Vacant building to be stripped back to its frame and extended upwards by seven storeys
Plans by developer Criterion Capital to transform Camberwell Magistrates’ Court into housing and a hotel have been approved by Southwark council.
The former 1971 court building has been vacant since 2020 and has since become a visual blight and a magnet for anti-social behaviour, according to the scheme’s lead architect Ackroyd Lowrie.
The practice said the proposals would reimagine the building and surrounding space as a new “civic focal point” for Camberwell that will act as a neighbourhood hub for vibrant community uses.
The scheme will strip the eight-storey building back to its concrete frame and build a seven-storey vertical extension at its centre.
The new 15-storey building will provide 134 homes, 35.1% of which will be affordable, a 150-room Zedwell hotel and 250sq m of community space.
It will also include a cafe, a podcast recording studio, a co-working space and 650sq m of new public realm and green space reclaimed through the conversion of an adjacent dual carriageway.
All of the building’s uses will be accessible through a double-height atrium which will be open 24 hours a day.
The plans were amended during the planning process by removing two storeys from the top of the central extension, cutting the number of homes by ten and removing a frame structure on the scheme’s roof.
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