Let Liverpool Street Station live

Heritage sector unites to fight unwanted £1.5bn station redevelopment

Despite huge opposition, redevelopment plans involving a multi-storey office tower continue to threaten London’s busiest railway station and its protected historic setting. 

A new planning application has emerged from Network Rail and Acme architects that SAVE and a coalition of heritage groups are fiercely fighting. It’s a crass and unsustainable proposal that would render the station and its surroundings virtually unrecognisable and significantly reduce the daylight which currently floods its cathedral-like interiors. 

The plans involve demolishing large parts of the much-loved and carefully detailed listed building, including the protected glass concourse. The station, its neighbouring grade II*-listed hotel and the entire surrounding area would be overshadowed by a 21-storey tower, which Network Rail claims is necessary to fund the work. We support accessibility improvements to the station but believe these can be funded without this level of demolition or imposing an overwhelmingly tall building in a conservation area. 

New year, new architect, same threat

This new proposal replaces a previous highly contentious application in 2023 which had the dubious honour of uniting all national heritage organisations against it. SAVE has played a key role in the resistance. So far we have:

• Campaigned to have the station’s listing reassessed. This resulted in a major upgrading in 2022, when the 1985 facsimile concourse was finally protected and the neighbouring Great Eastern Hotel’s status was boosted from grade II to grade II*.
• Helped revive the influential heritage coalition group, Liverpool Street Station Campaign (LISSCA), which successfully halted plans to flatten the station back in 1974.
• Held a public meeting with LISSCA president Griff Rhys Jones to raise awareness of the plans and inform the public on how to formally object.
• Helped drum up a huge amount of national press about the previous plans, which involved demolishing parts of the original Victorian interiors, removing the glass concourse entirely and building an office tower over the top of the station, completely blocking out any natural light. These plans resulted in 28,000+ petition signatures and over 2,200 objections in just two months – including from Westminster council and Historic England – and resulted in Network Rail dropping the scheme and its architects.

This isn’t the first time SAVE has stepped in to fight off misguided plans for Liverpool Street Station. Back in 1974, LISSCA, then led by the poet John Betjeman, successfully fought off demolition plans, which were replaced with a skilful and highly influential conservation-led approach that is now under threat.

Network Rail are pursuing the new proposals despite repeating several of the major errors that caused such widespread controversy last time round. They claim the development will fund the station upgrades, yet they’ve declined to provide any costings or viability information. The level of harm to the station, streetscape and protected historic surroundings remains unjustified. We urge them to re-think their approach.