New Bishopsgate skyscraper gets 'haircut' to avoid City Airport flights

Axa’s planned new 22 Bishopsgate skyscraper is taking a four-storey “haircut” to avoid clashing with planes flying into London’s City Airport.

The insurer and development partner Lipton Rogers Developments have submitted a revised planning application to the Corporation of London which will take 23 metres off the height of the building. The tower will now be 59 storeys, or 255 metres, although the overall area of the building will remain the same as the original plans.

An Axa spokesman told the Standard: “The reduction in height allows a cleaner, more elegant resolution to the top of the building in the context of air-traffic control constraints.” Plans for the City’s tallest building, known as the Trellis, also had to be trimmed because of air-traffic concerns.

Axa aims to complete the tower in 2019. It is being built on the former site of the Pinnacle skyscraper, which became known as “the Stump” after Saudi backers halted work in the wake of the financial crisis.