A Shard challenger and a green 'testicle': A busy week for London's skyline
Plus: a mayoral grilling, Tube fares to rise, and the horror of central London in December
Afternoon — two big projects that will have a noticeable impact on London’s skyline were given the green light this past week. First is One Undershaft, a huge skyscraper that will rival the Shard as the capital’s tallest building. Second is a green makeover of the former City Hall building, which has been empty ever since London’s politicians moved to a new digs. All the details lead your round-up below.
Plus: a mayoral grilling, Tube fares to rise, and the horrors of central London in December.
In case you missed it: on Saturday we published an investigation into why drug deaths are rising in London. Those researching the capital’s drug supply have told us about rapid changes in the market that are catching people off guard — new synthetic opioids, extra pure cocaine. And we also revealed that the Met Police is resisting an idea experts say could easily save lives: equipping frontline officers with a life-saving medicine to treat drug overdoses.
What we've spied
🏗️ One Undershaft, a skyscraper as tall as the Shard, has been approved by the City of London Corporation. It’s the final planning hurdle for the 74-storey behemoth, which will now be built between the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater once the existing Aviva Tower at the site is demolished. One Undershaft will mostly contain office space, but it also features a public garden on the 11th floor as well as a London Museum education centre. It will stand at the maximum building height permitted in the capital — 309.6 metres — which is the same as the Shard. Shravan Joshi, chair of the City’s planning committee, described One Undershaft as a “truly remarkable building”, while architect Eric Parry, whose practice drew up the plans, said: “Tall buildings can generate huge amounts of value in our cities”. But not everyone’s pleased — culture writer Wessie Due Toit has penned an essay for UnHerd in which he calls the skyscraper “a soulless addition to London’s skyline”. He writes:
Its shape is essentially that of four boxes stacked on top of each other, dutifully performing the basic function of a skyscraper: to maximise the floor space — and thus the returns to the developer — from a given piece of land. This sober profile (modest would be going too far) is the most striking thing about 1 Undershaft. It appears to signal the end of the playful skyscraper in London. Over the last 30 years, the city’s skyline has become littered with flamboyant shapes bearing familiar nicknames: the gherkin, the eye, the walkie-talkie, the electric razor, the cheese grater, the Shard. With Parry’s contribution, no such morphological metaphors spring to mind. It looks like something you might find in a data centre.
Meanwhile, plans to green-ify the former City Hall building near Tower Bridge were also approved this past week. The oval building once housed the mayor’s office — Ken Livington compared it to a “glass testicle”, then Boris Johnson called it a “glass gonad” — but it’s been empty since Sadiq Khan relocated the Greater London Authority to a new building in the Royal Docks in Newham. Last Tuesday Southwark council gave the go-ahead to a plan to turn the building into a mixed development of offices, restaurants and shops. Its glass facade is going to be demolished and replaced with planted balconies.
❓ Speaking of City Hall: everyone's favourite mayoral heckling event, People's Question Time, took place in south London on Thursday. The biannual Q&A sesh with Sadiq Khan, London Assembly members and the public was held in the Battersea Arts Centre in Wandsworth — a choice of venue that was kept secret until a few days beforehand over fears the event could be disrupted by protestors, like on previous occasions. "We don't want heckling, we also don't want rambling," was how chair Leonie Cooper AM kicked off proceedings, while also reminding attendees there was muscle in the room ready to chuck out anyone causing a fuss. But the first hour and a half went smoothly enough — Khan took questions on topics ranging from bus gridlock in Putney to cuts to Met Police officer numbers. It got a little more heated when the topic moved on to air quality — someone stood up to say Khan's climate measures in London were based on "financial penalties" and amounted to "regressive taxation". Khan hit back:
I didn't realise that freezing fares for five years was regressive taxation. I didn't realise quadrupling the amount of cycle lanes for free is regressive taxation, or widening pavement is regressive taxation. Having the largest electric bus fleet in Europe is not regressive taxation. Retrofitting our homes supported by City Hall green finance is not regressive taxation ... Having air quality filters inside schools is not regressive taxation. What we are seeing though is the climate emergency being used as a proxy for a culture war. I resist our health and the planet being used as a proxy for a culture war.
But things took a more chaotic turn when someone stood up to speak about Khan’s rumoured knighthood. “How can anyone afford to live in London anymore?” they began, citing council tax rises, the expansion of ULEZ and charges for the Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels. Then they said: "Nearly 200,000 people have signed my petition to block you getting your knighthood. Do you admit you're actually just a knight-mare?" After cheers from some in the audience, Khan pointed out that the person speaking wasn’t any old member of the public but a Tory councillor in Harrow, Matthew Goodwin-Freeman, and laughed the question off. But it wouldn’t have been a People’s Question Time without someone being ejected — towards the end of the event, security stepped in to remove a man who repeatedly shouted Khan was demonising ‘peaceful protestors’. If you have a spare two hours to kill over Christmas, you can watch the full People's Question Time on YouTube here — the stream starts around 15 mins in.
🚇 In a somewhat cynical move, the mayor waited until the day after his public grilling to announce that Tube fares would be increasing by an average of 4.6% from March. Emphasis on 'average' — some journeys are increasing by more and some by less than 4.6%, due to TfL needing to round prices. Some examples:
A pay-as-you-go fare in Zone 1 is rising from £2.80 to £2.90 (up 10p or 3.6%)
The daily cap for travel in only Zones 1 and 2 is rising from £8.50 to £8.90 (40p or 4.7%)
The daily cap for Zones 1 and 3 is rising from £10 to £10.50 (50p or 5%)
One last bit of number crunching: someone who typically hits the Zones 1 and 2 daily cap three times a week will be paying an extra £62.40 in Tube fares a year, according to our own maths. It's an inflation-busting increase for pretty much all journeys, but Sadiq Khan also says he had no choice, after he was told he had to match a UK-wide hike in rail fares announced by Rachel Reeves in her October Budget. Ministers told Khan that he’d have to follow suit if he wanted funding to progress TfL's major infrastructure projects. Khan's record is still mostly one of fare freezes — TfL fares have increased by 26% since he first entered office in 2016, versus an increase of 42% over the eight years Boris Johnson was mayor. On the plus side, the bus hopper fare is being kept frozen at £1.75. Khan teamed up with a beloved TikTok celeb to announce the bus fare freeze.
🚂 Some other London transport bits: the big screen in Euston station is now starting to show actual travel info instead of giant adverts, following backlash a few months ago; Kentish Town Tube station is re-opening on December 23 after 18 months of repair works; and TfL ticket inspectors voted to go on strike this past week over their wages.
🍳 The iconic Regency Cafe in Pimlico has been listed for sale for £170,000. The traditional caff popped up on Rightmove last week, leading to concerns it might fall foul of property developers and be lost forever. However, Westminster council, the cafe's landlord, has sought to reassure patrons that Regency will stay as a cafe after the sale. "The Regency Café has been a well loved institution by the local community for over 40 years, and has become an iconic location to visit having been featured in various TV programmes and films such as Layer Cake," said councillor David Boothroyd in a statement to the Standard. "To be clear, we won’t allow the site to be developed into something different as we want to preserve the spirit and heritage this iconic café brings, which aligns with the current owners wishes. As the freeholder and landlord of the Regency café, we have agreed that whoever takes on this site next needs to carry on the tradition of this being a local restaurant or café as the lease is protected as such."
👩⚖️ The bouncer at the centre of gay nightclub Heaven's licensing troubles has pleaded not guilty to a charge of rape. 47-year-old Morenikeji Adewole, who worked security for Heaven, has been accused of raping a woman who had been queuing to get into the club in November. The alleged incident led police and the council to temporarily shut down Heaven, though the club has now re-opened with stricter licensing conditions. Adewole's trial will take place next year. Elsewhere from London's courts: the trial for the murder of Elianne Andam, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was fatally stabbed in Croydon last year, has been taking place at the Old Bailey.
🚨 Six people have been charged with membership of a banned Kurdish nationalist group following recent raids in Haringey. The six were arrested in November after the Met Police launched dawn raids at various addresses in the borough, including at the Kurdish Community Center on Green Lanes, which was then closed for over a week. This prompted multiple nights of clashes between police and activists, who argued the Met’s action was heavy-handed and had violated a community space. The six in question, who were officially charged last Tuesday, stand accused of being members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group banned as a terrorist organisation in the UK that advocates Kurdish self-rule through both political and armed struggle.
🗺️ FROM THE BOROUGHS 🗺️ A big failing from Lambeth's homelessness services came to light this past week — a homeless mother is receiving at least £15,000 in compensation after the council separated her from her two disabled children for over a year and a half. The council placed the mother in a flat with steps and flights of stairs leading to nearly all rooms, meaning her children could not stay. They instead spent close to two years living at a residential school for children with physical and special educational needs. The Housing Ombudsman said it had identified "serious failings" in the way Lambeth council had considered the case — the council acknowledged the findings and, alongside paying compensation, said it would apologise to the mother.
Elsewhere: Kensington & Chelsea council has extended its ban on working with the contractors involved in the Grenfell Tower fire; Hackney council is facing criticism from the borough's displaced Travellers after failing to provide promised money for a site; and Haringey council has voted through big cuts to the borough's libraries.
👮♀️ LONDON'S FINEST 👮♀️ Armed officers who arrested, handcuffed and searched a 13-year-old boy carrying a water pistol in Hackney have been cleared by the police watchdog. The Independent Office for Police Conduct said the actions of the marksmen last summer were "reasonable in the circumstances," because they'd mistaken the water pistol for a real gun. The boy, who is black, was rammed off his bike by a police van during the incident and suffered soft-tissue injuries. The Met has since apologised to the family, and in a statement reacting to the IOPC's ruling on Friday the force's head of policing in Hackney, Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway, said: “At the time there was very real concern a genuine firearm had been seen. Officers acted swiftly to deal with the potential threat, but then de-arrested the child as soon as it became clear he had been playing earlier with a water pistol". Elsewhere for the Met: the force's civilian staff have voted to go on strike, after being told they have to stop working from home.
🔍 And finally, we leave you with:
Someone sat on a moped on a crowded commuter train at London Bridge (X)
Syrians gathering in Piccadilly Circus to celebrate the fall of Assad's regime (YouTube)
Someone wondering if they've lived in Hackney Wick for too long (TikTok)
Chaotic driving at Clapham Junction (TikTok)
Why students are being priced out of studying in London (Financial Times £)
A guide to what may be one of the last Smithfield Christmas meat auctions (Londonist)
Watching people in London being ripped off from the sky (TikTok)
Why Bimini loves London (TikTok)
A mad ‘$20 trillion’ idea to build a tunnel between London and New York (CNN)