London needs to ‘shape up’ if it is to retain a dominant position as both a World City and one that is truly sustainable. Ensuring that London delivers the quality of development required to remain at the world’s top-table is the joint responsibility of the Mayor and the Boroughs. There is a clear aspiration to deliver both new homes and jobs, but fresh decisions need to be made in the face of unpredictable pressures such as a seemingly inevitable departure from the European Union and global climate change. More than ever, London needs to position itself as a city of aspiration and tolerance, ambition and fairness.
This report considers a handful of ways in which London can be shaped and re-shaped in response to these challenges. In doing so, it proposes some basic principles to inform future development considerations; not only in the planning of new places, but the densification and regeneration of those which already exist. It seeks to explore ways in which this ‘re/shaping’ might be achieved and then demonstrate how some of the ideas might be applied in West London; significantly increasing the area’s anticipated development potential. It all starts from the simple premise that we must plan, we must enable and we must build.
