510 tall buildings set to join London skyline

London now has more than 500 tall buildings in the pipeline and a record 115 under construction, however planning application for new tall buildings has fallen 10% since 2016, according to new research published by New London Architecture

The fifth NLA London Tall Buildings Survey, with research partners GL Hearn and data provider EG shows that despite signs of a slowdown, London has 510 tall (over 20 storeys) buildings proposed, in planning or under construction, compared to 455 in 2016, and with 115 schemes under construction compared to 91.

The analysis says that living in tall buildings is becoming more accepted, with over 90% (458) of those coming forward residential, and with the potential to deliver some 106,000 homes. And data from EG shows that 30% of the proposed schemes in 2017 were Build-to-Rent compared with none in 2013.

New London Architecture chairman, Peter Murray, said that the appetite for tall buildings remains strong and we still need them as part of the equation of housing London’s growing population. EG senior analyst Paul Wellman added that this was despite comparing this year’s crop to the ‘exceptional’ data in 2016, when more than one tower was coming out of the ground every week. This year, completions were down, and there were more hotels and student living schemes.

Half of the tall buildings pipeline is in East London with 252, followed by Central London with 99, and a third from outer London, although it is taking longer for projects to get off the ground and the number of applications is down 10% from 2016. GL Hearn planning director Stuart Baillie said he was anticipating a boom of completions in the next two years, but with Brexit and skills issues to the fore, that may be optimistic. ‘We will have to see if the projected boom in the next two years will happen’, he said.