Plans submitted for residential conversion of Millbank Tower

Under plans submitted by owners of the Millbank complex, Basio Holdings Ltd, the 32-storey tower and the neighbouring nine-storey 'Y Building' would each be increased in height by three floors. The tower would contain 215 new one- to four-bedroom flats under the proposals and the Y Building, which is also currently in office use, would be converted into a 195-bed hotel.

The two-storey podium on which the Millbank Tower stands would provide leisure and health facilities serving the hotel under the plans. The podium would also contain a 3,311 square metre cultural facility, which could be the location of a proposed national Holocaust memorial centre - the Millbank complex having been included on the shortlist of potential sites for the centre in a report published by the Home Office in January.

The plans also include a 'sky bar' on the 34th floor of the converted tower building, landscaped public and private amenity space, basement parking for 215 vehicles and secure cycle parking for residents, employees and visitors. According to the planning statement accompanying the planning application, no on site affordable housing has been proposed "in light of the provision of a major cultural facility for the local area".

The proposed scheme would result in the loss of 56,857 sq m of office space. The chairman of a group representing property developers last year warned that the pace at which offices were being replaced by homes in Westminster threatened employment in London and risked creating "polarised communities".

Planning expert Richard Ford of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com said: "Although the London office market has been motoring on now for some time, we are still seeing a number of office to residential conversions, particularly of historic buildings where the space is not seen as effective office floorspace. The absence of affordable housing offset by other scheme benefits is also an issue on major schemes, particularly with historic building conversion costs. Detailed viability appraisals are coming under ever increasing scrutiny."