A group of conservation architects responsible for preserving some of the country’s oldest and most treasured buildings have voiced outrage at proposals to demolish most of William Whitfield and Andrew Lockwood’s grade II* Richmond House in Whitehall.

Members of the Cathedral Architects Association said the removal of all but the façade of Richmond House to provide a new building with a temporary chamber for the House of Commons to use while the Palace of Westminster is being refurbished was “needlessly destructive”.

Richmond House, which opened in 1987, served as the headquarters for the Department of Health – now the Department of Health and Social Care – for three decades. Proposals for its redevelopment as a temporary chamber for MPs, drawn up by AHMM, have evolved to require the building’s demolition rather than adaptation.

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