ADD392 What is “good growth” research project

1.1 The Mayor and City Hall are required to deliver plans around a number of policy areas integral to the city’s growth and development – planning, housing, regeneration and infrastructure. This sits in the context of the broader responsibility to make London a better place to live.

1.2 The success of London has brought prosperity and opportunity on an unrivalled scale, but with London’s population now bigger than ever before and continuing to grow fast there are challenges too. Demand for infrastructure and housing are burgeoning, stretching capacity and affordability, while the fabric of communities is changing fast with the pace of development.

1.3 Previous research undertaken internally by the ORS team such as the London Survey suggest that there are varying attitudes towards development, and for different groups varying outcomes so far and needs. Understanding these will ensure we are able to capitalise on the growth opportunity – learning from the successes and failures will enable us to identify the opportunities and challenges for the future.

1.4 This survey will deliver the above intelligence, specifically answering the following questions:

- Is new development delivering successful outcomes for Londoners in terms of housing, high streets and public spaces and communities?
- What are the specific areas of success and failure and how might we either replicate or eradicate those going forwards?
- What are the needs of different groups, particularly in terms of life-stage and in terms of equality groups with protected characteristics and how might these been applied to London’s future demography?

1.5 The findings from the work will inform policy development for the Planning, Regeneration, Housing and EBPU teams and will allow opinion insight to be considered alongside spatial data in the GLA’s Economic Evidence Base report.

Aim:

To deliver robust opinion insight that delivers real-life experiential evidence of the successes and challenges of major development and growth, to provide evidence for GLA policy development that takes account of, and is responsive to, public needs.

Objectives:

i) A quantitative survey of 1,000 Londoners in areas of major new development, exploring and assessing the impact development has had in London on communities and individuals, identifying what, from the point of view of the public/end-user, are the most important and impactful development considerations.
ii) An analysis and report that contributes to GLA policy-making, sitting as an additional resource to the empirical Economic Evidence Base. It will consider:
- Areas of success and failure of development so far and how to replicate or eradicate those going forwards
- The impacts on and needs of different demographic groups and relationship to spatial demographic projections and planned development, identifying areas of particular future interest.

Outcome:

Better informed policy and decision-making at City Hall and understanding of how to improve our impact on Londoners lives through development policy.

3.1 This work will ensure that the needs of a broad range of Londoners’ views are collected and that those views are representative of the population of interest, this will include those groups with protected characteristics. Doing this will enable us to make comparison of different groups’ needs and outcomes so that policy can be tailored to those.

3.2 The work will specifically look at the impact on groups with protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act.

Key risks and issues

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

This work makes links across a number of areas of Mayoral responsibility. This includes Planning, Regeneration, Housing and EBPU (The Infrastructure Plan). The work will provide robust public data that will help the aforementioned teams both look back at how well the development they have been supporting and providing the strategic framework for has delivered for Londoners, while also providing an evidence base which can support their ongoing policy developments.

Impact assessments and consultations.

This in effect, as a piece of opinion research work, relates to consultation work in that it seeks to give the public a voice in the story of London’s recent development so far. In doing this it will provide City Hall with evidence to take into consideration in policy development to ensure policies help deliver on public need.

5.1 Approval is being sought for the GLA for expenditure of up to £15,500 for a quantitative survey of 1,000 Londoners living in areas of substantial new development.

5.2 This cost will be funded from the existing 2015-16 Intelligence Public Consultation budget (Health & Communities allocation).