Plans for one of Britain’s tallest residential skyscrapers have been approved in west London despite complaints from residents that the proposal is “obscene” and an “eyesore” and a warning from the mayor of London that it lacks affordable housing.

The 55-storey twin-towers development in Ealing, sponsored by the Egyptian developer Aldau, will be visible from miles around and will feature 1,000% more floor space than is currently at the site.

The developer said it would “create a sense of place” in the Old Oak Common area, where there will be a station on the new HS2 high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham. But local residents attacked the design as “extremely aggressive” and Nicholas Boys Smith, the director of the Create Streets campaign group, labelled it “London’s Trump Tower”.

“This is solving London’s housing needs with false logic,” said Boys Smith, whose organisation campaigns for lower-rise high-density development. “‘We need housing. This is housing. Therefore we need this.’ But human beings don’t appreciate being reduced to the scale of ants.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Residents said the design was ‘extremely aggressive’. Photograph: KPF

At 215 metres it will be considerably taller than the St George Wharf and One Blackfriars towers in central London, currently the tallest residential buildings in Britain. A taller apartment block, known as Landmark Pinnacle, is under construction close to Canary Wharf in east London.

The architect of the Ealing development is KPF, which has built some of the world’s tallest buildings and has a proposal for a tower in Tokyo reaching more than 1,600 metres, twice the height of the world’s current tallest building. Approving the plans, the council praised its “efficient use of this brownfield site optimising housing delivery” and said it was “high-quality architecture that will contribute positively to the character of the area”.

The scheme will feature two towers, containing 702 new homes and a 159-room hotel. The developers said 35% of the homes will be “affordable” while the rest will be for private sale. Last year, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said the amount being proposed was “not acceptable”.

His planning officers also warned: “The bulk, height and massing of this very tall building raises concern in terms of its impacts on townscape and on the Old Oak & Wormholt conservation area.”

The mayor has the power to overrule the London borough of Ealing and reject the development.



