Ken Livingstone: London needs some more clusters of tall buildings

'High buildings should be assessed by what they add to the skyline, rather than what they take away'

Much as I have strong views about London's skyline, I think it is about time this argument extended from beyond the rarefied debates of the planners and architects and owned up to what it really is. This is an argument about whether London stays as a world city capable of delivering the employment, investment, infrastructure, housing and office space that are needed to compete with New York, Tokyo, Frankfurt or Berlin.

English Heritage and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) published their joint protocol on high buildings yesterday, which was immediately presented as another row with me over the planning policy for London. I fully support the call of CABE and English Heritage for early and detailed information on tall building proposals. My officers have always encouraged developers to come forward early to discuss their plans and will continue to do so.

I was, however, disappointed that CABE and English Heritage did not make a greater acknowledgement of the positive role tall buildings can play in cities. But I will continue to work with them to secure an interim agreement on tall buildings in London in the near future.

London isn't Manhattan. What I envisage is a small number of tall buildings on locations suitable for their development, to meet an identified economic need and to contribute to London's overall vitality as a world city. For the record, I broadly expect clusters of new higher buildings to be in the north-eastern corner of the City boundaries, on some of the major central London rail terminuses, such as London Bridge, and in other areas such as Canary Wharf. I would like to reach agreement with English Heritage about where clusters would be acceptable, and will continue to seek agreement with them. We may have to disagree ultimately, but at this stage I hope that economic interests and heritage concerns can be reconciled.

I have said I want a review of strategic views to examine their relevance. This does not mean I will grant permission for skyscrapers to be built directly in front of national monuments such as St Paul's. But I want a more flexible approach that allows high buildings to be assessed in terms of what they can add to the panorama of the skyline, rather than what they will take away from it.

My draft planning strategy sets the challenge for achieving sustainable growth in London. This mean higher density development to maximise the use of brown-field land use so we can avoid building on the green belt or our green spaces. London's commercial rents are among the highest in the world so, as well as making environmental sense, increasing the supply of office space in London by building at higher densities will play an important role in stabilising business costs.

Of course I recognise and take seriously the arguments about London's heritage. But those critics who I find least convincing are those who simply dismiss the economic issues at stake. Deyan Sudjic, for example, challenges "the questionable rhetoric about the economic logic of building high". I will listen to those who oppose new tall buildings but at least recognise the requirement to compete for business and investment with New York, Tokyo, Berlin or Frankfurt. Those who simply refuse to recognise there is an issue at all will fail to connect with the issues London is confronting.

The Corporation of the City of London is aware of 14 companies wishing to locate in London in buildings of at least 500,000 square feet, and further demand is evident at Canary Wharf. These companies don't necessarily wish to be housed in slab-like "groundscrapers", and are seeking quality buildings that can give them a sense of identity. As Mayor of London, I have a duty to promote the economic well-being of London and Londoners ­ I would be failing if I did not consider protecting London's position in the global economy to be of prime importance. Those companies that are deterred from coming here, if our planning approach is inflexible and unimaginative, will simply go elsewhere.

I intend to extract the most out of London's growth for London's citizens. That is why I am using my planning powers to allow higher density in return for more affordable housing and more mixed-use sites. For example I lifted my direction of refusal on a residential development in the Limehouse Basin after the developer increased the number of affordable homes on the site from 25 per cent to 33 per cent. More famously I withdrew my direction of refusal on the Harrods Depository site only after the developer agreed to more than treble its original offer of affordable housing. But these decisions, which bring benefit to Londoners, are predicated on growth.

London is a constantly changing city with a variety of architectural styles, and this should be reflected in its modern architecture. I don't believe Londoners want to see a bunch of identical tall blocks crowding all this out, but I do think that a variety of interesting and beautiful tall buildings would enhance the whole of London's skyline.