Please read this article in The Times by Richard Morrison, Friday 6 May 2022

What on earth were Lambeth’s councillors thinking when they approved the grotesque Upper Ground building next to the Thames?

Last month I wrote about how politicians across the world are starting to subscribe to the philosophy that new buildings should have “beauty”. Our own government has even enshrined the word in planning legislation for the first time.

There will always be debate about what constitutes beauty — but I defy anyone to claim it for a proposed office building known as 72 Upper Ground. Lambeth council has just approved this huge edifice (although there could still be a planning inquiry). It would dominate the south bank of the Thames, sitting right opposite historic Somerset House and almost adjacent to the National Theatre. In other words, plonked on one of London’s most high-profile sites, which millions walk past every year.

In two words, it’s grotesque. Designed by Make Architects, it seems to mimic the horizontal lines and blocks of Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre, but at four times the size, more than twice the height and reworked as bland glass towers that seem to perch on each other like badly stacked Lego bricks.

You could argue that it’s no more of an eyesore than the rash of overbearing residential towers that have been allowed to besmirch the south bank of the Thames a few miles further west in Vauxhall and Battersea. They, however, are in less prominent areas of the capital. This new building is on the central London river path connecting the Southbank Centre, British Film Institute, National Theatre, Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe — a magnet for tourists attracted to London’s cultural riches.

What were the councillors on Lambeth’s planning committee thinking of, when they voted six to one to approve it? How on earth did Ben Oates, Lambeth’s principal planning officer, reach the conclusion that “the public benefits of the proposal outweigh the low degree of less than substantial harm to designated heritage assets”? What public benefits?

Being a charitable soul, I can only conclude that Lambeth’s councillors, responsible for running one of London’s poorer boroughs, were swayed by the claim from the developer, Mitsubishi Estate, that the scheme would deliver 4,000 jobs. Even if it does, however, and even if those jobs go to Lambeth residents (two big ifs), how does that excuse the crass charmlessness of the architecture?

I can understand why Mitsubishi wants to pack as much office space as it can into a site that it bought (from ITV in November 2019) for £145 million. What I can’t understand is why it is being allowed to do so, when the result so blatantly contravenes all the aesthetic considerations the government says it supports — and right in the heart of the capital city too.

“Preventing ugliness should be a primary purpose of the planning system,” the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission declared in 2020. If that’s the case, Michael Gove, the communities secretary, should set up an inquiry immediately to discover how this monstrosity got through.

@RichmoMusic

Please help us to keep up the momentum by writing to Sadiq Khan, London Mayor at mayor@london.gov.uk asking him to 'call in' this planning application which was approved by Lambeth Council.