A legal challenge over the proposed redevelopment of ITV’s former London headquarters has failed.
A group called Save Our Southbank took the U.K.’s housing minister to court seeking to overturn planning permission granted earlier this year over the 25-storey tower block on London’s Southbank, next to the River Thames.
The site, which also included a 4-storey building housing television studios, opened in 1972 and was the home of U.K. public service broadcaster ITV until 2018. Some of ITV’s most well-known shows were broadcast from the studios, including “The South Bank Show,” a long-running arts series predominantly hosted by Melvyn Bragg.
The Southbank area is home to some of London’s most prominent arts and culture venues, including the National Theatre, British Film Institude and Royal Festival Hall, the latter of which is where the BAFTA TV and film awards take place each year.
After ITV departed the site for White City in west London, planning permission was granted for a mixed-use redevelopment which would include offices, television studios, retail units and residential homes. It involved replacing the existing buildings with two new towers, one reaching 31 storeys and the other 14. But no redevelopment ever happened and planning permission eventually lapsed.
In 2021 Mitsubishi Estate London made a new application to turn the site into offices, retail, food and beverage units and a “culture and innovation hub” but not any residential spaces. They proposed two towers, one 14 storeys and the other 25 storeys linked by a six-storey raised podium. Michael Gove, who was then housing secretary, granted planning permission for the proposal in Feb. 2024.
However Save Our Southbank, which is made up of both local individuals and organizations, objected to Mitsubishi’s redevelopment proposal, saying the new taller tower would be 225% the size of the existing ITV building. “In such a treasured area of London for locals and tourists, neighboured by listed IBM and National Theatre buildings, the design must protect and enhance rather than dominate its surrounding,” they state on their website.
Earlier this year the group brought a legal challenge in the High Court objecting to Gove’s decision. Judge Mould, presiding over the case, has now handed down a judgment overruling their objections. “I have not been persuaded that any of the Claimant’s grounds of legal challenge to that planning decision has been made out,” he said in his ruling.
