City to intervene in Walkie-Talkie tower scheme
Property Week reports today that the City of London is poised to employ little-used powers to enable the 20 Fenchurch St development – known as the “Walkie-Talkie tower” – to go ahead. It says the City’s planning officer has produced a report calling on the planning committee to invoke section 237 of the Town and Country Planning Act in order to give the development immunity from rights-of-light claims that could otherwise stop its progress.
In order to use this section of the act, the City needs to have an interest in the site – Property Week says one solution to this could be to transfer the freehold to the corporation, which would grant a 999-year lease to the developers, Land Securities and Canary Wharf Group, at a peppercorn rent.
It says the developers had already agreed settlements with a number of neighbouring property owners, but they then approached the City after the recent Heaney case raised the prospect of seven owners on Fenchurch Street, Eastcheap, Philpot Lane and Lime Street taking action that would stop the scheme.
Land Securities’ Colette O’Shea says the consideration of section 237 powers is “an appropriate approach to support the continued growth of London”.
The developers are talking to potential tenants, whose leases expire in 2014 and who are seeking a prelet of more than 100,000 sq ft. The report says these tenants must be certain about the completion dates for the scheme before the end of the third quarter of 2011, or they may look elsewhere for their requirements, Property Week says.
This is the first time that the City has intervened, using section 237 powers, in a scheme in which it had no previous ownership. Last month it acted to protect Helical Bar’s 1 Mitre Square scheme, in which it already had an interest, Property Week notes.
