Pilbrow & Partners has won planning for a £500m redevelopment of the art deco former London Fire Brigade headquarters on the Albert Embankment in central London.

The mixed-use project for developer U&I will see three blocks of flats of up to 26 storeys built behind the grade II-listed Thames-side building which was the heart of the brigade’s firefighting operation during the Blitz.

The site has a long and contentious planning history which saw a previous mixed-use proposal by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands for Native Land rejected by Lambeth council and thrown out by a public inquiry in 2013 because of its impact on daylighting in neighbouring properties. That scheme would have created 265 flats, 7% of them “affordable”, in two slabs blocks of up to 15 storeys immediately behind the riverside building.

…