Towards a Community- Led Plan for London Policy directions and proposals Contents Page2 Page 41 1 How to use this document 5 Making London a Blue Green City Page 3 Climate Change Targets Introduction to Just Space Energy Supply and Infrastructure Page 5 Air Quality 1 Just Planning for London London’s Water Framework Green Space and Infrastructure Biodiversity/Looking Page13 After Nature 2 Public Participation and Community Food Growing Community Involvement and Food Production in Planning Page 53 Page19 6 Reducing the Need to Travel 3 An Economy for London. and Making the Transport What is the Economy for? System Work Better A Fair City Lifetime Suburbs Green and Localised Economy Promote Active, Affordable, Diverse Economies Integrated and Accessible Travel Outer London Page 29 Improve the Environment 4 Housing, Health Tackle Congestion and Pollution and Wellbeing Promote an Integrated Caring for Existing Homes Approach to Freight Quality of New Homes Not-for-Profit Rented Homes Page 59 Participation in London Wide 7 How the Plan is Housing Policy to be Delivered Community-Led Housing Policy Existing Delivery Models: Private Rented Sector Opportunity Areas Lifetime Neighbourhoods and Community Infrastructure Monitoring Page 71 Contributors Page72 Credits 2 How to use this document The community-led proposals are set out topic by topic, reflecting the current structure of the London Plan, though with a more integrated approach. The policy proposals are contained in coloured boxes and some of these policy proposals are structured as per the current London Plan — Strategic, meaning policy for the Mayor to operate across London, Local Plans, meaning for Boroughs to adopt, and Planning Decisions to guide the decisions of both Mayor and Boroughs on planning applications. The key area that the current London Plan falls down on is Implementation. We conclude with a section on how the London Plan is to be delivered or implemented, including the key tools of lifetime neighbourhoods, social impact assessments and community assets. Just Space 3 Just Space is a community-led network of voluntary and action groups influencing plan making and planning policy to ensure public debate on crucial issues of social justice and economic and environmental sustainability. Operating mainly through mutual support among member-groups but also through sharing of information, research and resources, we are now active at neighbour- hood, borough and London-wide levels. What brought us together was a need at the city-wide level to challenge the domination of the planning process by developers and public bodies, the latter themselves heavily in- fluenced by property development interests. To us, the planning system pays only lip service to the commitment to community participation: the gap between policy and practice is immense where democratic engagement is concerned. In response, the Just Space network has, over the last nine years, brought together and nurtured a huge amount of experience and know-how from London’s diverse community organisations. A year ago Just Space and its member-groups began to prepare contributions for a completely new London Plan which was going to be needed and commissioned by the new Mayor. Three major conferences and many working group meetings have got us to the present stage. This document reclaims planning in London as a means to secure a just London for all. In the 16-year lifetime of the GLA citizens have only had the chance to comment on draft plans prepared in City Hall; now for the first time we can propose our own. Towards a Community-Led Plan for London 4 1. Framework Just Planning for London Framework Introduction 5 This publication stems from a sense that now there is a huge opportunity for London to overcome the disenchantment with the planning system — with its failure to deliver economic, social and environmental benefits fairly. A new Mayor, Sadiq Khan, is in place, brought in on a wave of discontent over the housing crisis, but also in celebration of the rich diversity of Londoners. And the knowledge and creativity resting with London’s community organisations can be directly channeled towards new policy proposals and implementation plans for ‘our London’. London’s fabled triumph as a “global city” and wealth generator for the UK masks the production of poverty through rising costs of housing and transport relative to incomes; air quality has worsened to become a major health hazard; burdens are imposed on those least able to bear them and inequalities are widening. Far from achieving sustainable development and meaningful participation, planning and development in London has become increasingly subordinated to real estate and financial interests, who now have overwhelming influence on how the plans for London emerge and on whether they are followed. Financial “viability” has become the major criterion in planning decisions, prioritising landowner and developer profits at the expense of social and environmental needs. Meanwhile, national government has weakened the controls over change of use, making it harder — often impossible — to protect our workspaces and our community facilities in the face of inflated housing land values. Development has become geared towards market-sector housing, housing which fewer and fewer Londoners can afford. Towards a Community-Led Plan for London 6 These visible trends in London reflect and reinforce national trends. In the context of economic stagnation and deep-rooted inequalities, in the face of the housing crisis, environmental challenges and, for many, a deepening sense of disenfranchisement, there is an argument that there is a compelling requirement for a break with the past. The immediate downturn and future uncertainty from the Brexit referendum result is a further imperative for radical re-thinking: a diversification of the London economy, a re-balancing with the rest of the UK, along with a necessary deepening of participation. The proposals and demands set out in this document aim at claiming rights to the city by and for those who don’t have them under present conditions, those whose rights have been taken away or are under attack. Some already have the right to the city, are running the city now, have it well in hand. This document is asserting the rights to the city for the people and communities of London. London Planning as it Stands The first chapter of the existing London Plan sets out the Mayor’s commitment to ensure that all Londoners have equal life chances and a good quality of life through access to housing, employment, social and green infrastructure and other services. One of the objectives is to address deprivation, exclusion, discrimination and social inequality. But for many, these phrases in chapter one have not translated into reality. Working class communities, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups, Gypsies and Travellers, LGBT communities, the young, the unemployed, many social tenants, many private tenants, those with a range of disabilities are all, in diverse ways, disadvantaged by London’s current development trajectory. There is no differentiation to recognise the specific needs they have and no foundations that create solidarities, that encompass a range of identities. 1. Framework London scores badly on most socio-economic indicators: in recent years 7 it recorded the lowest growth in economic inclusion, the lowest levels of reported wellbeing and life satisfaction, the highest level of income inequality in the UK, higher rates of in-work poverty than the rest of the country, high levels of inequalities for BAME groups and the list goes on. The chapters in this document offer critical accounts of how London’s planning and development have worked in recent years. A key critique is the way in which the unquestioned pursuit of economic growth and its conventional measurement by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Value Added (GVA) generates wealth in the financial system, in the land-owning and property sectors but disregards worsening environ- mental conditions like clean air, worsening public health caused by housing stress and the damaging effects of inequality more generally. Planning, which has historically alleviated many of these problems, no longer does so. Part of the problem is the geography of London’s development over recent years. Private corporations and major public bodies and employment growth have increasingly concentrated in the centre, with a growing labour supply travelling from ever further afield, overloading the transport network and requiring massive new infrastructure like Crossrail. At the same time, housing costs have forced low- and middle- income workers further out, while council estate “regeneration” displaces many more people. The traditional protection of work spaces has become ineffective, as employment land and buildings are sold off to house builders. The results of all this are to make it harder to find a job or services near home, increasing the need for costly travel and undermining the intrinsic benefits of local centres. This geography is a constant challenge and good planning is needed to get it right. Towards a Community-Led Plan for London 8 The Legal Framework for Londoners’ Right to Sustainable, Inclusive and Fair Planning The legal framework for planning in London has some useful instruments to support just planning and our proposals aim to reinvigorate such instruments with the involvement of London’s diverse communities. For example, the promise of the Localism Act could be