The Victorian Society

Save Liverpool Street Station

We need your donations to fight an expensive legal battle to save Liverpool Street Station from demolition and prevent a tower being built over the concourse.
£28,486
raised of £40,000 target
RCN 1081435

Story

Help us stop the worst plans for heritage this century!

Network Rail wants to demolish a huge chunk of the listed Liverpool Street Station and build a 21-storey tower above the concourse. This is an outrageous and unjustified way to treat listed buildings in a conservation area. It would replace natural light with predominately artificial. The development would intereact with views of St Paul’s Cathedral. If approved it would set a dangerous precedent which would mean that no listed building in the country is safe from destruction. Worse it will embolden Network Rail to try and do the same at other city centre stations where land value is high.

Griff Rhys Jones OBE, President of LISSCA and the Victorian Society said,

The only way to fight this is through the law. Which is on our side. But that will cost money. And they will have oodles of it. I am giving two thousand. Please help give us the strength to save the dignity of Liverpool Street Station. Every penny counts.

This case raises significant issues. This means we need your help to raise an estimated £60,000 to meet the legal costs of a public inquiry! Please support us by contributing to our fighting fund, thank you.

If Network Rail and ACME's proposals go ahead it would mean:

A huge tower looming above the station, hotel and conservation area

Many years of disruption for commuters

Demolition of the listed concourse

Plunging the Victorian train sheds and concourse into gloom in the shadow of, and under a tower

Protection of our heritage anywhere in the country is totally undermined

What is the justification for offices in the area?

A couple of visuals of what Network Rail are proposing

The Liverpool Street Station Campaign (LISSCA), which stopped the station’s total demolition in the 1970s at a public inquiry in the 1970s, has been reformed to stop these new plans.

The LISSCA committee is comprised of The Victorian Society, The Twentieth Century Society, Historic Buildings & Places, The Georgian Group, SAVE Britain’s Heritage, The Spitalfields Trust, Civic Voice, London Historians, The Betjeman Society, The Council for British Archaeology, and the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society.

The joint campaign of these major voices for heritage and conservation is extremely rare and reflects how seriously they view the threat to Liverpool Street Station, the former Great Eastern Hotel (now the Andaz London Liverpool Street) and the Bishopsgate Conservation Area.

Photo credits:

Concourse of Liverpool Street Station: Joris Vanbillemont

All visualisations of Network Rail's proposals: (c) ACME

Historic View of Liverpool Street, and the hotel (c) The Bishopsgate Institute

Share this story

Help The Victorian Society

Sharing this page with your friends could help raise up to 3x more in donations

You can also help by sharing this link on

About the charity

The Victorian Society

Verified by JustGiving

RCN 1081435
The Victorian Society is the only charity dedicated to protecting our Victorian and Edwardian built heritage. We help tackle the climate emergency by campaigning for the sensitive reuse of historic buildings to generate much lower carbon emissions than demolition and rebuild. The Victorian Society has a statutory role in the planning process. Our expert caseworkers are consulted on all applications where there is an element of demolition of listed Victorian and Edwardian buildings. Our work is largely funded by our members.

Donation summary

Total raised
£28,485.01
+ £6,347.75 Gift Aid
Online donations
£28,485.01
Offline donations
£0.00
Direct donations
£28,485.01
Donations via fundraisers
£0.00

* Charities pay a small fee for our service. Find out how much it is and what we do for it.