Thursday 24 September 2026 1:56 pm
The City Corporation welcomed an “outstanding” decision not to block skyscrapers
Ministers have given the greenlight to plans that will allow skyscrapers to be built in the area surrounding the Tower of London, ruling that proposals set out by the City of London corporation will do enough to protect the site’s Unesco status.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said on Thursday he will withdraw his objections to the City Plan, which sets out the Square Mile’s development ambitions until 2040.
The City of London Corporation hailed the decision as an “outstanding result for the City, for London and for the wider UK economy”.
The row over the Tower of London was started in July when Pennycook stalled the City Plan after it had already been approved, asking the planning inspectorate to check whether the presence of future skyscrapers near the historic site would threaten its Unesco world heritage status.
Heritage group Historic England proposed an alternative plan which it said would ensure views of the Tower of London, but the City said this would make skyscrapers unviable.
The alternative plans would block as many as 20 skyscrapers, costing 1m square foot of office space, 6,800 jobs and £1.2bn in economic output every year, a City planning boss had warned.
Nearly 200 of the City’s biggest property developers had written to housing secretary Angela Rayner to urge her to swiftly resolve the row, as revealed by City AM.
This week, a planning inspector concluded that the City Plan would strike a better balance between heritage protection and economic growth than Historic England’s challenger plan.
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Rayner urged to resolve ‘unwelcome’ Tower of London heritage row
Pennycook said on Thursday he was reassured by these findings, telling the planning inspector: “I am satisfied that your findings clearly demonstrate a thorough and considered assessment of the balance involved.”
The City Plan would “provide substantial safeguards to protect the Tower of London World Heritage Site and mitigate the risk of harm to the Tower’s attributes of Outstanding Universal Value,” he conceded.
The City of London Corporation has welcomed the decision, which means the City Plan will still be formally adopted later this year despite the months-long delay.
Chris Hayward, the Corporation’s policy chairman, said: “This is an outstanding result for the City, for London and for the wider UK economy.
“The independent Planning Inspectorate has recognised that it is possible to protect one of our nation’s most important heritage assets while still supporting the growth our country needs.”
Tom Sleigh, chairman of the Corporation’s planning committee, said this decision proves that “there was never a choice” between heritage and economic growth.
“The City was here first. William the Conqueror started his tower in 1078 in the corner of a city already a thousand years old, and the two have grown side by side ever since,” he added.
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