Acme’s replacement scheme for Herzog & de Meuron proposal was first unveiled last November
Network Rail will submit plans for its revised plans to redevelop Liverpool Street station in the next few weeks, Building understands.
A planning application for the £1bn project will be submitted to the City of London in April after Network Rail first unveiled its new plans to build an office tower above the UK’s busiest train station last November, replacing previous lead architect Herzog & de Meuron with Acme and dropping Sellar as development partner.
The transport operator had hoped the revised proposal would be submitted by January this year.
It is likely that it will take City planning officers several months to validate the new application before making it publicly available due to the size and complexity of the scheme.
Sellar and Herzog & de Meuron’s radically different proposals were submitted in May 2023 but took more than five months to appear on the council’s planning portal.
> Also read: ‘We hope to be a good neighbour’: how the new Liverpool Street station team is rethinking London’s most controversial project
The scheme’s complexity is due to the need to balance multiple transport modes, including overground rail, underground and the Elizabeth Line as well as the heritage aspects of the station’s grade II-listed train shed.
The previous application was scrapped after amassing more than 2,200 objections from members of the public, campaign groups, leading built environment figures and celebrities as part of a backlash against the scheme’s perceived harm on the Victorian building.
The Victorian Society, which led the campaign against the plans, has maintained its opposition to Acme’s new proposals despite efforts by the practice to create a more heritage-focused scheme which preserves more of the station’s character.
Under plans unveiled last autumn, a 21-storey office development would be built above the main station building, requiring large parts of the roof of a 1980s extension to the train shed to be demolished.
The concourse areas would also be reconfigured, moving retail areas which currently block views through the train shed to the side of the building and creating a pedestrian route through the entire building from Liverpool Street to Exchange Square.
The grade II*-listed former Great Eastern Hotel which adjoins the site, which would have been transformed into concourse and commercial space under the previous plans, would not be included in Acme’s new plans.
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