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Draft London Plan: The Headlines

Our team has considered the Draft London Plan and provided an initial response.

"The Draft London Plan is like an Advent calendar with many surprises behind its windows but sadly fewer pictures than we were promised. Perhaps the most political Plan since the strategic authority was re-formed we find recurring themes of affordability, inclusivity, efficiency, health, resilience and delivery of homes in the proposed suite of Good Growth Policies. Good Growth will ‘re-balance development towards more genuinely affordable homes for working Londoners to buy and rent’ whilst ‘delivering a more socially integrated and sustainable city’."

Michael Lowndes, Senior Director

Headlines include:

  • a target of 65,000 new homes a year
  • a 50% affordable housing target overall with individual schemes at 35% or above being fast tracked
  • the substantial part of BTR affordable to be London Living Rent
  • all new development to be air quality neutral and all referable schemes to be net-zero waste
  • moving towards a low carbon circular economy
  • moving away from the density matrix to a design and visual impact led approach to scale and height
  • ramping up design scrutiny through Design Review Panels
  • avoiding deferring the assessment of design to the reserved matters stage of outline applications
  • no net loss of industrial floorspace capacity with strictly limited release
  • encouraging consolidation of industrial uses to accommodate other uses especially residential
  • a commitment to preserving the Green Belt
  • a consequent focus on intensification and densification in the already built city especially around public transport and town centres including the suburbs
  • agent of change provisions to prevent the loss of existing venues and night time uses
  • an enhanced  focus on cycling and walking and a continuing move to car free at accessible locations and ‘car-lite’ everywhere else
  • understanding what is special about the character of London’s places and protecting that heritage
  • creating welcoming, attractive, resilient and integrated places

We will provide more detailed topic briefings over the next week or so. The consultation will run until 2 March 2018.

30 October 2017