Decision dates loom for contentious Bishopsgate Goodsyard mega-project

A trio of key decisions over the next month could finally seal the future of the Bishopsgate Goodsyard in Shoreditch – a decade after proposals for the site first emergedNext week both Tower Hamlets and Hackney councils will give their views on the major proposals – the City fringe plot straddles the boundary between the local authorities – followed by a final ruling from London mayor Sadiq Khan in early November.The latest office and housing-led scheme has been masterplanned by FaulknerBrowns. It features 500 homes and 130,000m² of workspace, with buildings by BuckleyGrayYeoman, Eric Parry Architects and Chris Dyson Architects as well as several by FaulknerBrowns itself and public realm by Spacehub.Although neither council’s conclusions will have statutory force, their views will form a key part of the Greater London Authority (GLA) report which will go to the mayor.The 4.2ha site, a former railway goods yard, has had a long and tortuous planning history. This began in earnest in 2010 when Farrells was asked to produce a planning guidance document for 2,000 homes for the scheme’s joint developers Ballymore Group and Hammerson.Both Tower Hamlets and Hackney were strongly opposed to the original masterplan, submitted in 2014, citing the low amount of affordable housing and fears that the proposed cluster of skyscrapers – which included towers designed by PLP Architecture up to 46 storeys tall – would loom over neighbouring Spitalfields.Those plans contained just 15 per cent affordable housing out of 1,400 proposed homes.In April 2016, Khan’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, was set to throw out the application on the advice of his planning advisers. This would have been the first time he would have rejected a proposal having taken over as planning authority.Johnson, however, deferred the hearing to allow the developers ‘to address the concerns’ raised by the GLA’s planning officers, prompting Ballymore and Hammerson to go back to the drawing board.The team returned in 2018, having lowered the scheme’s height by ditching PLP’s proposed row of skyscrapers. The scheme’s 500 homes contain 50 per cent affordable housing.Although the changes addressed many of the concerns raised by objectors to the earlier scheme, there remains strong opposition from campaign group Reclaim the Goodsyard which claims it is endorsed by numerous residents associations.