Developers to unveil plans for Middlesex Hospital site that has lain empty since recession

Published: 23 June 2011
by TOM FOOT

THIS is the striking lunar-like crater in the heart of Fitzrovia, seen from the air for the first time.

Left like this for three years, the three-acre wasteland, barren and featureless, is where the Middlesex Hospital, in Cleveland Street, once stood. The only survivor from the day the wrecking ball came is a small chapel, a listed building.

New proposals for the site, seen by some as a monument to the recession, will finally be unveiled next week. Developers are calling it “one of the most important developments in central London”.

A consortium of Icelandic bank Kaupthing, Aviva Investments and asset management company Exemplar will display early plans for a mix of homes, shops, education and medical facilities and “publicly open space”.

The pre-application plans contain fewer affordable homes than the former “NoHo Square” project, which collapsed in the wake of the 2008 banking crash.

A spokesman for Exemplar told the New Journal the latest development would have “somewhere in the region of 250 private and 57 affordable homes”.

In June 2006, a Guernsey-based consortium of Kaupthing, the Candy brothers’ CPC Group and Richard Caring bought the site from University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust for £175million.

The original plans, later approved by Westminster Council’s planning department amid a storm of protest, proposed 191 private flats and 82 marked as “affordable”.

Max Neufeld, secretary of Charlotte Street Association, said of the consortium behind the new plans: “They are in quite a hurry. They want to start building in January next year and apply for planning permission in August, for approval in December.

“One of the problems is that government policy has changed and they no longer give housing grants. It means the gap that has to be funded by the developer is bigger. So they argue ‘viability’. 

“But the economics have changed dramatically in their favour. They are paying £50million less for the site. The property market has gone up significantly and construction costs are lower. There’s a lot of fat in that scheme.”

The Candy scheme was for a development nine storeys tall while Westminster Council’s planning brief limits heights to six storeys – but Mr Neufeld says the new designs are taller than that.

Campaigners originally planned to create the world’s largest allotment on the hospital site, but the deal for 800 plots was scrapped.

Under the new plans, there will be 320,000sq ft of offices and 20,000sq ft of shops and restaurants. All Souls primary school, in Foley Street, will be invited to rent space in the development, which could also house a health centre.

Mark Younger, development partner of Exemplar, added: “We are extremely excited to be able to present our initial concepts to the community and to listen to their views.”

The designs go on display at the site from Monday until Friday, July 1, from 3pm to 7pm and on Saturday, July 2, from 10am to 1pm.