Having been the talk of the town for a few years now, plans to redevelop the Wall West site (AKA the former Museum of London and its surrounding area) have recently been approved by The City of London Corporation.
The redevelopment plans involve the demolition of both the former museum and its neighbour, Bastion House. The two buildings (constructed in the 70s by Powell & Moya) will be replaced with two shiny new (and ever-so tall) office blocks.
The proposed plans will include a whopping 56,000 square-metres of office space, a brand new public green space, some fancy elevated walkways, a roof terrace (complete with a pretty impressive views of St Paul’s Cathedral), a street-level public plaza, and a ‘flexible space for cultural use’.
As expected, not everybody is thrilled at the prospect of this redevelopment. There have been a huge number of objections, with many locals raising concerns about the size of the prospective new buildings as well as the sheer amount of carbon emissions that would be released in the process. Others are concerned about the unnecessary demolition of buildings, arguing that renovating old buildings to make use of their emission-intensive materials should always be preferable over getting rid of them completely. The proposal has been significantly tweaked since the original 2021 submission due to the number of complaints that were received.
The controversy of the redevelopment plans has meant that Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, has had to step in. He has issued an ‘Article 31’, which has put the plan on pause until he decides whether to launch a review of the redevelopment. If all goes ahead; the demolition is set to start in 2028, and be completed by 2033. I guess only time will tell.
In the meantime, the Museum of London is currently in the two-year process of packing up all of its objects and moving them over to the new Smithfield site which is set to open in 2026.
Find out more about the prospective redevelopment plans here.