High Court to hear judicial review challenge to controversial Barbican demolition
Public law & judicial review, Planning & environment
The High Court will today hear a challenge to the grant by the City of London of permission for the demolition of part of the Barbican Estate.
The City of London applied to itself for, and granted, planning permission in respect of the complete demolition of Bastion House, the Museum of London building, and Ferroners’ House, and their replacement with larger buildings.
During the course of that application, Barbican Quarter Action, a group comprised of Barbican residents, opposed the planned demolition, including with expert evidence on the extent of ‘embodied carbon’ which total demolition, rather than retrofit, would entail. Embodied carbon refers to greenhouse gas emissions produced in the whole life cycle of a building, including its construction materials. After planning permission was granted, the successor group of residents, Barbican Quarter Organisation Ltd, sought and obtained permission to proceed by way of judicial review in respect of the grant of permission, seeking to quash it. That challenge is brought on three grounds.
First, it is said that the City of London failed to comply with regulations whose purpose is to ensure objectivity and to exclude bias in circumstances in which the same person applies for permission and must determine whether permission should be granted. Second, it is said that the City of London, as decision-maker, failed to recognise that its local plan contained an effective presumption against demolition, in circumstances in which nearly 75,000 tonnes of material are to be demolished. Third, it is said that, particularly in the context of the presumption against demolition, the City of London, again as decision-maker, failed to deal adequately with alternative schemes.
The claim is to be heard over two days by Fordham J, starting on 10 March 2026.
Estelle Dehon KC and Riccardo Calzavara appear for Barbican Quarter Organisation Ltd, instructed by Ricardo Gama and Lily Hartley-Matthews of Leigh Day.
