Refurbishment favoured over skyscrapers, London City planners say

"The development is moving toward refurbishments of older buildings and, after the current cluster of skyscrapers, we will not see new ones planned," Peter Rees, the City of London's chief planning officer told the Independent.

Over the last 25 years London's skyline has grown, with planners allowing large clusters of skyscrapers to be built in the Square Mile. However, in a new era for London, large scale refurbishment is set to take precedence over new developments.

A rapid building programme has been necessary over the last 25 years to replace post-war developments from the 1950s -1970s. However, from 1986 onwards, "the buildings have perfectly good floor plates and allow for complete redevelopment into modern, sustainable offices," the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Michael Bear said.

Refurbishment of many buildings has not been an option in the past due to their poor build quality and their lack of adaptability to modern requirements. Planners have said that this is now a thing of the past.

"We are now in a much better position, in that the buildings from the 1980s and 1990s are much more adaptable to today's office requirements than those from the 1950s, Sixties and Seventies," Rees said.

Another reason for the shift in emphasis is a lack of finance to fund large-scale construction projects. Tower buildings take a long time to build and are costly for developers.

In an example of the new trend, US pension fund TIAA-CREF has a large scale refurbishment planned of One Angel Court. The refurbishment will increase the available floor space by more than 50%, to 300,000 square feet.

"The new phase is refurbishment. But it is refurbishment with attitude – the stripping of an old building to its core and creating a brand new, economically relevant building," Bear said.