Supporters of Bevis Marks fear that a proposed conservation area around the 300-year-old synagogue will not be wide enough to protect it.
The City of London Corporation is expected to launch a public consultation later this month on establishing a conservation area that will cover two churches as well as Britain’s oldest synagogue.
But Sephardi leaders are exercised at the exclusion by council officers of part of nearby Bury Street.
Two years ago, the City rejected a planning application for a 48-storey commercial building at 31 Bury Street that was opposed by the synagogue because of fears it would block out the sunlight for most of the day.
But developers have now posted plans for a new 43-storey block on the same site that would provide “a new commercial building of high quality”.
Stuart Morganstein, who is a member of a group set up by the S & P Sephardi Community to preserve the synagogue, said that Bevis Marks “has been the historic centre of our community since 1701 and we have every intention of letting it be there for another 400 years.
Rabbi Shalom Morris outside Bevis Marks (Photo: Handout)
“If we gave in now, we would be letting down the thousands who supported us a few months ago. We have put realistic proposals to the developer and the Corporation of London for a plan to protect the area round the synagogue, including local buildings. We will have to see what happens as we defend our bit of the City of London.”
He urged those who believed it “wrong to take light away from one of the most historic synagogues in the world” to make their views known in the consultation.
Several members of the corporation’s planning and transport committee last month queried the omission of the Bury Street site from the proposed conservation area.
In a letter to the corporation last month, the rabbi of Bevis Marks, Shalom Morris, said, “Your proposed boundary is more tightly drawn than the one we proposed, which we think is regrettable in general, but about which we will leave others to comment.
“However, it specifically excludes 31 Bury Street, which we regard as indefensible, and about which you can expect the community associated with the synagogue to have very strong views.”
