The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
Gove’s move, which was partly prompted by policy relating to climate change, means the highly controversial project will be examined by an independent planning inspector, who will consider all of the evidence for and against the scheme and will then prepare a report and recommendation for the government.
The communities secretary opted to launch a public inquiry after being urged to do so in a letter organised by the AJ and SAVE Britain’s Heritage last month and signed by leading figures in the worlds of architecture, property, heritage and the arts.
Since being granted planning by the then Conservative-run Westminster City Council last November, the proposal by M&S to flatten its flagship 1929 Art Deco store and replace it with a much larger 10-storey retail and office block designed by Pilbrow + Partners has become a focal point of AJ's RetroFirst campaign for reuse of existing buildings and has received extensive national media coverage.
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SAVE Britain’s Heritage director Henrietta Billings called Gove’s decision to launch a public inquiry ‘great news’.
She added: ‘[We believe] there’s no need to demolish this historic M&S building. Through our campaign, we’ve shown that with a comprehensive retrofit, this building can continue to serve as a landmark on Oxford Street for the next 100 years.'
AJ managing editor Will Hurst added: ‘To combat global warming, we urgently need to halt unnecessary demolition and revitalise buildings instead, especially historic and well-liked structures such as M&S Oxford Street.
‘A public inquiry is exactly what’s needed. It will be able to weigh up the carbon calculations put forward by both sides and can also examine other important matters such as the project’s impact on this vital part of the West End and its mix of uses.’
A decision letter sent to Westminster planners by officials at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) says Gove is particularly keen to find out more about the following:
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- The extent to which the proposed development is consistent with government policies for conserving and enhancing the historic environment in national planning policy (NPPF Chapter 14 [which covers climate change])
- The extent to which the proposed development is consistent with the development plan for the area
- any other matters the inspector considers relevant
Responding to the call-in, a spokesperson for M&S said the retailer was 'bewildered and disappointed at Michael Gove’s baseless decision', branding it 'political grandstanding' and raising concerns that the move would have 'a chilling affect for regeneration programmes' across the country (see full statement below).
Gove had initially halted the project in April through an order known as an Article 31 holding direction, which gave his department time to consider whether or not to formally call in the proposal.
At last year’s Tory Party conference, he spoke of the problem of embodied carbon in building materials such as steel and concrete, while one of his first major planning decisions as communities secretary was to reject Foster + Partners’ Tulip Tower in London, partly on the grounds of its high embodied carbon impact.
The plan to demolish and rebuild M&S Oxford Street comes with an upfront cost of almost 40,000 tonnes of Co2 – the equivalent of driving a typical car 99 million miles, further than the distance to the Sun.
A highly critical report by architect and net zero expert Simon Sturgis, commissioned by SAVE Britain's Heritage and first revealed by the AJ in January, argued that the scheme was incompatible with both local and national planning policy.
Following Westminster’s approval, London mayor Sadiq Khan initially gave the project the green light but was then forced to review this decision after the GLA admitted that it had not considered the report from Sturgis – who co-authored the whole-life carbon section of the London Plan – despite being sent it several times in advance.
Nevertheless, Khan decided once more not to intervene, arguing that the scheme was compatible with the London Plan, despite its new policies to promote whole-life carbon and the circular economy.
Councillor Geoff Barraclough, Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Development at Westminster City Council, said: 'The council is serious about reducing the environmental impact of new development by emphasising the benefits of retrofitting over demolition.
'The M&S proposal has major implications in sustainability terms, and we are pleased that the Government has called-in the application so that all the issues raised by this case can be rigorously tested.'
Pilbrow & Partners declined to comment.
Source:Shutterstock Ana Moskvina
Existing M&S building at Marble Arch
Comments
Sacha Berendji, group property, store development and technology director at M&S
After two years of working with Westminster City Council, the GLA and the local business and resident community which has supported the development at every stage, we are bewildered and disappointed at Michael Gove’s baseless decision to call in the proposed redevelopment of our Marble Arch site.
The Secretary of State has blocked the only retail-led regeneration in the whole of Oxford Street in a building which was refused listed status due to its low design quality and, while safe, cannot be modernised through refitting as it’s three separate buildings containing asbestos. Twenty per cent of units on Oxford Street lay vacant and the Secretary of State appears to prefer a proliferation of stores hawking counterfeit goods to a gold-standard retail-led regeneration of the nation’s favourite high street.
Gove appears to prefer a proliferation of stores hawking counterfeit goods to a gold-standard retail-led regeneration
All the while this political grandstanding goes on we cannot get on with creating a better place to shop for our customers, a better place to work for our colleagues, and a better public realm for the community in a store that would use less than a quarter of the energy required by the existing buildings. Indeed an independent assessment of the building’s carbon impact across its whole lifecycle concluded that the new build offered significant sustainability advantages over a refurbishment and, on completion, will be amongst the top 10% performing buildings in London.
For a government purportedly focussed on the levelling up agenda, calling in this significant investment in one of our most iconic shopping locations will have a chilling affect for regeneration programmes across the country at a time when many town centres are being left behind and the property market is ever more precarious.
Simon Sturgis of Targeting Zero
I welcome a public inquiry. It will give the opportunity to not only examine in detail the most carbon efficient options for the M&S site, but also to make plain the policies of Westminster City Council, the GLA and the government with respect to development and what needs to be done to meet the government's net zero carbon targets.
Nicholas Boys Smith of Create Streets
Well done to the Government and Michael Gove for calling this in and well done to the team who have sincerely and with great moral purpose led the campaign on this. In the early 1970s there was a great 'reset' in the harm that landowners and developers could do to our built environment. There may be another such moment coming.
Meanwhile, what a sadly intemperate response from Marks & Spencer. It’s a great shame that they have gone into 'horns out and shout' mode. They and their advisors have profoundly mis-read the direction of travel in the public debate on sustainability and place-making. They need to press 'reset'. Their strategy for the site is wrong on every level: making Oxford Street worse, destroying a beautiful historic building, not providing new homes and wasting oodles of embodied carbon in the process. It’s time for a rethink.
Lord Deben, chair of the Climate Change Committee
This is a real chance to move to restoration and renewal of the built environment instead of the demolition that the climate emergency makes increasingly unaffordable.
Dee Corsi, chief executive at New West End Company
Securing a bright and prosperous future for Oxford Street requires high levels of investment and development. It is vital that the council and businesses redouble efforts to work together to deliver the long-awaited public realm investment, and ensure progressive planning and licencing policies are in place to enable businesses to respond to changing customer trends, by delivering innovative and future proof buildings that are fit for purpose for a revived, dynamic high street.
Darren Price, director, ADAM Architecture
Sending this scheme to a public inquiry is absolutely the right decision for Michael Gove, the Communities Secretary, to be taking. He cannot on the one hand be encouraging us all to respond to the climate emergency and then, on the other, be allowing the proposal for demolition of an iconic, landmark building such as this in an especially sensitive environment to sail through the planning process.
Demolition should only be an absolute last resort
We need to think universally about how we bring older buildings back to life and act accordingly. Retrofit and refurbishment should definitely be preferred options and demolition only an absolute last resort. We are aligned totally with the AJ RetroFirst campaign.
Planners, developers, architects and the whole construction sector should be taking far greater and joint responsibility not only in addressing the negative carbon impacts of what we design and build, but also how we build, and in this case what we allow to be demolished, or not.
Literally unbelievable. So it’s NOT ok to demolish uninteresting commercial blocks decades old for climate change reasons, but it IS ok to demolish a far bigger, far newer building at 120 Fleet Street to engulf the Daily Express bldg in a shallow simulcra of itself?? Bad cases make bad law.
Just two examples (among many) that demolish buildings to make way for new developments not far from Oxford Street:
1) The Earnshaw by Apt that has already replaced a mid-20th century building (https://www.dmag.com/projects/castlewood-house/)
2) 247 Tottenham Court Road by Stiff + Trevillion that is demolishing a block of buildings close to 60 years old (https://247tottenhamcourtroad.co.uk)
Has there been a public inquiry before the schemes achieved planning consent? No, because they are considered ‘unfit for modern requirements’ and of no historic interest. People who argue for the sake of climate change should perhaps be really ‘serious’ to also make calls for protecting those buildings even they might be the post-war buildings that were often built in poor quality?!
But for the ones who cared more about heritage, perhaps they would be happy if the facades of original buildings are retained?