Inspectors side with City Corporation over skyscraper heights near the Tower of London

The City of London Corporation has won its argument with Historic England over how tall new buildings can rise in the Square Mile’s eastern cluster, after planning inspectors backed the height rules in its City Plan 2040.

Planning minister Matthew Pennycook has said he is reassured by the inspectors’ findings, which clears the way for the plan to take effect.

Why Historic England objected to the eastern cluster

The row began in July last year, when the Corporation accused Historic England of holding back economic growth with what it called “persistent” objections to new towers. The heritage body’s main concern was the group of skyscrapers in the east of the City and its growing impact on the Tower of London, which is among four world heritage sites in the capital.

Historic England said the plan’s height guidelines for the cluster were too permissive and proposed a more “deferential” approach, giving the Tower greater “visual separation” from the buildings around it. Pennycook asked the inspectors running the public examination of the plan to look at the issue again.

The inspectors found that the Corporation’s approach struck the “most appropriate balance” between protecting the Tower and “avoiding undue restrictions on economic growth”.

What the City Plan 2040 decision means for skyscrapers

The ruling could open the door to as many as 20 tower proposals in the east of the City. The Corporation argues that these could bring a potential 6,800 jobs and £1.2 billion a year in economic output that would otherwise have been lost.

It now wants to go further. By the Corporation’s reckoning, demand for offices in the Square Mile could grow by as much as three million square metres by 2050. It is pressing for two more places to be added to the locations that Sadiq Khan’s draft London Plan marks out for “metropolitan scale” buildings taller than 100 metres: the Broadgate area, and part of the City lying north of Fleet Street. Consultation on the draft plan closes in mid-October.

Individual schemes will still be judged on their merits, including their effect on protected buildings and conservation areas, and the plan keeps a presumption of “retrofit”. Chris Hayward, the Corporation’s policy chair, said it had consistently argued that “economic growth and heritage conservation must go hand in hand”.