The GLA’s public consultation over the summer on potential strategic options for the next London Plan provided a timely opportunity to both reflect on the progress that has been made since the current plan was adopted in 2021, and fundamentally re-think the approach to planning for the capital’s industrial land needs; a land use category widely regarded as critical to meeting business needs and enabling London’s economy to function and grow, particularly with new drivers of demand such as ‘last mile’ logistics and data centres which the Government is keen to support the growth of nationally.
Further detail and draft policies will follow once the GLA has advanced its economic evidence base, so ‘Towards a new London Plan’ provides some initial observations on the key challenges facing this increasingly complex land use sector, and poses a series of questions about how these challenges could be addressed through planning policy.
Whilst the release of industrial land over recent decades has provided London with a valuable source of brownfield land to meet its wider growth needs, in more recent years, declining industrial capacity has significantly exceeded the GLA’s monitoring benchmarks in the majority of boroughs, even where land was (in planning terms) protected. Consequently, many boroughs have struggled to plan proactively for the changing needs of industry; coupled with diminishing industrial stock, rising rents and limited availability, this has led to widespread concerns about the efficient functioning of parts of London’s economy.
Our latest Insight Focus explores how the new London Plan could seek to address the specific challenges and opportunities for meeting the capital’s industrial land needs through this new, more strategic focus. It presents the case for a more ambitious strategy to enable the growth of this critical sector of the economy more generally, as the GLA works on the details of the next London Plan.
