Dear supporters,

I wanted to share with you the content of an article recently published in the Telegraph.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Jim

 ‘They’re fat slabs that knock out the daylight’: The local communities taking on high-rises 

Jim Monahan has been fighting ‘alienating’ skyscrapers for half a century, but he says developers have stopped listening to campaigners 

By Anna Tyzack1 July 2024 • 2:29pm 

Jim Monahan has been campaigning against high-rises for 50 years CREDIT: Christopher Pledger 

If it wasn’t for people such as Jim Monahan, the skylines of Britain’s largest cities would look rather different. For the past 50 years he’s been campaigning against high-rise development that he believes sterilises streetscapes and alienates local communities. In the 1970s, as a young architect, he was part of a successful petition to stop a “mad scheme” to replace Piccadilly Circus and much of Soho with office blocks and since then he’s lost count of the number of community action groups he’s supported. His latest is “Save Museum Street”, a petition to halt the creation of a 74m office skyscraper near the British Museum between Bloomsbury and Covent Garden. “We rarely stop developers in their tracks but we do get them to alter their plans,” he explains. “My particular skill is drawing up alternative designs to show them how they can make better use of the local assets.” 

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We’re standing at the site of the proposed tower; a derelict corner of the West End where the only viable business is an umbrella shop. Developers want to create a new “quarter”, transforming a seedy former Travelodge (a tower block which already seems crazily large compared to the surrounding low-rise buildings) into a 19-storey office skyscraper four times the width. They also plan to bulldoze down a Georgian 

stable yard, which is attached to a parade of listed Georgian houses, to create another smaller tower containing shops and housing. Monahan has drawn up an alternative scheme, which proposes giving the current tower a facelift and transforming it into housing, offices and shops and restoring the Georgian stable yard into business units, potentially for those linked to local theatres. 

Developers want to create a new "quarter" near London's British Museum, transforming a seedy former Travelodge (pictured) into a 19-storey office skyscraper four times the width CREDIT: Christopher Pledger 

His plan would cost a fraction of the proposed One Museum Street scheme and save 65,000 tonnes of carbon and yet Camden Council isn’t interested. Despite more than 500 letters of objection from local landowners and groups including Historic England and the Georgian Group, developers have been given One Museum Street the green light. 

Monahan, a father of five, is battle weary. “It used to be easier to convince developers and councils that a huge tower wasn’t right for the community”, he says. “But land values are so high that they’ve become skyscraper obsessed.” “They don’t listen anymore,” he tells me, as he straightens one of the campaign posters tied to trees that will be lost during construction. 

The proposed skyscraper at One Museum Street will loom large over listed Georgian buildings CREDIT: Londonstills.com/Alamy 

Meanwhile, the younger generation is sitting back and watching their skyline fill up with high-rise buildings. “In the 60s right up until the 80s, there was a sense that you could change society but cynicism has crept in,” he says. “People feel powerless and do nothing. It’s depressing.” 

He’s just back from a short break to northern France to recharge and is now rolling up his sleeves for a last-ditch attempt to stop the tower being built – a judicial review in the High Court in July where Camden Council will have to justify its decision. “If we’re successful, it’ll cause serious delays, which will hurt the developer,” he says. “It’ll be an opportunity to sit down with them and say, ‘let’s work together rather than fighting’.” 

He’ll be representing the campaign group in court as he’s “poor enough” that only a small amount of costs can be awarded against him; he lives off a small pension in a rented housing association apartment around the corner. He’s only half optimistic he’ll get anywhere, though; he says the local authorities used to like working with communities on development schemes but these days they believe the only way they can boost their depleted kitties is by allowing high rise developments from developers with deep pockets. (Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990 says that local authorities can set certain conditions or financial contributions for developers in order to gain planning permission; this can be funds towards new infrastructure or affordable housing.) 

Indeed, in London there are currently 40 tall building clusters or “mini Manhattans” proposed or already springing up from Southall to Streatham and Brent Cross to Barking. 

Meanwhile new skyscrapers are peppering cities such as Leeds, Manchester and Bristol. This is despite the hundreds of campaign groups lobbying councils to consider the needs of the community first, as most of these high-rise projects provide nothing in the way of new schools, doctors, playgrounds or sports amenities. 

According to Michael Ball, a residents’ group campaigner who has fought against high-rise development on London’s South Bank for 25 years (and is currently bringing a judicial review against approval for a contentious scheme of skyscrapers at 72 Upper Ground along the river from the Oxo Building), about 50 per cent of all skyscrapers get through planning simply because there is not the manpower to petition for an alternative. “You can’t fight them all; campaign groups are stretched and it’s expensive to get legal help,” he explains. 

Campaign groups accuse councils of taking payments from developers, paid to the planning department, for a project management framework officially known as Planning Performance Agreement (PPA). Local authorities say this system provides a genuine service that greases the wheels of the planning process. Campaign groups believe that these are sweeteners that get the planners on board. 

Meanwhile developers accuse campaigners such as Ball and Monahan of nimbyism; high rise is the simple solution to Britain’s housing crisis, they say, and these new “quarters” bring iconic architecture and new business to an area. The report, London’s Growing Up: A Decade of Building Tall, attributes the rapid change to the capital’s formerly low-rise skyline to “burgeoning demand for office and residential space, overseas investment and a supportive planning environment”. It’s easy to see why Camden Council might be beguiled by a shiny new scheme on the wasteland that is currently Museum Street – better, surely, to reinvent it with shops, offices and houses than do nothing? The developer argues that it has listened to the locals and heritage associations, reducing the height of the tower block by six metres, adding more housing to the scheme and improving the pedestrian experience. 

Yet Monahan insists their response is patronising. “It’s a bit like saying, yes we have listened; we will not cut off your arm but we are still cutting off your head,” he says. “The building is still 20 metres higher than the existing [tower] and twice the bulk.” Nimbyism isn’t the issue here, he says. The Save Museum Street campaign group is desperate as the developers for the area to be developed. The same goes for Ball’s Waterloo Community Development Group, which is petitioning against 72 Upper Ground, nicknamed “The Slab”. Locals want to see development but not, as Ball puts it, “swollen deformities”. “Bring it on – just don’t build a gargantuan office tower,” Monahan agrees. “It’s not nimbyism to campaign for something better. There are only six social houses included in the Museum Street scheme and yet it’s 70 per cent of the height of Centre Point. It will add nothing to the community.” 

Campaigner Jim Monahan says councils and developers have become increasingly 'skyscraper obsessed' CREDIT: Christopher Pledger 

In Bristol, campaign group the Bristol Civic Society, is fed up with being told by developers that tall buildings are the only answer to the housing crisis. Two high-rise student accommodation towers are planned (one at 28 storeys), metres away from Bristol’s oldest building, St James’s Priory, and there are three further 25-storey-plus residential towers in the offing as well as several measuring around 15 storeys. The Civic Society deems them “an assault on Bristol”. 

“Calling our protests Nimbyism does a disservice to serious consideration,” says Bristol Civic Society. “We oppose high-rise developments because there’s too little regard for people’s wellbeing, the imperative to cut carbon or the city’s townscape and what makes Bristol special. There are widely accepted medium-rise alternatives for delivering higher densities. 

“Like anybody who cares about Bristol, we want to see more affordable homes, and in numbers that make a difference. But we don’t support cutting corners: in liveability, tackling the climate emergency or in delivering good design.” 

In a survey of residents, 87 per cent said that new homes should primarily be provided in “low and midrise developments”, the group adds. 

It’s the height and width of the new wave of tower blocks that campaign groups find most offensive. Developers will always see how high they can push it – it’s a countrywide problem, according to Ball. He knows of several cases where once planning permission for a skyscraper has been granted, developers sell the site to a different developer, who then applies for an even taller tower. The former Sainsbury’s headquarters at 18 Blackfriars Road in central London has been sold 

with permission for a tower several times now with the value rising from £38 million to £200 million and the proposed building now standing at 200 metres. 

Monahan says: “The taller and wider the tower, the more profitable for the developer yet the greater the sterilising effect on the local community.” He points out an office tower across the road from the proposed Museum Street development called The Post Building, which has a foreboding-looking foyer and serves as offices for Nationwide and McKinsey but offers nothing for the locals. “It got past the planners as a mixed-use scheme for the neighbourhood but look at it – the locals can’t even see where the entrance is,” he says. 

Residential towers are no better, particularly if they offer little in the way of social or affordable housing. According to Ball, only about 12 flats out of 214 are inhabited at the 200m Vauxhall Tower, while there are few lights on at the Boomerang (One Blackfriars) despite there being 200 properties inside. “They’re not homes, they’re commodities with the plastic still on the appliances,” he says. It’s the same in North Acton, where new residential tower blocks add no sense of bustle to the streets, according to local resident, Anna Van Praagh, a journalist. “It’s very likely all these flats are just bought by foreign investors. Which makes you really wonder what’s in it 

'They're not homes, they're commodities with the plastic still on the appliances': says one campaigner about skyscrapers such as One Blackfriars building, which has 200 properties inside CREDIT: Bailey-Cooper Photography/Alamy 

If this new breed of tower wasn’t so enormous, perhaps locals wouldn’t be so resistant but these buildings impact the view and cast shadow on the streets. “They’re fat slabs that knock out the daylight – sometimes by up to 60 per cent – and this is ignored by councils and developers unless you pull them up on it,” Ball says. In 2021, Lambeth Village community group paid £3,000 for a daylight expert witness to review approved plans for the development of the former London Fire Brigade Headquarters into a tower block. The evidence was then presented to the planning inspector at a public inquiry and the development was subsequently refused by the secretary of state. 

It’s for these wins that keep community action groups fighting. While Van Praagh says that community groups near her are completely ignored, seasoned petitioners 

such as Monahan and Ball suggest any neighbourhoods faced with a “fat slab” tower block should form a dedicated campaign group and start writing letters of protest. Even if you only manage to slow down the planning process it can lead to a change of direction – sites get sold on, a new owner might take the locals more seriously. The Waterloo Community Development Group managed to get the height of One Blackfriars reduced by nearly 60m, while in Peckham in South London more than 7,000 campaigners signed Aylesham Community Action’s petition against plans for a 27-storey mega-development; Berkely homes have since withdrew the proposal and are now revising it. 

Whatever the outcome of the Museum Street judicial review, it’s unlikely to be Monahan’s last skirmish on behalf of London’s skyline. “You’ve got to be bonkers to take on the developers but you can’t let them get away with it,” he says. “And it’s never just me. There are always countless others involved. The one joy is the people.” They keep his spirits up, he says – along with his allotment in Acton, which is 20 minutes away from his flat via the Queen Elizabeth Line: “When I’ve lost control of everything around me, I remember Voltaire’s Candide. If you want to stay sane, just tend your cabbages"