Category archive
These are events or posts related to our events, such as event reports
Presentation slides: Will the London Plan deliver the housing and places London needs?
The slides from last week’s London Forum/GLA event on the draft London Plan have been added to its event page.
Annual General Meeting 2026
Wednesday 28 October 6.30pm at The Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EL
Notice is hereby given to member societies of the 2026 AGM of the London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies. Doors open for networking, drinks and nibbles from 6.00pm. Please book your place(s) using the booking facility.
Agenda
- Welcome and Introduction
- Approval of the Minutes of the AGM of 16 October 2025, available here
- Chair’s Report – Chair Michael Jubb
- Financial Report – Treasurer Ali Dezyanian
- Approval of the Annual Report and Accounts for 2025-2026, available here
- Appointment of [more…]
Will the London Plan deliver the housing and places London needs?
The draft London Plan proposes that 50% of all new homes be affordable. With competition for homes, industrial and other uses, some housing will be built in what is now Green Belt land.
This is an important subject covering proposals for housing development in London for the next 20 years.
We invited the London Plan team to talk about:
- The amount of housing required to meet London needs and the tenure and size mix required;
- Where and how the new housing will be accommodated by location and the types of [more…]
How Effective is Planning Enforcement? Meeting Record & Video
Last week we held a well-attended talk on the subject of Planning Enforcement, chaired by Brian Keane of PE&T, which we recorded.
Our two guest speakers were both subject matter experts, each with decades of experience: Roald Piper of Westminster, and Tim Rolt of Brent both managing their respective council’s enforcement teams. The thoroughly engaged audience enjoyed the often amusing anecdotes, and posed incisive questions in Q&A sessions following each speaker – included in the recording.
Using a transcript, we’ve created a 1000 word summary record of the meeting [more…]
![Cowcross st yard [ photo: Joe Pundek at Alan Baxter Ltd]](https://www.londonforum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Cowcross-st-yard-copy-320x202.jpg)
Summer drinks party at Cowcross Street
The annual summer drinks party for London Forum’s paid-up members will be held at the Alan Baxter office building at Cowcross Street.
Please do come along and join Trustees and committee members for drinks and nibbles on Monday 24 August from 6.30pm to 8.30pm and meet fellow activists from other member societies across London.
This is a free event for a maximum of two people per society – please use the booking facility to secure your place(s).
Chair addresses [more…]
How Effective is Planning Enforcement?
How can we make it work better?
Planning enforcement is important. Unless it’s done effectively, the integrity of the whole planning system is put at risk. But it’s one of the most frustrating issues for civic societies and local community groups.
Cases typically include:
- Large developments that grossly fail to meet planning conditions or even submitted drawings and plans;
- Illegal demolitions;
- Unauthorised residential alterations and extensions;
- Additional floors built on top of blocks of flats;
- Illegal tree felling;
- Many others
They can all have significant impacts on individuals and local communities.
Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) are [more…]
Using AI in your Civic Society – Meeting Report & Videos
We held a lively interactive meeting on the subject of Artificial Intelligence on 30th April, which was recorded. Our first speaker, Richard Farthing, covered the background and some relevant uses, not only of well-known ‘chatbots’ such as ChatGPT, but also applications that use AI in the background, and real-world examples, particularly around planning. The second half was a full-on interactive session led by John Myers, who tested out several audience questions on live AI services, ranging from planning to creating images.
We naturally chose AI – in the [more…]
Are London’s High Streets and Town Centres in Crisis? Meeting report
We held a lively meeting last week, chaired by Michael Bach (pictured), examining the many issues around high streets and the night time economy. We had four expert speakers, and a significant number of audience questions.
For the first time, we video-recorded the event. The video and audio recordings are posted on the event page. We used AI to generate a summary, plus an even shorter summary here. If you’d like to discover how we did this, please book for our AI talk at the end of [more…]
Using AI in your Civic Society
Artificial Intelligence is everywhere in the news and in business these days – we even used it to generate the image for this event. How can it help your civic society ? Do you need to be an expert? (No!) Civic societies are often under-resourced, and at this event we showed that with a little knowledge, illustrated with examples, AI can bolster your resources in several useful ways, without necessarily spending a penny.
Agenda
We looked at some novel pre-built applications and services that use AI behind the [more…]
Are London’s High Streets and Town Centres in Crisis?
What is the nature and scale of the crisis and why are some streets and centres doing better or worse than others. What can be done about it? We discussed these and related issues at this Open Meeting on 26th March.
London’s town centres have had a challenging decade – changing planning policies, growing on-line sales, COVID, vacant shops and rising costs. They are in transition, but are they going in the right direction? How can we maintain their vitality? How do we make them more attractive and a [more…]
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Development viability issues
The Housing and Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook MP acknowledged in a speech the ...
More information for members
We have made available three additional links to information in our website Resources facility in the 'Other' section.
They are ...
![School [Freepik]](https://i0.wp.com/www.londonforum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/School.jpg?fit=150%2C94&ssl=1)
School closures
London Councils, representing local authorities in the capital, produced a report 'Finding the Balance' on falling education class numbers and ...
Key policies in the NPPF
The following is a blog recently written by the lawyer Simon Ricketts which is intended to help developers to get a planning application approved. It is helpful for London Forum's members to understand parts of the new NPPF and for considering its ...
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Annual General Meeting 2026
📆 Wed 28th October | 18:30 - 20:30
🚩 77 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EL (map)
Wednesday 28 October 6.30pm at The Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EL Notice is hereby given to member societies of the 2026 AGM of the London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies. Doors open for networking, drinks and nibbles from 6.00pm. Please book your place(s) using the booking facility ( https://www.londonforum.org.uk/events/agm-2026#booking ). Agenda Welcome and Introduction Approval of the Minutes of the AGM of 16 October 2025, available here ( https://www.londonforum.org.uk/agm-papers/ ) Chair’s Report – Chair Michael Jubb Financial Report – Treasurer Ali Dezyanian Approval of the Annual Report and Accounts for 2025-2026, available here ( https://…
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