Lambeth’s planning committee granted Vauxhall Square tower approval on 8 September, backing a CoStar-reported £2.25 billion mixed-use scheme designed by Pilbrow and Partners in a four-to-three vote, despite a formal objection from Historic England warning of harm to the Westminster World Heritage Site.
The Vauxhall Square project comprises seven blocks rising from two to 69 storeys, including basements, and will deliver more than 1,000 homes, 1,164 co-living units and 699 student bedrooms alongside a 250-key hotel, offices, shops, a cinema and a play space. According to Yahoo News UK, the development would comprise 1,097 flats in total and is set to include what would be the UK’s second-tallest residential building.
Scale and programme of the consented scheme
The tallest tower, rising to 69 storeys, is earmarked for 500 market-sale homes. A 61-storey sibling structure is slated for build-to-rent units, 120 of which will be offered at affordable rent. A further tower of the same height will hold co-living and co-working space, and a 45-storey block will contain studio student rooms.
On the question of affordable provision, Vauxhall Square Limited has proposed a total contribution of £79.9 million towards the delivery of off-site affordable housing, according to Yahoo News UK. The scheme was submitted last October by developers Bmor, Cedarstone Capital Partners and Cheyne Capital, who describe it as the ‘final and tallest part’ of the Vauxhall, Nine Elms, Battersea (VNEB) cluster.
Lambeth’s planning officers praised the proposals’ ‘high-quality design’, noting that the architectural detailing across the buildings showed an ‘appropriate level of interest and variation’. Their report also highlighted that the use of metal, glass and glass-reinforced concrete cladding created a ‘unified palette while allowing for distinction between individual buildings’. Officers concluded that the proposals would not harm any heritage assets or protected views.
Historic England’s heritage objection and the Vauxhall Square tower approval debate
Historic England took a markedly different position. The government conservation body said that while the proposals ‘appeared to be of high architectural quality’, the towers’ ‘dramatic height’ would affect several protected London sightlines. Its formal response stated: ‘The resulting effect creates a clear sense of visual competition with the architectural pre-eminence and strategic siting of the Palace of Westminster. The harm, both from the proposed development and from its contribution to a growing cumulative harm, would be to a site of the highest importance and would therefore attract the greatest weight.’
That objection was not enough to shift the committee majority. The Vauxhall Square tower approval, secured by the narrowest possible margin, replaces a previous consent held by Allies and Morrison, whose scheme was approved in 2012 and featured towers reaching only 50 storeys. The wider site already contains a student housing block designed by Howells and built in 2018, after part of the land was sold to developer Urbanest.
Developer and architect on local need
Practice founder Fred Pilbrow told the AJ last year that the designs had been ‘shaped by an open and collaborative dialogue with Lambeth, the Greater London Authority and the local community’ and had ‘unlocked this long-blighted site with a scheme tailored to local need’. Bmor founder Jason Tracey said last year that the company was ‘proud to invest in a scheme that brings a stalled site back to life with high-quality homes’, describing the project as its ‘answer to what 21st-century London needs’.
With consent now granted, the next stage will be for the scheme to proceed through the detailed Reserved Matters and discharge-of-condition process before construction can begin on what would, if delivered as consented, become one of the most densely programmed residential-led schemes in London’s ongoing VNEB regeneration arc.
