London Plan Alterations
FALP, Draft Further Alterations to London Plan 2014
Alongside the Legacy Corporation's Local Plan, there was also the London Plan. The London Plan 2009 had set out to be a strategy map for London. However after a few years it became clear that the growth of the city outstripped the Plan.
The 2009 Plan was based on a projected population rise of about 51,000 each year; yet census figures showed almost 90,000.
Thus the need for further alterations to the Plan to revise provisions for housing, transport, schools and so forth. FALP 2014 came as a draft for public consultation (download link). But whether the draft went far enough was a matter of doubt.
Like the Legacy Corporation's Local Plan, FALP also used the Localism Act 2011 and showed the extent to which the Mayor of London could use the Act to create new Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) on the model of the Olympic Legacy Corporation. The next MDC was to be at Old Oak Common in west London. In addition to MDCs there were also Opportunity Areas and various forms of designated development like Enterprise zones and Housing zones.
Development zones whilst designed to improve lives are predictably unsettling for the communities within them. Significant sections worry about being worse off or being priced out. At Old Oak Common, the same concerns as with east London's Olympic Legacy began to surface at community level. Whilst planning legislation was now loaded the phrases like 'community involvement' and 'lifelong neighbourhoods' through the Localism Act the consultation processes meant to enable community participation were themselves only devised by the development corporations.
Whatever the language linking Community and Policy, community could only be a partner in large developments if the enabling structure is there. This suggested that there should be an independent funded community-led body as an anchor point for consultations to ensure that an MDC does not have monopoly on the consultation process.
Thus in responses to consultations on FALP 2014 the following recommendations were submitted:
- Development Corporations should prepare a Primer for consultations at the start to set out involvement possibilities.
- that there be equitable representation of the community and voluntary sector on MDC boards.
- through the Primer for consultations, the Mayor should produce the Statement of Community Involvement in simple language to explain the processes that they will apply for community involvement.
Download the full version of response (recovered from FALP website).
April 2014
