Richenda Walford from the Friends of Argyle Square group, Bill Reed of King’s Cross Conservation Area Advisory Committee, and Debbie Radcliffe of the Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee

Published: 5 July, 2012
by DAN CARRIER

THE historic facades of St Pancras and King’s Cross train stations could be cast in permanent shadow, according to leading conservation groups.

A new campaign organised by the Friends of Argyle Square and the conservation area advisory committees for King’s Cross and Bloomsbury are demanding the Town Hall establish a master plan for a swathe of land on the south side of Euston Road – amid fears that a series of properties are being eyed by developers.

Campaigners say that without a clear policy from Camden Council dictating the heights of any new buildings, developers will push floors upwards – and ruin the setting for two of London’s most historically and architecturally important buildings.

Bill Reed of the King’s Cross Conservation Area Advisory Committee said that with the Town Hall annexe up for sale to help fund a new headquarters for the council on the King’s Cross Railway Lands, there was a danger of a conflict of interest between getting as much money for their old offices and making sure developers did not push the building too high in the air.

Mr Reid said: “They [the council] need to pay for the new extravagant offices over the road and they have got themselves in a financial hole and they need to find the cash to pay for it.

“It seems to us that this is a clear conflict of interest.  

“The Council must listen to us when we say that tall buildings opposite the stations will harm their setting and must not be allowed. 

“For over three years we have been insisting that a tower block must not be built on the annexe site.

"The Council have refused to listen to us.”

To the east of the annexe, a developer recently tried to build a glass and steel box opposite King’s Cross, which was refused permission, but Mr Reed expects the site to be under increasing pressure from developers.

He has heard that a 30-storey, 40,000 square foot hotel is currently on the drawing board, which would dominate the sky line opposite King’s Cross station.

While St Pancras was renovated at a cost of nearly £1 billion, King’s Cross train station is set to have its 1970s green corrugated iron canopy swept away and a new public square put in its place. It will mean the listed facade, designed by William Cubitt in 1852, will be revealed for the first time in 2013.

Mr Reed said: “The land has become extremely valuable in recent years  and there are big development pressures.

“We are extremely concerned that the south side of Euston Road at King’s Cross will, over the next few years, receive planning permission for developments that are wholly inappropriate, given the context of the heritage station buildings opposite: St Pancras Chambers and King’s Cross Station.  

“These buildings are, in the true sense of the phrase, ‘national treasures’ and must not be forced to compete in a face-off across Euston Road with a virtual wall of tower blocks – a face-off in which no one wins except the developers.”

He added that King’s Cross was an “architectural gem”. The area is often used by film companies as it is one of the last remaining unspoilt parts of Victorian London.

Mr Reed said: “The south of the road is different from the north – it is of a very different character.

"It may be okay to have tall buildings on the northern side in the Railway lands but to the south there are squares and well-preserved terraces, with buildings that date form the 1840s.

“These must be protected.”

Mr Reed added that while other boroughs had policies limiting the height of buildings, Camden Council did not.