How the new building will look [RSHP]

A 12-STOREY tower extension to the British Library was given the green light by the Town Hall’s planning committee on Monday night.

The £400million project will see the 2007 Centre for Conservation demolished and the new building constructed on the site of a temporary community garden.

Neighbours and conservationists had raised objections, with warnings that the addition will damage the Grade I-listed library, affect nearby homes and that it is designed with a focus on making money rather than new library space.

Writing in the trade paper Building Design, architect Peter Henney implored the Town Hall to kick the scheme out.

He said conservationists believed “this looming façade of offices will conceal the beautifully balanced asymmetry and finely composed north elevation. It also has the most deplorable effect on some of the key, public rooms, and their landscaped terraces. It is a truly gross overdevelopment.”

Town Hall planning officers, however, recommended the scheme go ahead, judging that the project’s benefits outweighed any harm on the library’s listed buildings.

Ten floors are set to be rented out.

In the planning application, officers state: “Whilst the proposals would cause some harm, officers consider the harm to be less than substantial and at the lower end of the spectrum of such harm as do Historic England.”

British Library chief Roly Keating said: “The proposals will enable us to provide a brand new public space for London that’s connected to our local community and open to the world.”