So there's been a lot of nodding and winking going on. As a result, Railtrack has come forward with a huge office development over a vastly extended Paddington Station. By the leading architect Nicholas Grimshaw, this includes a 42-storey tower. And developers Elliott Bernerd (also chairman of the South Bank Board) with Godfrey Bradman (who is about to sell his stake at a huge profit) have put forward a no less gargantuan development by Terry Farrell and Richard Rogers on another part of the site, complete with a complex, angled Rogers skyscraper rising to 43 storeys. That's 538 feet. Less than the Canary Wharf tower, but not what West London is used to.
But the towers are only part of the picture. There is a huge low-rise office development on the old goods yard at the western end of the site. The already enormous St. Mary's Hospital on the south side of the canal basin is planning to double in size with big new buildings by the American masterplanners of Canary Wharf, architects S.O.M. Elsewhere there are up to 3,000 homes, for sale and for rent, and not just for yuppies: the pioneering Peabody Trust, providers of affordable social housing, is in the thick of things. The fashion retailer Monsoon has bought a listed 1960s building on the northern edge and is busy converting it into its London HQ. Hilton Hotels has nearly finished its vast new London Metropole at the prominent eastern end of the site, unfortunately done in hideous 1980s style. And then there are the public spaces: big new open concourses around the canal basin, and a total of four new London squares of various shapes and sizes. Altogether more than 25,000 people will work here, up to 4,000 will live here. Local schools will have to expand to cope with the new population.
The big problem is that there is no overall masterplanner for the site, because it is split between so many different owners. Somehow all the pieces have to be made to fit together, and at the moment, some of the joins are all too apparent. For instance architect Terry Farrell has masterplanned the Bernerd/Bradman section with its Rogers tower, but just how this dovetails into the neighbouring Railtrack bit by Grimshaw is, to say the least, uncertain. And then there's the question of Crossrail, London's much-delayed east-west underground express rail link. That will come slamming through here in a few years' time, ensuring disruption until at least 2010. All the developers have pooled resources into what is called the Paddington Regeneration Partnership, but by default it is the planners of the City of Westminster who are having to knock heads together. As well as, eventually, deciding what should get built.
There were some hideous, if smaller, developments planned here in the 1980s and early 1990s. Luckily the last recession killed most of them off. Today, much better architects are involved, although the new Metropole - a horribly prominent throwback design by American architects HOK - is one that got away. But one thing never changes: the relentless drive by developers to squeeze the maximum possible floorspace out of their investment. And as the value of land in Paddington's golden triangle soars, the pressure is on to build more and more. Objectors can't count on a recession to save them this time.
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