Soho gets listed car park
The proposed £80 million redevelopment of a site in the heart of the West End is under threat - because English Heritage has given a Grade II listing to a 1920s car park on the site.
Helical Bar and National Car Parks (NCP), owner of the land, intended to build luxury offices and flats on the corner of Brewer Street and Lexington Street in Soho where the 1929 multistory car park now stands.
English Heritage has demanded the car park be preserved because it was the "largest and bestequipped building for the service of the motor car of its day".
Matthew Bonning-Snook, director of Helical Bar, said the company offered to sponsor the recording of the car park's history and even fund research into other car parks.
He said: "The alternative to our scheme is that this site remains a car park. There is no compromise. You either knock it down or you don't." In a lastditch attempt to win over English Heritage, the development's architect Michael Squire and Partners will this month submit fresh plans which replace the modern "glassy" style contained in the present planning application with a more traditional stone-based facade.
Critics of the decision by English Heritage say there are three older car parks in London, including the Blue Bird Garage on the King's Road, which has found a new lease of life as a Conran restaurant.
However, Helical Bar may yet triumph as listings have sometimes been overturned. In June 1991 Japanese developer Daiwa Europe was awarded consent to demolish a redundant City telephone exchange which was blocking plans for a Richard Rogers designed scheme.
