
The City of London is set to get another huge tower, as plans for 99 Bishopsgate are approved.
The new office-led tower will stand on the busy crossroads where Bishopsgate meets Wormwood Street and Camomile Street, replacing an earlier and shorter tower. At 238 metres, it would be the second tallest building in the Square Mile. That's as things stand. Three other towers, all slightly bigger, have also gained approval but have not yet begun construction.
The new skyscraper will be mostly given over to office space, but it also comes with several features of note to those of us who don't crave corporate floorspace. Notably, much of the base is raised up on stilts (as with the 'Cheesegrater'), providing more space for the public to mill about. This and other opened-up areas around the tower will contribute to a "1013% increase in public space, linking into wider pedestrian routes from Liverpool Street Station to the City Cluster and beyond".

The development also comes with a ground floor 'market hall', and a standalone six-storey block given over to cultural use — something currently lacking in this part of the Square Mile. No public viewing platform on this one... but then I think we're all getting a bit bored of new viewing platforms.
As can be seen from skyline mock-ups, 99 Bishopsgate would form a stepped edge to the left of the cluster, a little like a bookend, when viewed from Waterloo Bridge. It 'signs off' the cluster, handing the sky back to St Paul's. Well, it does from this angle:

Even so, the tower has not been without critics. St Paul's has itself raised concerns that the tower further impinges on its sight-lines. Meanwhile, former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Rowan Williams is critical about the impact on the local area. He fears that the adjacent church-cum-peace-space of St Ethelburga's will be ruined by the construction. The City of London Corporation's planning committee acknowledged these concerns, but ruled that the public benefits "outweigh the identified conflict".

Another casualty, incidentally, would be one of the last 'pedways', leftovers from a 1960s plan to place pedestrians above the traffic, as at the Barbican. The pedway over Wormwood Street has been closed for years, but it's still a shame to lose one of these relics of another age.
Against received wisdom, office space in the City is in high demand, as evidenced by the current rash of new developments. It was recently announced that the City's tallest office block, 22 Bishopsgate, has now been 100% let.