at, mainly in the Cities of Westminster and London, where the airspace above the deep level railway works could be developed.

This could not happen, he said, without a lot of thought in advance.

"With Crossrail moving to the next stage of detailed design, we are now appointing multi-disciplinary consultants to look at the over-station development at the same time as the main railway design work".

""We are trying to fit the two together so that they absolutely work", he said.

""The key elements are going to be structural support, loading and access.

If we are going to be able to develop above, we have to have enough space not only for public use but also for whatever access to the commercial development is necessary.

There are many other things such as loading and unloading that have to be thought through.

"So we are starting that process now".

"We have had preliminary discussions with some developers, but we will be consulting over the next few months and years with the local planning authorities on the appropriate forms of development.

"We will also be looking at the planning briefs that Westminster City Council already has on these sites, and at all the other issues that arise such as heritage and the environment, so that by the time Crossrail goes to be built it is quite clear how we can support and integrate development on site." Secretary of State's undertaking".

"Mr Smith was answering questions from Government counsel David Elvin QC in response to reservations expressed by Graham King, head of the city planning group in Westminster's planning and city development department, about the policy statement from the Department for Transport on over-site development (OSD)".

"The Secretary of State has promised that steps will be taken to ensure that there is consultation with local planning authorities prior to submission of planning applications for OSD.

This will cover the proposed use, quantum, layout, scale, access, appearance and response to context of the proposed OSD, including where appropriate co-operation in the preparation of a planning brief and/or supplementary planning documents, as well as the means by which the fundamental design elements of the new development will be integrated with the Crossrail works".

"This includes consultations with English Heritage, and a provision that in assessing the contribution that OSDs will make to the character or enhancement of conservation areas, the quality of buildings that existed prior to demolition will be a material consideration".

"The Secretary of State is asking that planning applications and environmental statements for OSD sites should be submitted as soon as reasonably practical and in any event no later than two years after the commencement of Crossrail construction".

"Based on Crossrail's current confidence that the work could start in 2008, this would mean that outline schemes for the new buildings should be submitted by 2010 unless the local authority agrees to a deferral, but that work on site could not start much before 2014".

"The developers should by then have used 'reasonable endeavours' to obtain planning consent by the time the new Crossrail stations or railway on the sites are completed, and to ensure that over-site building work is commenced once planning consents have been granted".

"Under examination by Patrick Clarkson, QC, for Westminster City Council, Graham King gave an example of the problems the city was encountering over the 'incredibly important' Davies Street site adjacent to the existing Bond Street Tube station in Oxford Street".

"The station is now the interface between the Central and Jubilee Lines in one of London's busiest shopping areas, an interaction as he put it which takes place in the West One shopping centre".

"Of Crossrail he said: "This is not building a railway across green fields; this is not building a railway through a brownfield area of regeneration; this is building a railway through the heart of the West End with one of the most valuable and dynamic property investment portfolios in the world".

""The promoter has to accept that reality in the same way we have to accept that reality".

"It should not be assumed that Westminster likes that position".

"It causes us untold grief on regular occasions at planning committee every week, but it is a balance that has to be struck and the promoter simply relying on the fact that all we are doing is building a railway is frankly a weak response to the issue that we are facing." 'Welcome relief to the city'.

Nevertheless, Mr King said that the Secretary of State's statement on over-site development was a welcome relief to the city following from the extensive negotiations in which they had been involved and acknowledged it as the most definitive statement in the right direction they had seen so far.

At Bond Street/Davies Street, the OSD statement is relevant to the gap that will be left for several years in the urban landscape where an 'unpleasantly large' neo-Georgian building is to be removed to make way for the Crossrail station.

But, said Mr King, in accepting this, the city would be making a compromise for the first time in 32 years over a subject on which it had not before had to compromise.

The powers the London local authorities enjoy under the present conservation areas legislation allow them to insist that if they permit any building to be demolished, they should know exactly what is going back on the site on the day they give such permission, and furthermore to ensure that the replacement building represents what the developer said he would do at the time.

One understanding that did emerge from the examination of the two witnesses was that in relation to the high value locations at least, there would be no fear of delay in starting work immediately the OSD sites became available.

This would be different from the experience at Southwark across the Thames, where the OSD above the Jubilee Line extension [completed in 1999] has still not happened.

Mr Smith's comment on that was: "I would not expect that sort of thing to occur in the Mayfair area." At the end of the day's hearing, after the evidence from Colin Smith about developers' intentions with regard to over-site development on the Crossrail route, David Elvin said for the Government that the Secretary of State's undertaking might be subject to improvement as the result of discussions such are those which are due to take place in the Heritage Forum.

Summarising the exchanges, Mr".

"Elvin said: "The picture between the two sides is that we are all aiming to do it seamlessly from completion into OSD and we are all hopeful that it will succeed".

The Select Committee is currently in recess during the Commons' half-term and will resume its sittings on February 28th.

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