Launch of New London Plan Consultation

What is the London Plan?

 

The London Plan, which is produced by the Mayor of London,  is a blueprint for development and growth in London. It includes policies on key issues such as new homes, workplaces, public transport and open spaces.

 

The London Plan 2021 is the current Spatial Development Strategy for Greater London.    However it is a legal requirement for the Mayor to produce an up to date Plan every 5 years,  and as such work has commenced on the new London Plan.

 

Towards a new London Plan

 

The launch of this consultation is the first real indication we have had about the priorities for a new London Plan, which, the Mayor says, will be progressed to adoption in 2028.

 

We are sure the promise of a more ‘streamlined’ document in the future will be welcomed by most across the industry and we wonder whether the next London Plan will strip back some of the slightly-less-than-strategic design and detailed policies which the current plan contains.

 

The big headline is probably the housing number and how that will be achieved – now 880,000 new homes targeted over the first ten years of the plan, or 88,000 new homes annually. The current delivery rate has been less than half of this over the last decade, so it needs a massive shift in delivery to get anywhere near this.

 

How can this step-change in delivery be delivered?

 

Well, that’s where the new plan could start to become more interesting…

 

• The major headline in the press is already about the talk of Green Belt release......Remember when Mayor Khan tried to progress with a Green Belt policy which was more restrictive than the national policy and that got shot down pre-adoption? Well, things have changed and the consultation is now talking about the possibility of ‘large scale urban extensions in the Green Belt’ of 10,000+ homes’ as well as release of Metropolitan Open Land and supporting Grey Belt; after 70-odd years of GB protection, one can certainly conclude that ‘the times they are ‘a changin’!;

 

• As well as all the exciting bits around the edges (geographically speaking), there are some subtle hints about liberalisation of policies to support housing in the CAZ and in town and local centres. This is all under the (completely expected) ‘brownfield first’ approach. The strong commitment to SIL and LSIS industrial protection seems to be sticking, at least for now though;

 

• The consultation suggests we could be heading to tall building locations being designated at a strategic level (and it is critical that some boroughs have failed to do their own work under the current London Plan); and

 

• The consultation says that the thresholds for viability assessment will be reviewed, including ‘where some types of development are very challenging to deliver’. No doubt there will be plenty of responses on what this threshold should be to support development in the Capital.

 

Overall, the consultation hints at some fairly significant changes, not just to housing policy, but how the CAZ and commercial areas are managed, and to the assessment of sustainability and planning for transport.

 

DHA looks forward to undertaking a detailed review of the consultation and responding on behalf of our clients before the 22^nd June deadline.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact Patrick Reedman at DHA London to discuss the potential implications of this upon your land and/or project.