London Forum Insights
Insights are our long-form review articles on key matters of interest to members
What’s Happening to London’s Population?
An Historical Introduction
London’s population peaked in the 1930s, reaching about 8.6 million in 1939. For the next half century it fell steadily, to 6.8 million in the 1980s, before beginning to rise again, to over 9.1 million now. But the experiences of inner London (broadly, the area governed by the London County Council (LCC) from 1889 to 1963) and of outer London (broadly, the areas added to the county when the Greater London Council (GLA) was created in 1965) have differed greatly.
Population density map 2020
Inner London’s population fell rapidly by over 40%, from 4.6 million to 2.6 million between the 1930s and the 1980s. By contrast, the outer London [more…]
Great British Railways consultation launched
GBR logo – there are several proposed versions
The government has at last launched a formal consultation on the creation of Great British Railways (GBR), several years after the launch of the Williams Review in 2018 that ended up as the Williams-Shapps report in 2021 recommending a GBR.
Although the previous Conservative governments gave oral support to a proposal which bore the name of their transport secretary, the closest they came to implementing it was a dummy Bill, a kind of dress rehearsal for what might become the real thing before the script had been written.
Labour supported Great British Railways in opposition and continues to [more…]
Balancing quality and quantity to deliver 1.5m homes
This article was first published in Housing Today.
The government – and housebuilders – must be given the best possible chance of achieving its ambitious target writes Ben Derbyshire
Nobody wants new homes built nearby because what housebuilders do looks horrible and inevitably overwhelms local infrastructure – right? Well, hold on. How else can the government achieve its target of a million and a half new homes within the life of this parliament?
According to the 2024 Competition & Markets Authority report, in 2021-22 the largest 11 speculative housing developers together supplied around 40% of new homes built. The government response has been to instigate bold reforms to housing delivery targets [more…]
Insights newsletters
PDF versions of the earlier ‘newsletter format’ editions of Insights are shown below. The archive of the Insights forerunner NewsForum is available here
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Latest News
Culture funding
The DCMS £270m ‘Arts Everywhere Fund’ includes £15m for repairing Heritage at Risk and a new £4.85m Heritage Revival [more…]
Infrastructure Strategy
The Government has set out its working paper for developing a 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy which seeks to bring [more…]
Environment improvement
There is a statement from DEFRA’s Secretary of State, Steve Reed, providing an update on the rapid review of [more…]
Latest Insights
What’s Happening to London’s Population?
An Historical Introduction
London’s population peaked in the 1930s, reaching about 8.6 million in 1939. For the next half century it fell steadily, to 6.8 million in the 1980s, before beginning [more…]
Our Diary
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Planning, Environment and Transport committee meeting
📅 10th April 2025 | 14:00 - 16:00
🚩 Room B1 70 Cowcross St, EC1M 6EJ (map)
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The New London Plan: Shaping Housing for the Future
📆 23rd April 2025 | 18:30 - 20:45
🚩 77 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EL (map)Many communities in London are concerned about future development that could change that character of their much-loved areas, whether by the scale, density or height of new building. This event will leave us all much better informed about the shape of the next ten years. Free for London Forum members, but booking is essential ( https://www.londonforum.org.uk/events/the-new-london-plan-shaping-housing-for-the-future#booking ). Chair: Ben…
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Member Services Committee meeting
📅 24th April 2025 | 14:00 - 16:00
🚩 Room B1 70 Cowcross St, EC1M 6EJ (map)