South London will no longer be overlooked, City Hall tells business

25th November 2008

London Mayor Boris Johnson will be spotlighting the needs of the South London economy with a new emphasis on regenerating town centres and providing improved transport infrastructure, business leaders have been assured.

Deputy Mayor for Policy and Planning Sir Simon Milton underlined City Hall’s concern to assist outer London in a meeting hosted by South London Business on Friday.  (November 21)

Mayor Johnson had recently announced the creation of an Outer London Commission to advise him on the needs of the boroughs on the capital’s periphery. One major task was to identify up to five areas that would become growth hubs.

“I met yesterday with south London boroughs to discuss a grouping based on Bromley, Croydon, Sutton, Merton, Wandsworth, Kingston and Richmond,” Sir Simon told his audience.” It is important to note that we don’t want to shoehorn co-ordination of all activities into a single set of boundaries – this is not a one-size-fits-all structure,” he added.

Sir Simon underlined the importance of Crossrail to the London economy and said the Mayor would soon be publishing the ‘Assembly draft’ of proposed alterations to policies dealing with Section 106 planning obligations to enable contributions to be raised from developments towards funding Crossrail. This would be accompanied by Supplementary Planning Guidance spelling out where the alterations would be sought.

And to give additional opportunity for borough consultation on these proposed alterations the mayor has gone beyond the statutory minimum requirements in setting out his proposals. While the information would go first to the London Assembly and the GLA functional bodies, as stipulated by law, it would also be made public at the same time.

The Mayor would also soon announce proposals for a full review of the London Plan aiming to have it agreed and in place by the end of 2011 or early in 2012.

All this underlined City Hall’s determination to put in place what Sir Simon called a new style of planning to encourage “ a different dialogue about planning in the capital. We want to be more consensual and have better relationships with our partners,” he said.

He acknowledged the need for economic growth to be underpinned by good transport infrastructure. Transport for London’s Business Plan included the extension of the East London line to West Croydon and Crystal Palace. Oyster card pay-as-you-go would be rolled out to all rail stations in Zones 1 to 6 by late next year, a trial of orbital express buses would be undertaken and, he added: “We are very keen to see further enhancements to the Tramlink in South London.”

In answer to a question about future plans to extend compliance of the Low Emission Zone requirements to ‘White Van Man’ Sir Simon hinted that this might be  ameliorated. “We must look at what you save compared with what you inflict on business. We will not do anything that will damage business,” he pledged.

Referring to the forthcoming work of the Outer London Commission he said: “We will look at what is needed to help four or five hubs to take off. What are the exemplar town centres and how do we assist them?” And he added: “ We may be able to crush together pots of money in the GLA family which would yield £200 to £300 million and will look at how best it can be used.”

Sir Simon also addressed the issue of 50% affordable housing admitting: “I am aware that there has been some confusion over the distribution of the new investment target for 50,000 affordable homes.” This announcement, he said: “Seems to have affected planners more than housing people. The planners have taken it to be a new planning target. It is not a planning target. While it does of course include new build affordable housing, it also includes purchases from the market for use as affordable housing. “ The 50% he stressed was a “pan-London target” and was not even the most important factor to be taken into account.  More important was to secure the “maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing.”

Opening the packed meeting, chief executive of South London Business Peter Pledger said the high turnout “demonstrates that demand for something to be done about the commercial property market in South London is clearly high.”

The meeting also heard from Vanessa Clark from Jones Lang La Salle and Nick Taylor from Drivers Jonas about challenges of the current recession as well as the opportunities that existed. Although all recessions had similarities the current one was “on a completely different scale to the one we experienced in the 90s,” said Ms Clark. “It is in effect a Perfect Storm – a unique set of circumstances,” she told the audience. Mr Taylor said the weak pound also had the potential to bring much overseas money into London development schemes.

The event was sponsored by Spanish company Casa Décor which specialises in converting empty premises into showpiece exhibitions of interior design and furnishing. The company is currently looking for a London location for its first UK exhibition., explained company president Kersti Urvois.

Click Here to view the presentation by Casa Decor London - Kersti Urvois

Click Here to view the presentation by Jones Lang LaSalle - Vanessa Clark

Click Here to view the presentation by Drivers Jonas  - Nick Taylor

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