City faces backlash after ‘destructive’ Parry scheme is tipped for approval

Heritage groups have lambasted The City of London for recommending approval of its own scheme – a £240 million courts complex designed by Eric Parry ArchitectsSAVE Britain’s Heritage is calling for a public inquiry after a report by the City’s planners, to be voted on this Thursday (22 April), said the controversial Salisbury Square development in the heart of Fleet Street should go ahead.The three-building project, submitted last December, is billed as a new ‘justice quarter’ and includes a seven-storey granite and limestone-clad home for the City’s magistrates’ and civil courts.However, it involves the demolition of a number of historic buildings, and has drawn objections from heritage groups including Historic England, The Twentieth Century Society, The Victorian Society and SAVE Britain’s Heritage.In the officer’s report, planners noted the scheme would harm the Fleet Street Conservation Area and conceded it was in conflict with the council’s own Local Plan and the London Plan.However, the report concluded that the harm the plans would cause was ‘less than substantial’ and was outweighed by the many public interest benefits of the scheme.Marcus Binney, SAVE’s executive chairman, added: ‘The supposed public benefits claimed for this scheme do not begin to outweigh the massive harm caused by the destruction of a substantial part of the conservation area. Given the opposition, these proposals must be the subject of a public inquiry.’SAVE has written to the secretary of state, Robert Jenrick, to request the plans be called in, ‘given the fact that the City of London Corporation is both the landowner, applicant and the statutory decision body in this case’.Parry’s proposals for the courts complex include about 20 court hearing rooms, along with separate public and judicial areas, meeting rooms, custodial facilities and parking. The campus will also provide new headquarters for the City of London Police and a separate commercial block.It involves the demolition of a collection of buildings, including six historic but unlisted buildings in the Fleet Street Conservation Area.Historic England objects in particular to the ‘unjustified’ demolition of 8 Salisbury Court, a narrow five-storey former warehouse dating from the late 19th or early 20th century; and 1 Salisbury Square, an early Georgian domestic house.It also criticised the planned removal of the 1920s newspaper office Chronicle House, designed by William Lee Clarke and the architect behind the Grade II-listed former Daily Mail building, Herbert Owen Ellis. The Neo-Baroque Barclays Bank building at 80-81 Fleet Street, designed by CJ Dawson and HW Allardyce, is also at risk.Other losses include an early 20th century office building at 36-38 Whitefriars Street and No 35 Whitefriars Street, a Queen Anne-style pub designed in 1895 and now the Hack and Hop.Another influential conservation body, the Twentieth Century Society, also opposes the scheme, in particular Chronicle House and Barclays Bank, which it says are ‘elegant and well-detailed early 20th-century buildings designed by prestigious architects.’The scheme also involves the demolition of the Brutalist 1964 Fleetbank House close to the Royal Courts of Justice, a redevelopment Historic England said would be ‘welcome in principle’.The proposed court complex is planned to complete in 2025 and to deliver a ‘modern, operationally effective, resilient, compliant and sustainable’ judicial centre, focusing on civil work, fraud, economic crime and cybercrime.The new police HQ includes high-specification offices, laboratories, a firearms range, vehicle parking, reception, custodial suite and conferencing facilities.This ‘robust’ building, with its steel external structure, will create 10 storeys of flexible space for about 1,000 officers and civilian staff, with three basement levels housing specialist spaces and access for police vehicles.It is understood Eric Parry’s scheme was selected ahead of proposals by Bennetts Associates, AHMM, HawkinsBrown, Allies and Morrison, and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to land the project in early 2019.A City of London Corporation spokesperson said: ‘Elected Members will consider this application at a special sub-committee of the Planning and Transportation Committee on Thursday 22 April.’