Parliament’s Northern Estate programme to refurbish nearby Westminster buildings for use by MPs during the restoration of the House of Commons has been shut down, with a letter informing the delivery teams ‘of closure of the Northern Estate Programme’ in favour of ‘a new approach of having a more agile set of projects.’
image: for illustration purposes only – Open Government Licence v3.0
Construction News writes:
…The team behind the wider £4bn restoration and renewal programme of the Houses of Parliament said the work to convert a clutch of neighbouring Grade I and Grade II-listed buildings into temporary homes for MPs was halted late last year, reports Construction News’s sister title the Architects’ Journal.
In a letter to the public accounts committee, written by David Goldstone and Sarah Johnson – respectively the chief executives of the Palace of Westminster renewal Delivery Body and its oversight panel, the sponsor board – the scheme’s leaders said they were now looking at a “more agile set of projects”.
The plan, agreed in 2018, would have seen the redevelopment of the Grade II-listed Richmond House at an estimated cost of £800m, with work due to be carried out by Lendlease. Work on other nearby buildings was already being carried out by Wates….
See more background on House of Commons website, Architects Journal , BD Online
On the wider programmme see: restorationandrenewal.uk, UK Parliament, Northern Estate & BDP.com
