City Corporation approves revised Aldgate office development honouring historic pub

The City of London Corporation has rubberstamped revised plans to regenerate a site near Aldgate Underground station, including the reimagining of an historic City pub.

The scheme at 60 Aldgate Street High Street expands on previously consented proposals for an office building, but now includes a new Still & Star Public House that dates to the 1800s.

The 4C Hotel Group development will feature a refurbished hotel, a new office building, retail/business units and a 15-storey residential building, as well as a landscaped park, a number of landscaped urban squares and both long and short stay cycle parking.

Deputy Chairman of the City’s Planning and Transportation Committee, Oliver Sells QC, said: “This office development offers significant benefit to the local area by replacing inconsistent buildings with a high-quality sustainable and energy efficient office building in this incredibly well-connected City location.

“New pedestrian routes, improved urban greening and creative activation of the ground floor are clear examples of the vast and highly commendable improvements to the local public realm.

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“The designs for 60 Aldgate High Street have been refined over a number of years and the scheme we have approved today strikes the delicate balance between celebrating the Aldgate area and providing much needed space for the City to grow.”

The Still & Star Pub, which was deemed an asset of community value in 2016, will be relocated from Little Somerset Street to Aldgate High Street.

The final version of the development application attracted 42 objections, including one from the Victorian Society, and many concerned the demolition of the 200-year-old Still & Star Pub.

Planning Committee member Graeme Harrower said: “Demolishing a 200 year old pub – which had only four years ago been listed by the City Corporation as an Asset of Community Value – in order to enable a proposed oversized office block to be expanded yet further, and ‘replacing’ it with a new building in a generally contemporary style, makes no more sense than demolishing the Tower of London in order to enable the continued eastward expansion of City office blocks, and ‘replacing’ it by calling one of those blocks ‘The Tower’ and having a concrete plaque stuck on its side in memory of what the real Tower looked like.”