{"id":144726,"date":"2025-09-18T04:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T04:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/144726\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T04:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T04:40:12","slug":"hta-gets-ok-to-replace-elephant-and-castle-90s-office-with-student-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/144726\/","title":{"rendered":"HTA gets OK to replace Elephant and Castle 90s office with student housing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Southwark Council\u2019s planning committee unanimously approved the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/hta-design-named-aj100-practice-of-the-year\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AJ100 Practice of the Year\u2019s<\/a> plans last week (10 September).<\/p>\n<p>The scheme, for developer London &amp; Regional, proposes four connected buildings as high as 31 storeys, containing 243 affordable homes and 1,430 student beds. Under plans submitted to Southwark Council at the end of 2024, the vacant seven-storey office building on the site, Skipton House, will be demolished.<\/p>\n<p>HTA\u2019s scheme only retains Skipton House\u2019s basement. Its four new buildings on a site will be bounded by Ontario Street, London Road and Newington Causeway. Affordable homes are located to the south, and student beds to the north. Office, retail and medical are spread across the ground floor.<\/p>\n<p>As part of landscaping improvements, the scheme would create a public square next door to Elephant and Castle\u2019s Bakerloo Line station entrance and opposite Elephant and Castle roundabout.<\/p>\n<p>Planning officers had recommended the scheme for approval. However, councillors debated the \u2018high concentration\u2019 of student accommodation either built or on the way at Elephant and Castle, and whether or not this was deliverable in the current market.<\/p>\n<p>One councillor said they welcomed the move away from an office-led scheme, approved in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Southwark had previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/piercy-company-gets-go-ahead-elephant-castle-90s-office-overhaul\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">granted planning<\/a> in 2020 for a Piercy &amp; Company redevelopment, which would have added six floors while part-retrofitting the Skipton House\u2019s existing structure.<\/p>\n<p>Before that, Southwark had resolved to grant permission for a wider redevelopment project in 2016 designed by SOM, which included Skipton House and neighbouring plots. The proposed buildings ranged in height from eight to 40 storeys.<\/p>\n<p>In planning documents, HTA said that neither the SOM nor Piercy &amp; Company schemes had proved viable, nor had they delivered the same public-realm improvements and affordable homes.<\/p>\n<p>Skipton House was designed by Aukett for a Japanese bank, and has been empty since 2022. London &amp; Regional bought the building in 2001.<\/p>\n<p>The developer is understood to have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/piercy-co-reveals-fresh-elephant-and-castle-plans-after-som-skyscrapers-dropped\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rethought the SOM scheme<\/a>\u00a0after failing to buy two buildings required for that scheme: South Bank University\u2019s Perry Library and Keyworth Street Hostel for homeless people.<\/p>\n<p>There is currently no timeline for development.<\/p>\n<p>Current site view<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southwark Council\u2019s planning committee unanimously approved the AJ100 Practice of the Year\u2019s plans last week (10 September). The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-144726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}