Policy information sourced from the Finsbury Local Plan

BC9 Tall buildings and contextual considerations for building heights

A) Within the area covered by this plan, tall buildings are considered to be buildings or structures that are substantially taller than their neighbours and/or which significantly change the skyline.

B) Buildings of 30 metres in height or more may be appropriate only within the areas indicated on Figure 17. These areas include sites identified in Policy BC2 (City Road Basin) and Policy BC3 (Old Street), as well as an area adjacent to the City of London boundary at Moorgate.

C) Elsewhere, building heights must respond to the local context, particularly those contextual factors indicated on Figure 17.

D) Proposals for tall buildings must satisfy all of the criteria set out in Part 4 of English Heritage and CABE’s Guidance on Tall Buildings (2007), alongside other Development Plan policies. Specifically, proposals must:

  • Reinforce the legibility and identity of the wider area and enhance the quality of street-level and long distance views, including across borough boundaries
  • Conserve and enhance designated and non-designated heritage assets and their setting,
  • Not create unacceptable impacts on infrastructure, including transport capacity; and adequately mitigate any transport impacts,
  • Exhibit an exceptional standard of architecture,
  • Create an active and interesting street frontage appropriate to the local context,
  • Exhibit the highest standards of sustainable design and carbon minimisation, by incorporating green roofs and/or walls, involving services engineers from an early design stage to ensure that energy use associated with mechanical cooling and lighting is minimised, utilising sustainable materials, and controlling solar gain,
  • Provide public space, including, where appropriate, mid-block pedestrian routes and the extension of (and integration with) neighbouring areas of public space,
  • Provide private amenity and play space where residential uses are proposed as part of the development, and
  • Not have adverse environmental effects at ground level, nor overshadow neighbouring habitable rooms or formal public spaces.

For more information please see the Local Plan