Protecting green spaces and Greening Infrastructure

Following a London Assembly Environment Committee investigation into protecting and improving green spaces and greening grey infrastructure in London. The Committee has written to the Mayor of London with recommendations in four areas:

1. Maintaining existing protections for green spaces and strengthening processes to ensure that these are followed in practice;
2. Enhancing understanding of, and data coverage for, green spaces through London’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy;
3. Engaging Londoners about the benefits of green spaces, through the National Park City concept;
4. Supporting kerbside strategies across London.

Recommendations include:

• The Mayor should maintain existing protections for green spaces in London, and explore ways to further strengthen the ability of London Boroughs to protect sites from inappropriate development through the planning process. Where the Mayor makes planning decisions involving mitigation or compensation, he should ensure full and transparent information is published around how all avenues to avoid harm have been explored, and call on boroughs to follow similar standards.
• The Mayor should review the 10 per cent biodiversity net gain level in the London Plan, and consider increasing it further in the future to 20 per cent.
• The Mayor should use the opportunity of London’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy to improve data collection around green spaces and biodiversity across London, including street trees, green corridors and habitats, across both publicly and privately owned land. This should include stronger requirements for developers to record baseline and changes to sites on GiGL in a timely manner.