Long-standing readers of my blog may remember that, in 2022, I got involved in the controversy surrounding the plans to re-develop the Custom House, a fine, if austere, early nineteenth-century official building, much of it designed by Robert Smirke, occupying a wonderful site right next door to the Tower of London where goods could be off-loaded for inspection and payment of customs duty straight from the river.

The plans went to a planning appeal and quite rightly were turned down.

Then, it appears that a number of things happened behind-the-scenes. First, the Georgian Group either drew up, or had already drawn up, an alternative scheme which respected the existing fabric of the building. Next, with the encouragement of the City authorities, ownership was transferred to Jastar Capital, a hotel group which was more likely to respect the historic characteristics of the building. Then the new owners engaged the King’s Foundation to oversee a five-day formal process of consultation with all the key stakeholders, including the Georgian Group. The result is that they have come up with a scheme which, so far as possible, retains the historic fabric and opens the building and, equally important, its river frontage to public access.

This is the river frontage (in the rain):-

This is the interior as is with an iron roof and a great deal of later infilling:-

This is the wonderful upstairs Long Room:-

It feels like a model of how – sometimes – a long drawn-out planning process can have a good outcome.