Ben Derbyshire admits to feeling 'deeply uneasy' at London’s growing number of tall buildings

HTA Design chair Ben Derbyshire has admitted that he does not like the growing number of tall buildings in London despite his practice having designed several of them.

The former RIBA president told a panel discussion at the Labour party conference in Liverpool that the capital’s proliferation of high-rise schemes was “giving us all a deeply uneasy feeling”.

Speaking at an event hosted by former BD columnist Ike Ijeh, Derbyshire said: “I think Londoners are waking up to the fact that tall buildings have been built all over London, and they don’t like it. And I’m one of them, actually.”

Building tall had become necessary in the city, he said, because of high land values and the viability model for providing affordable housing, a situation which could only be avoided with increased levels of public subsidy.

“The reason why we work for clients who design tall buildings – and we do the very best we can to make them as beautiful as possible – are the land values, the absence of land in cities in particular, and the business model with which affordable housing is delivered. Those two factors mean the densities have ballooned,” he said.

“To get around this problem I do think that we need to tackle land value speculation and the business model by which affordable housing is built and the only way around that is spending more public money.”

High-rise schemes designed by HTA include a 50 and 35-storey scheme in Croydon which was the world’s tallest modular development when it completed last year.

The practice is also behind plans for a seven-tower scheme in Ilford which features buildings up to 36 storeys in height and another scheme in Croydon consisting of a pair of 33- and 36-storey towers.