Government Office for London Annual Review 2001-2002 | Download the Complete Review in PDF Format here
Planning
GOL deals with a wide variety of planning work. Our aim across this wide remit is to promote a sustainable and high quality living and working environment in London. We do this by working closely with local planning authorities, the Mayor of London and a host of other organisations and groups in a way that is appropriate to the Secretary of State's quasi judicial decision making role.
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A key role is to deal with planning applications and appeals on behalf of the Secretary of State. For example, we advise the Secretary of State on whether proposals which are referred to the him, such as large shopping schemes or development in the Green Belt, should be 'called-in' for examination at a public inquiry. We also draft and issue decisions on behalf of the Secretary of State on called-in applications and some appeals following public inquiries, though for new cases since April 2002 these functions have now been transferred to ODPM headquarters. We handle a range of other cases such as Tree Preservation Order appeals and Compulsory Purchase Orders. |
We aim to decide cases as efficiently and quickly as possible while maintaining high quality in our work. Last year we decided a total of 455 cases involving a wide mix of case types. Of these 385 (84%) were completed in target.
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Click on an image to see a larger picture. |
Another dimension of our planning work is to scrutinise local planning authority Unitary Development Plans. We seek to ensure that these plans are consistent with the Government's national policies, for example on provision of housing including affordable housing. One important new element of our scrutiny work last year was to encourage debate about the Government's proposals for reform of the planning system - for example, we jointly sponsored, with the ALG, a conference on the Planning Green Paper.
A further important element of our work is on strategic planning issues.
We co-ordinated the Government's response to the Mayor's initial proposals
("Towards the London Plan") for his Spatial Development Strategy,
the draft of which has just been
published. We took part in a major international project in Interreg
IIc programme looking at open space policy in metropolitan areas across
western Europe - "New Urban Landscapes", and we have taken a
lead role in encouraging bids for the Interreg III programme. Lastly,
we have continued to support and in some cases commission a range of research
projects on a range of topical planning matters.
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89% of new housing in London is built on previously
developed land (brownfield sites). This is higher than any other
region. In 2001, 8,744 new low-cost homes for renting and
owning were completed in London. London councils dealt with 81,300 planning applications
in the year 2000-2001. |
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