City Hall will leave Southwark and move to Newham, Sadiq Khan has confirmed today.
The GLA will now move its HQ next year from the iconic building on the More London estate to The Crystal building in Newham.
The Mayor says the move will save the GLA £61m over five years, and that the savings from moving City Hall to Newham’s Royal Docks can be invested in front-line services.
Critics have repeatedly accused Mr Khan of overstating the savings of the move, and not exploring other options to keep City Hall in its central location.
“Given our huge budget shortfall, and without the support we should be getting from the Government, I simply cannot justify remaining at our current expensive office when I could be investing that money into public transport, the Met Police and the London Fire Brigade,” said Mr Khan.
“The alternative to considering this move would be to cut the front-line services Londoners rely on.”
The Crystal will be renamed City Hall after the move. The current building on the More London estate is owned by a Kuwaiti company, and is set to cost nearly £10m a year in rent, and several million in costs and maintenance, says the Mayor.
Mr Khan insists that the case for moving to The Crystal, which is owned by the GLA, is “impossible to ignore.”
But the London Assembly submitted a formal objection to the idea in August.
Chair of the Assembly, Navin Shah AM, told Mayor Khan: “Your proposals for The Crystal do not have a sound financial basis and, when one considers value as well as cost, are detrimental to the standing of the Greater London Authority.”
Under the proposal, assembly members can remain located in central London, but the business of the assembly will be conducted in Newham.
The GLA will also occupy a second floor of the London Fire Brigade’s HQ on SE1’s Union Street.
“move will save the GLA £61m over five years” so makes sense to me.
Although unfortunate to the More London area to lose the prestige.
Maybe if he spent less money on staff at £100,000 a year he could save money . The new building is not big enough to hold all the people that need to use it and what a place to put the mayors office …Newham …!