Finalists - Building London Planning Awards | BusinessLDN (Previously London First)

Congratulations to all our finalists for 2025!

The Building London Planning Awards received a huge number of entries this year, and our panel of esteemed judges had the overwhelming task of independently reviewing each entry against carefully selected category-specific criteria.

To get this far, our finalists have already undergone in-depth scrutiny, but this is only stage one of the judging process! Site visits, presentations and judges’ deliberations are now taking place and we wish our finalists the best of luck for this second stage of the judging process.

Category winners, and importantly our winner-of-winner’s, the Mayor’s Award for Good Growth sponsored by Newmark, will be announced at the awards ceremony on 14 October.

Scroll down and click on each of the categories to meet our finalists for 2025.

Useful links: Book your place | Judging Process | The Awards Ceremony

Best Borough-Led Project

This award recognises projects or initiatives that have been implemented by a London borough, either on its own or in partnership with a private or community organisation. Entries should show how the project has delivered lasting change either at a community, neighbourhood or borough-wide level. Projects can include physical interventions such as public realm works, estate regeneration and community/public buildings, place-making strategies and plan-led spatial strategies, such as area-based masterplans, or innovative policy or guidance documents to support a Local Plan.

This award will be given to the entry that most clearly communicates how a project or initiative has delivered positive change to the physical or environmental quality of an area, and/or its economic and social make-up.

Click to see the finalists — Best Borough-Led Project

Former Granada Cinema, Walthamstow

Submitted By: London Borough of Waltham Forest

The £30 million restoration of the former Granada Cinema into a thriving cultural facility showcases the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s commitment to heritage, culture, and the arts, and its belief in the wider social, economic, and regenerative benefits such investment can bring.

Oru Sutton

Submitted By: London Borough of Sutton

Sutton Council has taken an ambitious approach to regeneration. In 2019, it purchased a former BHS store and worked with Oru Space to refurbish and repurpose the upper floors. Oru Sutton offers 300+ desks, 40 offices, wellbeing, hospitality, a nursery, rooftop garden, and more to create a new community hub.

Re-inventing the City’s alleys

Submitted by: City of London Corporation

Through negotiating new pedestrian routes and alleys in planning permissions, City Planning is rapidly transforming the urban grain and permeability of the City, creating a more walkable, connected, gentler, more humane City that surprises and enriches –and reintroduces the lost historical urban fabric and new, iconic views.

Tower Court

Submitted By: Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design

Tower Court is a model for Council-led, high-density family living, shaped around the changing and diverse needs of contemporary London. Meaningful community engagement, including with the Haredi community, together with excellence in design, has created a mixed and integrated place delivering 132 high-quality, modern mixed-tenure homes.

Tower Hamlets Town Hall

Submitted By: Newmark

Ambitious and challenging project to convert and extend the former Royal London Hospital (listed Grade II) on Whitechapel Road to provide a state-of-the-art new Town Hall and Civic Centre – consolidating all of the Council’s current services into one purpose-built facility, which opened in March 2023.

Wood street Families and Homes Hub

Submitted By: London Borough of Waltham Forest

The Wood Street Families and Homes Hub is a transformative mixed-use development situated on a prominent junction of Wood Street and Forest Road in Walthamstow. This landmark project integrates a high-quality council service hub, a small commercial space, and 67 affordable homes, exemplifying a holistic approach to council-led regeneration.

Woodberry Down

Submitted By: Berkeley Group

Woodberry Down is an estate regeneration partnership between Hackney Council, Notting Hill Genesis, and Berkeley Homes. The project aims to transform the estate to provide nearly 6,500 mixed-tenure homes, community facilities, and improved public spaces. The partnership and single-decant strategy ensures that every existing council tenant can move into a new home on the estate.

Best Mixed-Use Project

This category recognises schemes that have successfully balanced a complex mix of uses, such as commercial and residential, through good design principles. Judges will be looking for design innovation in the multi-layering of uses in a single building or the co-location of different uses in a masterplan or urban block.

Click to see the finalists — Best Mixed-Use Project

Glengall Road

Submitted By: Rolfe Judd

Glengall Road successfully integrates a number of diverse functions within a single high-quality building. The as built scheme balances workspace and student uses, providing a new Creative Commercial Centre alongside 676 student rooms, aligning with the regeneration vision for the Old Kent Road area, delivering social, economic, and environmental benefits.

Oval Village

Submitted By: Berkeley Group

Oval Village is a transformative mixed-use development by Berkeley and Lambeth Council, regenerating a former Tesco and gasworks into a vibrant community. It delivers 1,360 homes, commercial space, and public amenities while preserving heritage. With sustainable design, inclusive housing, and community investment, it enhances local employment, biodiversity, and social value.

St Pancras Commercial Centre

Submitted By: Newmark

The development combines a range of land ‑uses to provide a sustainable design that successfully demonstrates co-location to deliver key land-use priorities. The scheme delivers improvements to the public realm, including the creation of new public open space and pedestrian routes through the site connecting to wider key areas of Camden.

The Whiteley

Submitted By: Turley

The project re-imagines the former internal Whiteleys shopping centre located at the heart of Bayswater, delivering a mixed-use development that embraces and activates the street and a new central public courtyard with commercial uses, alongside over 150 new homes, a new boutique hotel, cinema, gym and other uses, designed by Foster + Partners.

West End Gate

Submitted By: Berkeley Group

West End Gate, designed by Squire & Partners and Piercy & Co, is a landmark mixed-use development on Edgware Road. It includes 827 homes across private, affordable, and Extra Care housing, plus 15,000 sq ft of commercial space. The project has dedicated impressive resource to community building and employment and skills.

Best New Place to Live

This award is for residential schemes of all sizes that are well designed to provide high quality places to live and contribute to successful place making. Judges will also take into consideration opportunities to optimise affordable housing delivery (where relevant) and contribute to mixed, sustainable communities that maximise links to infrastructure and services.

Click to see the finalists — Best New Place to Live

Axion House

Submitted By: PRP Architects
As a model of thoughtful urban development, Axion House maximises a challenging site while addressing pressing housing and environmental concerns. It balances innovation with sustainability, integrates nature with urbanity, and exemplifies how the principles of the Architects’ Action for Affordable Housing Campaign can be successfully translated into practice.

Darwin House

Submitted By: Westminster City Council
The new Darwin House Building in Pimlico is a true success story, blending sustainability, community, and thoughtful design. This 100% affordable, community-supported development by Westminster City Council, with contractor Wates, delivers 34 homes that provide spacious and accessible living for older residents.

Greenwich Peninsula

Submitted By: Greenwich Peninsula
Greenwich Peninsula is London’s undiscovered gem; a major emerging urban community of 5,500 people living and working on the Thames, with an ambitious and diverse community rich with culture, creativity, and character in a sustainable setting. Greenwich Peninsula is committed to ensuring its people flourish for many decades to come.

High Road Goodmayes

Submitted By: Rolfe Judd
High Road Goodmayes is a transformative, residential-led, mixed-use development that delivers 568 high-quality homes in the heart of the Crossrail Corridor of Growth and Investment. Developed with a design-led, people-first approach, this project enhances the local built environment, provides much-needed housing, and creates a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive community.

Lombard Square

Submitted By: Berkeley Group
Lombard Square revitalises 17.7 acres of derelict and inaccessible brownfield land into a place for a sustainable new community to grow and thrive – delivering 1,913 new homes (40% of which are affordable), over 47,000 sq. ft. of industrial, community, commercial, and employment space, and a new public park.

Oval Village

Submitted By: Berkeley Group

Oval Village combines high-quality, contextually thoughtful homes and rich Victorian heritage, with seamless access to world-class amenities and infrastructure. Beside Kia Oval Cricket Ground, the development offers sustainable living, from car-free streets to biodiversity gains. Affordable housing ensures inclusivity, creating a vibrant community rooted in history while delivering excellence in design, connection, and sustainability.

Riverscape

Submitted By: Rolfe Judd & Ballymore

Riverscape is the most significant new development in the Royal Docks. Delivering 749 homes with generous living spaces, excellent amenities, outstanding connectivity, landscaped green spaces, and waterfront views, Riverscape creates a tranquil new neighbourhood at the heart of London’s most ambitious regeneration area.

Best New Place to Work

This award is open to all types of workspaces, from offices to workshops to industrial units. Judges will be looking for well-designed schemes which create good quality, inclusive working environments and that support modern ways of working across all sectors of the economy.

Click to see the finalists — Best New Place to Work

100 Fetter Lane

Submitted By: City of London Corporation

100 Fetter Lane delivers a best-in-class, Grade‑A, low-carbon, operationally net-zero, light, airy, and naturally ventilated workplace, designed with the well-being and happiness of its users key. The scheme delivers expansive roof terraces, a new pocket park with a café, and a reinvented City pub with new alleys linking to a City garden.

11 Belgrave Road

Submitted By: Newmark

Following the grant of planning permission in 2020, owner-developer Quadrum Global has delivered an ambitious redevelopment project in Victoria, transforming a tired 1950s building at 11 Belgrave Road into a 150,000 sq ft net-zero and well-being-led workplace.

Arthur Stanley House

Submitted By: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Situated within the Charlotte Street Conservation Area, this project has reinvented a decaying 1960s block in Fitzrovia. Originally designed by TP Bennett Architects and part of the Middlesex Hospital estate, it was once a centre specialising in physiotherapy. The hospital trust relocated in 2005, leaving the building vacant and in decline. The project has reinvented the building, providing 10 floors of modern office accommodation and a new residential building along Tottenham Mews.

Frederick’s Place

Submitted By: City of London Corporation

The Whittington Building is a refined scheme in a sensitive heritage setting, delivering an outstanding, much-needed, best-in-class, Grade A workplace with design dictated by health, well-being, and sustainability. The scheme transforms the public realm, providing a new pedestrian passageway and colonnade with vibrant new retail: an exemplar of workspace-led placemaking.

The Earnshaw

Submitted By: Newmark

Located in Midtown between Soho, Bloomsbury, and Covent Garden, the Earnshaw is an 11-storey, mixed-use development, comprising offices with ground-floor retail and new residential homes. The scheme includes 140,000 sqft of exemplary office space, designed to a very high specification and specifically designed with a focus on the well-being of its occupants.

Best Retrofit Project — Sponsored by CBRE

This category recognises the sustainability benefits of repurposing an existing building or buildings. Entries can be from any sector, and comprise any uses, but must retain a significant proportion of existing building fabric. Judges will be looking for projects that demonstrate significant environmental benefits as well as social and economic sustainability considerations.

Click to see the finalists — Best Retrofit Project

9 Cavendish Square

Submitted By: Rolfe Judd

9 Cavendish Square is a high-quality office refurbishment that exemplifies the environmental, social, and economic benefits of retrofitting over redevelopment. This project retains a significant proportion of the existing building fabric and introduces state-of-the-art sustainable solutions – enhancing occupant well-being and modernising the workspace, all while preserving its classical architectural integrity.

Library Refurbishment Programme, London Borough of Bromley

Submitted By: London Borough of Bromley

An exciting refurbishment programme of the library estate across the London Borough of Bromley, with a focus on West Wickham library. The Library regeneration programme has focused on improving the environmental, sustainability, economic, and community impact in the area, including a children’s library services across London’s largest borough.

Millbank Residences

Submitted By: Berkeley Group

Millbank Residences’ retrofit prioritised sustainability, heritage preservation, and innovation. Retaining its key architectural elements reduced embodied carbon while minimising waste. The project supported local jobs, contributed £5.5m to social causes, and commissioned a bronze Ada Lovelace sculpture. Recognised for excellence, it overcame structural challenges while maintaining quality, sustainability, and community impact.

Norton Folgate

Submitted By: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Occupying a prominent position on The City Fringe, this office-led development is one of the most complex projects delivered by British Land and an architect team led by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. The project comprises three urban blocks, with the retention of a significant number of historic buildings, creation of six new buildings, and new public realm.

Panorama St Paul’s, 81 Newgate Street

Submitted By: City of London Corporation

81 Newgate is an outstanding, groundbreaking retrofit scheme, setting a benchmark for exemplary sustainability, Whole Life Carbon, biodiversity, and Circular Economy credentials – and saving 465 kg of CO2 per sqm by reusing structure and external cladding. 81 Newgate delivers London’s first net zero carbon-enabled office development, with best-in-class space and inclusive public benefits.

Thirty High (Portland House)

Submitted By: Newmark

The retrofit and extension of Thirty High represent a forward-thinking and sustainable approach to adapting existing structures. By retaining major structural elements, including the concrete façade, Thirty High balances sustainability with the needs of modern Grade A office occupiers.

Infrastructure Planning Award

This category recognises the crucial role that infrastructure plays in both facilitating new development and underpinning the smooth running of London as a capital city. Entries could take a variety of forms and across a range of scales from a major new transport project to local high street improvements and could also include the modernisation of existing infrastructure.

Click to see the finalists — Infrastructure Planning Award

Paddington Square

Submitted By: Newmark

Paddington Square is a transformational, mixed-use development representing a world-class gateway into London. It stands as a vibrant new destination for work, retail, and dining, serving as the pivotal centerpiece of Paddington’s wider regeneration and designed to meet the needs of visitors, commuters, and the community for years to come.

Silvertown Tunnel

Submitted By: Transport for London

The new Silvertown Tunnel is now open. Linking Silvertown to the Greenwich Peninsula in East London, it will boost cross-river public transport, help to reduce congestion at the Blackwall Tunnel, deliver faster journeys during peak times, and manage overall air quality.

St. Martin’s Courtyard

Submitted By: Brimelow McSweeney Architects

St. Martin’s Courtyard is a dense, mixed-use development in Covent Garden with many residents, office buildings, shops, and restaurants. This project, which includes a new restaurant terrace and artistic installations at the three courtyard entrances, puts unique placemaking at the heart of the design, reflecting the character of the West End.

TwelveTrees Park

Submitted By: Berkeley Group

TwelveTrees Park is a large brownfield regeneration project by West Ham station, providing 4,708 new homes, a secondary school, commercial and community facilities, and around 12 acres of public open space. The project includes two footbridges, a station entrance, and the upgrading of a vehicle bridge: infrastructure that will enhance local connections.

Placemaking, Heritage & Culture Award

Open to any projects with significant placemaking, heritage and/or cultural significance. This could include small scale projects that have had a significant impact on a local community through to projects of London-wide and even national importance. The judges will be looking for demonstrable community benefits aligned with the scale of the project and a well-considered, longer-term legacy for the project. Examples include the refurbishment of listed buildings, community hubs, public realm projects and schemes that contribute to the cultural significance of London such as arts and music venues, film studios and sports facilities.

Click to see the finalists — Placemaking, HeritagE & Culture Award

ABBA Arena

Submitted By: Quod

ABBA Arena opened in May 2022 and has become a cultural landmark for London, providing placemaking and wider benefits for the local area. ABBA Voyage, the revolutionary concert that sees digital versions of ABBA perform in their purpose-built ABBA Arena, is a globally celebrated, unique experience in music and entertainment.

AELTC Community Tennis Centre

Submitted By: Rolfe Judd

The AELTC Community Tennis Centre blends elite sport with community access, sustainability, and inclusive development. By adding 16 Championship-standard grass courts, three acrylic courts within an air dome, and a sustainable clubhouse, the development ensures increased accessibility for players of all abilities, including wheelchair athletes, delivering lasting benefits for Londoners.

Down Lane Park, Haringey

Submitted By: Levitt Bernstein

The transformation of Down Lane Park, led by Levitt Bernstein in partnership with Haringey Council (Parks and Regeneration), is a well-loved greenspace at the heart of a rapidly changing community in Tottenham Hale. The project exemplifies excellence in placemaking through community co-design, environmental innovation, and social inclusion.

Former Granada Cinema, Walthamstow

Submitted By: London Borough of Waltham Forest

The restoration of the former Granada Cinema and its rebirth as Soho Theatre Walthamstow is a pioneering project that has conserved and restored a Grade II* listed building and created a significant new cultural venue for the benefit of local people and London as a whole.

London Eye Community Chest Grants Scheme

Submitted By: Hatch

The London Eye Community Chest grant programme, redesigned by SoWN, SBEG, Merlin, and LB Lambeth, with strategic evidence from Hatch, mobilises private sector funding for local community groups. Launched in 2024, the programme enhances inclusion, culture, and sustainability, creating lasting impacts for the diverse communities of South Bank and Waterloo.

Walworth Town Hall

Submitted By: Feix&Merlin Architects

The restoration of Walworth Town Hall transforms a fire-damaged civic landmark into a 50,000 sq. ft., vibrant hub for workspace, culture, and community. Sensitive conservation meets creative adaptation, securing the building’s heritage while supporting Southwark’s evolving cultural life and creative economy.

Sustainable Planning Award - Sponsored by Landsec

This category recognises projects that demonstrate strong sustainability credentials across the three pillars of economic, environmental and social sustainability. Entries could include buildings, policy documents and sustainability projects more broadly, for example carbon management to reach net-zero targets, innovative construction methods, biodiversity, urban greening and social value.

Click to see the finalists — Sustainable Planning Award

Bloom Camberwell

Submitted By: Trigon

Project Camberwell, a completed 1.25-acre sustainable industrial estate in Lambeth, delivers 52,500 sq. ft. of ultra-urban, multi-let space for last-mile logistics. As one of the UK’s first industrial projects to align with the Paris Agreement through UK ESG Taxonomies, it sets a new benchmark in sustainab

Panorama St Paul’s, 81 Newgate Street

Submitted By: City of London Corporation

81 Newgate is a groundbreaking scheme, applying outstanding Circular Economy and Sustainability principles with Urban Greening, mitigating air pollution and delivering biodiversity and urban cooling. 81 Newgate delivers social wellbeing and inclusive public benefits, designed around and part-funding the new Greyfriars Square, while delivering long-term sustainable economic growth.

Paradise

Submitted By: Bywater Properties

Paradise is a new office building located between Old Paradise Gardens and the main trainline into Waterloo Station. The building is a hybrid structure, but focused on the use of mass timber, with CLT floors and glulam beams throughout, creating a low embodied carbon building in central London.

The City of London’s integrated suite of Sustainability Policy guidance

Submitted By: City of London Corporation

The City of London has published an integrated suite of Sustainability planning policy guidance, providing holistic guidance from heritage retrofit, Whole Life Carbon testing, Local Energy Networks, Circular Economy to Climate change mitigation. The guidance is impactful, with over half of all major applications in 2024 involving exemplary deep retrofit.

Urbanest, Battersea

Submitted By: Newmark

Urbanest Battersea is a mixed-use redevelopment comprising Passivhaus-certified, purpose-built student accommodation (853 beds), along with over 8,000m² of commercial floorspace, including an enterprise business unit, community hub, and replacement public house, together with extensive public realm improvements.

Planning Service of the Year

This category recognises an outstanding contribution to planning in London by a public sector planning service.

CLICK TO SEE THE FINALISTS — PLANNING SERVICE OF THE YEAR

City of London Planning Team

Submitted By: City of London Corporation

The pro-growth, solution-focused City of London Planning team has rapidly transformed the City into an inclusive, vibrant seven-day destination: negotiating cultural and visitor attractions, radically re-pivoting the City’s economy, substantially increasing weekend footfall, and unlocking an unprecedented pipeline of 1 million sqm of floorspace – delivering economic growth benefitting the UK.

Enfield Council Planning Service

Submitted By: Enfield Council

Over the past two years, the Planning Service at Enfield has been on an extraordinary transformational journey, improving service performance, officer well-being, and progressing a new and ambitious Local Plan that will support the growth needs of the borough and wider region, alongside the delivery of quality outcomes for local communities.

Social Values & Community Engagement Award

This award champions the positive relationship between planning and communities either through a development project or a community initiative. It could include innovative public consultation methods for a scheme or development plan document, resident-led estate regeneration, community meanwhile uses or exemplary social value outcomes from any planning project.

Click to see the finalists — Social Values & Community Engagement Award

980 Great West Road Redevelopment

Submitted By: Hadley Property Group

The Co-Design Programme for 980 Great West Road engaged local residents, community groups, and stakeholders to shape the project’s design. Six collaborative sessions focused on key themes, ensuring inclusivity. Diverse participation and feedback directly influenced the final proposals, helping to create a design that reflects the community’s needs and aspirations.

Earls Court: a masterplan with community at its heart

Submitted By: Earls Court Development Company

The Earls Court Development Company and ZCD Architects are transforming the former Earls Court Exhibition Centre site for Earls Court Partnership Limited: a joint venture between Delancey, APG, and TfL. The masterplan will create a better piece of city, respond to the climate emergency, and deliver essential housing and a heritage for future generations.

Waltham Forest Local Heritage List

Submitted By: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Waltham Forest’s Local Heritage List celebrates the unique buildings, sites, and features that embody the history of the borough. The project succeeded in completely revamping the list, making it much more representative of the borough’s diverse communities, more engaging to the public, and more relevant as a planning document.

City of London Planning Team

The pro-growth, solution-focused City of London Planning team has rapidly transformed the City into an inclusive, vibrant seven-day destination: negotiating cultural and visitor attractions, radically re-pivoting the City’s economy, substantially increasing weekend footfall, and unlocking an unprecedented pipeline of 1 million sqm of floorspace – delivering economic growth benefitting the UK.

Enfield Council Planning Service

Over the past two years, the Planning Service at Enfield has been on an extraordinary transformational journey, improving service performance, officer well-being, and progressing a new and ambitious Local Plan that will support the growth needs of the borough and wider region, alongside the delivery of quality outcomes for local comm

Mayor’s Award for Good Growth - Sponsored by Newmark

Entries are not accepted for this award. Instead, the winner for this category is chosen from the above category winners.

The Mayor will select the project or scheme that most successfully contributes to delivering his six Good Growth principles:

Building strong and inclusive communities

Making the best use of land

Creating a healthy city

Delivering the homes Londoners need

Growing a good economy

Increasing efficiency and resilience

This winner of winners will then be announced on the night of the awards ceremony, taking place in October 2025.

Outstanding Contribution

This category honours an exceptional individual who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to the planning sector through their leadership, innovation and impact.

All nominees will be considered by the judging panel and the winner revealed at the awards ceremony.