Westminster City Council's planning committee approved the redevelopment of the former West End Central police station at 27 Savile Row on 14 May 2024. The scheme includes Grade A offices, space for a restaurant and a rent-free permanent home for the London Academy of Bespoke (LAB), the tailoring school that serves as the official training partner of the Savile Row Bespoke Association (SRBA).
According to Building magazine, councillors voted four to two in favor, overriding planning officers who had recommended refusal on the grounds that the design failed to preserve or enhance the Regent Street Conservation Area. The council received more than 100 letters of support from nearby businesses and four letters of objection.
A derelict building at the top of the street
The police station, an early modernist building completed in 1940, has stood empty since the Metropolitan Police left it in 2017. It sits at the northern end of Savile Row, an area Building described as comparatively rundown; neighboring occupiers backed the scheme as a way to revive it. The plans, designed by PLP Architecture, replace the station with an eight-story office building. The SRBA said the scheme would reuse up to 95 percent of the original facade materials. Henigman is the development manager.
Lee Polisano, president of PLP Architecture, said the design would bring the character of Savile Row back to the northern end of the street, and that an academy for apprentices and affordable workspaces would create a hub for the next generation of tailors.
The tailors' campaign
The SRBA and the street's tailors campaigned for the scheme for about two years and released a video backing it ahead of the vote. Mark Henderson, the association's chair, argued that the building could not be left derelict. After the decision he called it an important milestone in the careful upgrading of property on the street. Anda Rowland of Anderson & Sheppard also spoke in favor.
“There is new energy on Savile Row, and we need new energy on the northern end of the street”
Anda Rowland, Anderson & Sheppard, to the Savile Row Bespoke Association
The approval came during a tighter period for demolition in Westminster. Building reported that the council had set out plans to become a retrofit-first city with stronger rules on knocking buildings down, and that a month earlier a similar proposal for an adjacent site across the street had been refused in a close vote.
What it means for tailoring
The training element matters more to the street than the offices. LAB was founded in 2016 by Victoria Townsend, who completed her own SRBA apprenticeship in 2012, and all its teachers are Savile Row-trained cutters and makers. In June 2024 the SRBA said LAB was based at 19 Savile Row and would eventually move to purpose-built space at No. 27. A permanent, rent-free base gives the trade a training site on the street itself at a time when the SRBA requires every member house to employ at least one apprentice.
For people who buy suits, the effect is long term: the bespoke houses depend on a steady supply of cutters, coat-makers and trouser-makers. Our guide to how a bespoke suit is made explains what each of those trades does. The sources do not give a construction timetable for the building.
