Labour HQ Set To Be Demolished For Luxury Flats And Offices

The Labour party's London headquarters is going to be demolished after the general election as part of a project that will see offices and luxury flats built in its place.

Westminster City Council has approved the plans for Hong Kong's Anquila Corporation to turn Labour's Victoria base at 1-2 Brewers Green and the 63-65 Buckingham Gate site into a new residential and office quarter.

Labour's HQ will demolished as part of a project that will see 65 flats and 31,043 sq ft of offices built in its place, property magazine Estates Gazette reported. The Brewers Green site itself will be replaced by another office building. The developer has agreed to pay £3.6 million as the no affordable housing will be built as part of the redevelopment.

Labour's HQ and 63-65 Buckingham Gate, near St James' Park, are set to become luxury flats and offices...

HuffPostUK understands that Labour's lease for its One Brewers Green headquarters expires at the end of 2015, with the property set to be fully vacant by 2016. A Labour spokesman declined to comment on what the party has planned for its next headquarters.

The party moved to its current base in 2012, having previously been based at Millbank Tower beside the river Thames.

Labour's headquarters were subject to controversy after "homeless spikes" were pictured outside. Matt Carr, blogging on HuffPostUK, wrote: "It's obvious that the brilliant satirist who installed those spikes intended them as a form of social protest, in a powerful attempt to rouse the national conscience regarding the problem of homelessness.

"That these spikes have now appeared outside the Labour Party HQ - once again without anyone seeming to know how they got there - is a tribute to this anonymous artist's biting satirical imagination."

This comes after the Huffington Post UK learned that a "Yes" vote in this week's Scottish independence referendum could see the party cancel the bulk of its party conference.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, senior Labour sources confirmed that the party high command would cancel all speeches and fringe events, with the exception of the keynote address from Labour leader Ed Miliband next Tuesday.

Labour strategists are operating on the assumption that a vote to dissolve the union would result in a recall of parliament next Monday - cutting into the second day of the Labour annual conference in Manchester - and a possible vote of no confidence in David Cameron tabled by Tory backbenchers, thus requiring the presence of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in Westminster.

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