Updates

The government’s chief planner, Joanna Averley, in her latest newsletter to local authorities gives details on the Levelling Up White Paper, environmental screening of Neighbourhood Plans, permitted development rights for markets and movable structures, the bio-diversity net gain consultation and its implementation, fire safety matters for consideration at the application stage for relevant high-rise residential buildings, plus information about a new organisation called Active Travel England to support local authorities.

There were two consultations in January 2022 by the GLA on issues to be taken into account in the preparation of the next London Plan and on the annual monitoring report (AMR) of key performance indicators for the current London Plan version introduced in March 2021. London Forum’s responses to those are in its web site ‘What We’ve Said‘ section.
Guidance documents to support the implementation of specific policies in the London Plan have been published or draft versions of some of them are being consulted upon in February 2022. London Forum has prepared a briefing document on those [more…]

The Government has published a Levelling Up White Paper. There is a comprehensive briefing on the LUWP by the Local Government Association and the RTPI has produced its comments on it. There is an article with the view of the Leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, Darren Rodwell, that “Michael Gove must recognise that London needs ‘levelling up’ too”. Paul Smith, an Associate at Cratus, also published comments on the LUWP.
In addition to those, London Forum has extracted comments made by its President Ben Derbyshire, Clive Betts MP LUHC Committee Chair and the leaders of other organisations [more…]

The London Society published a report on this subject.

The lawyer Simon Ricketts, Partner at Town Legal LLP, has written an article on this subject, following a clear judgment from The Hon. Mr Justice Holgate of the High Court as to how decision makers should approach applications for prior approval for the upward extension of buildings under the General Permitted Development Order: CAB Housing Limited v Secretary of State (3 February 2022). Civic and amenity societies should consider the conclusions extracted in the article.
Barnet Council has had several successes in refusing upward extensions which they considered would cause harm. One was a dismissed appeal here.

The High Streets Task Force has published a report on creating resilient and revitalised high streets. Twenty case studies and recommendations have been published since the start of 2022, as here.

The Mayor set a target for London to be net zero carbon by 2030 and he commissioned Element Energy which analysed four possible pathways to the target in their report and the Mayor’s response is here.

A House of Lords’ report was published on this subject. It concluded that without reducing the barriers to meeting housing demand — including skills shortages, lack of available land, resources for local planning authorities, the reduced role of SME housebuilders, inadequate support for social housing provision, and the barriers and delays in the planning system — it will not be possible to meet targets for various types of homes.
RTPI has commented on the report in a blog here.
An article in Building magazine covers the Peers’ criticism of the track record of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and their [more…]

Martin Esom, chief executive, Waltham Forest LBC, explains how his borough is shaping localities around the people who live and work there.
Does your borough have those ambitions?

The GLA has provided the latest details about London’s Opportunity Areas.
If you click through the map and see information for any OA, has your borough endorsed the potential housing and job numbers and are the timescales for delivery and the dependencies for the developments clear?

The government’s chief planner, Joanna Averley, in her latest newsletter to local authorities proposes that we must bring about a change in urban attitudes so that towns and cities once again become attractive places in which to live, work and socialise.
The vital importance of the freight and logistics sector to shops, households, assembly lines, hospitals and other public services is emphasised.

London Forum supports the content of the Mayor’s GLA Urban Greening Factor (UGF) Guidance for borough assessment of new applications to achieve Policy G5 for Urban Greening in the March 2021 London Plan.
Presentation slides describing the UGF guidance are here.