Sadiq Khan confirms City Hall will move from central London to East End

Sadiq Khan said the move would save £61m over five years
Matt Writtle
Ross Lydall @RossLydall3 November 2020

City Hall will move from central London to the East End by the end of next year, Sadiq Khan confirmed today.

The mayor announced he was pressing ahead with plans to end the Greater London Authority’s tenure of the landmark glass building beside Tower Bridge and move to a small converted conference centre beside the Royal Docks.

He said the move would save £61m over five years - £6m more than at first envisaged – at a time he was having to make almost £500m of cuts to public services, including the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But his critics called it a “half-baked plan based on dodgy numbers” and said it would reduce the status of London government.

Susan Hall, leader of the GLA Conservatives, said: “City Hall is an iconic building which has been home to London’s democracy for nearly 20 years. It will be a sad sight to see moving vans outside it.”

The move was first proposed by Mr Khan in June after being told that the GLA’s income from council tax and business rates was likely to fall by £493m over the next 18 months.

He said activating a “break clause” in the City Hall lease would enable GLA staff and the London Assembly to move to The Crystal, already in GLA ownership, and would speed the regeneration of the Royal Docks.

Mr Khan said today: “My first priority will always be to protect funding for front-line services for Londoners.  

“Given our huge budget shortfall, and without the support we should be getting from the Government, I simply cannot justify remaining at our current expensive office when I could be investing that money into public transport, the Met Police and the London Fire Brigade.  

“I know that City Hall is a landmark building for many – but as mayor I will always focus my severely limited budget resources on front-line public services and supporting Londoners and our recovery from this pandemic, rather than on high City Hall building costs.  

“The Royal Docks is an amazing place, and we have the opportunity to turbo-charge the regeneration of the area, just as the opening of City Hall did for its surroundings.”  

Previous plans for the mayor to have a second office at TfL’s Palestra headquarters have been ditched. It will cost about £3.6m to install security measures at The Crystal, which will be renamed City Hall, to protect the mayor, the 25-member cross-party assembly and their staff.

However the building only has capacity for up to 200 of the GLA’s 1,190 staff. Others will move to the London Fire Brigade headquarters in Union Street, Southwark.

Staff will also be expected to work from home for part of the week.

A planning application to redesign the interior of The Crystal, including the installation of a chamber for the assembly to question the mayor, is due to be submitted next month.

City Hall, purpose-built to a design by Norman Foster and opened in 2002 at a cost of £43m, is owned by private landlords Kuwaiti-owned St Martins. The annual rent was set to go up to £9.6m a year. The landlords made at least two attempts to offer a reduced rent but the Mayor decided it was still worth moving.

The move to The Crystal had previously been opposed by the assembly, which said it would diminish the status of the GLA and make it harder for VIP guests and Londoners to access.

The Crystal is beside the northern terminal of the Emirates Airline cable car and a few minutes’ walk from Royal Victoria DLR station. Custom House station is half a mile away – but the long-delayed Crossrail is not due to open until the first half of 2022.

The mayor’s aides today described The Crystal as “one of the most environmentally sustainable offices in the world”.

Len Duvall, leader of the Assembly’s Labour group, said: “Though our preference was to see the heart of London government remain in the heart of London – and in City Hall, an iconic building - we recognise that Covid-19, and future budgetary pressures, have rendered that incredibly difficult.

“Public services must always take priority when finding savings. The projections now clearly show that a relocation would result in approximately double the savings that could made by remaining at City Hall.”

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