Shard Place developer to squeeze extra 28 flats into luxury block

Shard architects Renzo Piano Building Workshop designed a 26-storey building to replace Fielden House – between St Thomas Street and London Bridge Street – and the scheme won approval from Southwark councillors in 2014.

The development is backed by the same Anglo-Qatari consortium that built The Shard and The News Building.

The original scheme included 148 homes for private sale, but Southwark planning officers recently approved revised plans to make the flats smaller, squeezing an extra 28 flats into the same space.

Controversially, the Shard Place development included no on-site affordable housing, with the developers instead funding a scheme at Sylvan Grove in SE15, next to the council's waste and recycling depot off the Old Kent Road.

In addition, the developer paid the council £2.6 million in lieu of its remaining affordable housing obligation.

Because affordable housing contributions are based on the number of "habitable rooms" (bedrooms and living rooms) in a private development, the reconfiguration of Shard Place has triggered an extra £1.12 million payment to the council, even though the size and shape of the tower has not changed.

Shard Place is currently under construction and is due to be completed in 2020.