Landsec has delayed investment across four schemes by £700m leaving £340m of committed spending.

Most of that investment will be at 21 Moorfields, EC2 where Sir Robert McAlpine is building a new home for Deutsche Bank.

A further delay of two months has been caused by covid-19 disruption but Landsec said “all construction contracts are agreed, and the steel framework has progressed well.”

Work at three other schemes in the capital has been scaled down with the option to pause construction at ground level.

Landsec said: “At Lucent, W1, Nova East, SW1 and 105 Sumner Street, SE1, we have committed £33m to progress as quickly as possible in the current environment and secure long lead-time packages.

“We have also negotiated break options before entering into main construction contracts.

“In doing so, we have deferred until September at the earliest the remaining £251m commitment needed for the most capital intensive stages of these three schemes.

“This flexibility allows us to keep reviewing the occupational market we might deliver into and to decide at multiple junctures whether to continue work, pause or to cease speculative development entirely.”

“At Nova East, our 166,000 sq ft scheme, we are progressing the build-to-grade works, construction of the cores and detailed design as well as placing orders for certain packages of work.

“At Lucent, our 144,000 sq ft scheme in the heart of the West End, demolition is complete and, here too, we are building to grade, constructing the cores and negotiating a flexible main contract with our contractor.

“At 105 Sumner Street, we have planning consent for two buildings totalling 140,000 sq ft plus a new public square.

“We’ll use our new, partly automated efficient construction methods to reduce building time and cost, and to create our first net zero carbon development.

“We are building to grade, progressing construction of the basement and procuring long lead time packages as we progress the detailed designs.”