Chapter One: Context and Strategy

1.1 This chapter explains the major issues facing London over the period to 2036, providing the background to the detailed policies that follow. It then sets out the Mayor’s vision of the way London should develop over that period and detailed objectives those policies will support.

1.2 The 2000 year history of London has been one of constant change. It has grown from a port and river crossing point into a bustling centre of national Government and international commerce. It has been an imperial capital, and a city embracing villages and towns as it grew. It has been home for people in all walks of life, and from all parts of the world. It has led in industrial and scientific innovation, while also enjoying a globally-recognised heritage. Wealth and poverty, old and new, city and suburban rub shoulders. Several times in its past it has fought off disaster and resisted the best efforts of planners to remake it. This is the dynamic, ever-changing city – and its people – that the policies in this plan seek to sustain.

1.3 Following alteration, the London Plan now looks forward to 2036, five years further than the 2011 London Plan (as amended by the revised early minor alterations). It is obviously more and more difficult to say what may happen the further forward you look. It can also be hard to think beyond what is happening now and the immediate future (particularly against the background of recent dramatic developments in the global and London economy). However, we can draw on past experience to pick out some things that London will have to plan for: