We’re asking you to speak up for nature in London by writing to the Mayor of London in response to the current consultation on the draft London Plan.

Tell the Mayor that nature is necessary for Londoners.

The London Plan provides the framework for planning for the whole of London. The new draft plan sets out the policies and proposals which will guide London's future development and growth through to 2050.

The Plan sets out policies relating to a wide variety of issues, including how new development should be designed, the type and number of new homes that should be planned for, the improvement of London's travel and the future of London's green spaces.

The consultation closes at 5pm on the 15th October.

London Wildlife Trust’s stance on the policies relating to nature recovery

We welcome the publication of the draft London Plan. National planning policy has changed since the existing plan was adopted in 2021, and London needs an updated planning framework to prevent unregulated development.

What we like about the current plan:

It’s good news that the protections for biodiversity and important sites for nature will continue to be included in the draft plan Policy (GHR6).  This needs to be supported through consultation responses. If not, it could be under pressure to be removed from those lobbying for easy development. Similarly, we support that the policy ‘Green infrastructure and Urban Greening Factor’ (GHR7) links development decisions with the strategy for where and how London could restore and connect nature (London’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy).

We need you to add your voice to our support of these protections.

What we would like to improve:

We have noted that the negative impact of additional visitor pressure on nearby local wildlife sites is usually ignored, so we suggest a simple inclusion of the words "including recreation pressure" to policy GHR6, paragraph D(1) to account for this.

However, we are very concerned that new national policy leads to London considering some development on Green Belt land but doesn’t require planners to build nature recovery into those plans. Therefore we could miss an irretrievable opportunity to improve nature in London. We value the role of London’s Green Belt providing habitats for wildlife and providing access to nature for people, and our aim to is have more of the Green Belt designated for nature recovery.

We must push for a more rigorous approach on this from the Mayor.

We will continue to oppose inappropriate use, development, damage or loss of Green Belt where there will be adverse impact on biodiversity or access to nature.