Cargiant: London Communications Agency finally communicates

To: Grand Union Alliance members, friends and contacts

"Following the presentation of Car Giant and QPR development proposals at a non-public session of the last Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) meeting, Car Giant is organising some public consultations events. These are set out below.

"In addition, regarding the event on Saturday 20th June at the Thames Harriers Clubhouse at the Linford Christie Stadium, the developer and key members of their development team, will provide: a presentation to GUA members, friends and contacts (in a separate room at 11am), a question and answer session and refreshments (as requested at the last GUA meeting).

"Car Giant consultation events:

• Thursday 18 June (3:30-7:30pm): Cumberland House
• Friday 19 June (4-7pm): Cumberland House
• Saturday 20 June (10am-4pm): Thames Harriers Clubhouse, Linford Christie Stadium
• Thursday 25 June (3:30-7:30pm): Harlesden Methodist Church
• Saturday 27 June (10am-4pm): Harlesden Methodist Church
• Thursday 2 July (3:30-7:30pm): Holiday Inn London West
• Saturday 4 July (10am-4pm): Holiday Inn London West

"Eva Psychrani
Project Worker
London Tenants Federation"

Evening Standard: "Boris Johnson backs hub plan to make London the green tech capital of Europe"

Link to web site

"London is set to become Europe's green tech capital under bold proposals being drawn up by environmental chiefs.

"Mayor of London Boris Johnson is backing the plan to create a clean tech hub in west London following the startling success of Tech City in the east.

"An outline plan will be delivered to the London Sustainable Development Commission on how to attract hundreds of start-up and larger eco-firms to Park Royal and the Old Oak Common area as it is redeveloped with the arrival of Crossrail and the HS2 rail line."

Architects' Journal: "Boris accused of leaving London 'mayorless'"

"Mayor of London Boris Johnson has been accused of ‘clearing his desk a year early’ after stepping down as chair on two major regeneration projects in the capital.

"Johnson wrote to the London Assembly in the week of the General Election, informing them that he would be standing down from his positions at the London Legacy Development Corporation and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation.

But the move has been slammed by the London Assembly with Labour member Onkar Sahota saying Johnson was 'focusing his energies elsewhere' since becoming an MP and was leaving the capital 'mayorless'. A spokesman for the mayor said Johnson remained 'very much in charge'. 

He said:

"The mayor remains very much in charge and will continue to oversee the delivery of regeneration projects across London, including the work of the London Legacy Development Corporation and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation.

"This is about streamlining of portfolios and, with their vast experience, Neale Coleman and Edward Lister are perfectly placed to take on the chairmanship of the two MDCs and deliver the mayor’s vision for these two important areas of the capital."

"But Sahota, the assembly member for Ealing and Hillingdon where the Old Oak Common regeneration project is based, said it was 'the latest chapter of Boris Johnson’s long goodbye from City Hall'.  

He added:

"The mayor seems intent on clearing his desk a year early and focusing his energies elsewhere since his election to parliament, leaving Londoners increasingly mayorless.

"These two regeneration projects are massively important and make many controversial decisions.

"Handing over the reins to civil servants like this will remove an important layer of democratic accountability."

Thurs 21 May: First meeting of OPDC Planning Committee

Link to first planning application

---

A40 improvements

"The OPDC Board has established a Planning Committee to ensure that decisions on planning applications are made in an open, transparent and impartial manner. The Planning Committee will either make the decisions on the applications submitted to the OPDC or delegate decisions to Officers of the OPDC’s Planning Team.

"The members of the Planning Committee are:

William McKee (Chair)
Gordon Adams
Cllr Wesley Harcourt (LB Hammersmith & Fulham)
Colin Haylock
Cllr Sarah-Louise Marquis (LB Brent)
Stuart Robinson
Cllr Hitesh Tailor (LB Ealing)

"The first meeting of the OPDC Planning Committee will be held on Thursday 21 May at City Hall, in Committee Room 4&5 at 18:00. More information about the upcoming meeting of the Planning Committee, including the agenda, can be found here.

"Members of the public can attend the public session of Planning Committee meetings and obtain copies of the public papers. Agendas of business that will be discussed at a meeting and the reports on each topic for discussion (except any which contain confidential, personal or financial information) can generally be viewed on the website five days before the meeting. Minutes of the decisions taken at the meeting will also be available on the website once they have been agreed."

Sir Edward Lister: A big cheese, but of a smaller diameter, to replace Boris as chair of the OPDC

AGENDA

Confirmation Hearings Committee

Wednesday 20 May 2015

3.00 pm

Chamber, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London, SE1 2AA 

Copies of the reports and any attachments may be found at

www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/ConfirmationHearingsCommittee

[which is not linked to correctly.]

Most meetings of the London Assembly and its Committees are webcast live at www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/webcasts where you can also view past meetings.

Members of the Committee

Len Duvall AM

Jenny Jones AM

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM

Valerie Shawcross CBE AM

Steve O'Connell AM

Joanne McCartney AM

Andrew Boff AM

Richard Tracey AM

Tom Copley AM

A meeting of the Committee has been called by the Chairman of the Committee to deal with the business listed below.

Mark Roberts, Executive Director of Secretariat

Tuesday 12 May 2015

---

Link to the details.

Link to 'Air Miles Eddie'.

Geograph: North Pole Depot, Old Oak Common sidings (and there's also [currently] another 43 photos)

Photo: David Hawgood under Creative Commons Licence

North Pole Depot, Old Oak Common sidings:
"View through boundary fence of Old Oak Common. If HS2 and Old Oak City go ahead, these sidings will be replaced by a strip of residential and commercial buildings. The Great Western Main Line is beyond the sidings. The buildings seen beyond are around North Acton tube station."

---

Old Oak Common railway depots: 

"Old Oak Common has a large area of railway depots and sidings. The Great Western Railway developed the site from 1906. In 2011 one area is used as a Traction Maintenance Depot by First Great Western and Heathrow Express for rolling stock based in Paddington. Another area recently used by EWS (English Welsh & Scottish) formerly known as Coronation Sidings and The Factory is being developed as a depot for Crossrail. Eurostar trains were maintained here. High Speed Two (HS2) is planned to go though this area, with a major interchange station, and a base for tunnelling into central London."

---

Wormwood Scrubs (from nearly the same location as above)
Photo: David Hawgood under Creative Commons Licence

OPDC Board and Committee meetings (and, oh yes, Boris Johnson MP resigns [two days early!] as OPDC Chairman, to spend more time with his constituency)

OPDC Board Meeting 18 May 2015 (Boris is gone under item 5)

OPDC Board and Committee meetings are open to the public except for when confidential, personal or financial information matters are being discussed. [Or the meeting continues anyway. Pip! Pip!]

These items will be marked on the agenda. Members of the public can attend the public session of each Board and Committee meeting and obtain copies of the public papers.

Agendas of business that will be discussed at a meeting and the reports on each topic for discussion (except any which contain confidential, personal or financial information) can generally be viewed on the website five days before the meeting. Minutes of the decisions taken at the meeting will also be available on the website once they have been agreed.

Members of the public can also inspect background papers relating to a report.

Committee Meetings are currently held at City Hall, unless otherwise indicated on the agenda.

There is access for people with disabilities.

Board meetings

Future Board meeting dates for 2015 are as follows and will take place in City Hall:

• Monday 18 May, Committee Room 2, 16:30
• Thursday 25 June, Committee Room 2, 15:00
• Tuesday 28 July, Committee Room 4, 14:00
• Tuesday 15 September, Committee Room 3, 15:00
• Thursday 26 November, Committee Room 3, 15:00
• Monday 25 January, Committee Room 4, 15:00
• Tuesday 8 March, Committee Room 1, 14:00

For more information about the next meeting of the Board and Board papers, please visit here.

Read more about our board.

Planning Committee

The OPDC Board has established a Planning Committee to ensure that decisions on planning applications are made in an open, transparent and impartial manner.

The Planning Committee will either make the decisions on the applications submitted to the OPDC or delegate decisions to Officers of the OPDC’s Planning Team.

The interim Chair of the Planning Committee is William McKee. Members of the Planning Committee are in the process of being appointed and will be announced in advance of the first meeting of the Planning Committee.

Future Planning Committee meeting dates for 2015 are as follows and will take place in City Hall:

• Thursday 21 May, Committee Room 4&5, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 17 June, Committee Room 5, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 15 July, Committee Room 4, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 2 September, Committee Room 4, 18:00 - 21:00
• Thursday 17 September, Committee Room 5, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 21 October, Committee Room 3, 18:00 - 21:00
• Tuesday 17 November, Committee Room 4, 18:00 - 21:00
• Thursday 17 December, Committee Room 4&5, 18:00 - 21:00

More information about the next meeting of the Planning Committee, including the agenda when it becomes available, can be found here. [If the link existed.]

Transparency

We are committed to being open and transparent about our decision making and the money we spend to meet our objectives and commitments.

On the Transparency page, you will find links to information about our accounts as well as details of senior staff salaries, expenses, gifts and hospitality and our register of interests.
Transparency information will be available in due course.

Harlesden Bypass proposals, and Grand Union Alliance members' various responses to the Opportunity Area Planning Framework

HARLESDEN BYPASS (download the PDF and then flip backwards and forwards)

(Map data is copyright of Geographers' A-Z Map Company Limited)

2015-04 MR+to+Draft+Old+Oak+and+Park+Royal+OAPF

BBC: "Could a UK politician ever vow to bring down house prices?"

Link to web site

"Once, British politicians promised to keep property prices low. Now, homeowners expect the value of their houses to move ever upwards. Are Westminster governments of whichever party now obliged to let house prices always rise?

"In 1966 the Conservative party manifesto made a promise. A Tory government would 'get the houses up, and keep the prices down'.

"... And yet the idea that either a Conservative or Labour government would pledge to hold down prices today would be regarded by virtually everyone as far-fetched."

A40 - Old Oak Common Lane junction, 1930

Er. that's it.

Boris: Now stuck in The Wilderness Years, hoping for The Gathering Storm

Good morning all!

It will not have escaped your notice that there has been a general election and that I am now also a serving MP. I have seen one or two vaguely pessimistic remarks about this from commentators so I wanted to issue some immediate reassurance.

This will in no way diminish my appetite to get things done for London and for Londoners.

I believe the GLA has contributed to some enormous improvements in our city over the last few years – both under Ken and in my time. But the challenges are still huge.

We have a fast growing population, and pressure on all our services – above all housing. We need to get on with delivering the record numbers of affordable homes. We need crime to keep falling. We need to give young people better skills, more apprenticeships, better prospects of employment. We need FAR more companies to be paying the London Living Wage – though I am very pleased, obviously, with what has been done so far.

We must make irreversible all kinds of wonderful projects that are now underway:

• Crossrail 2
• New river crossings (ornamental or not)
• Tube extensions
• Cycle Superhighways
• New road tunnels
• And many, many more.

We should drive on all our programmes for environmental improvement: planting trees, cleaning up the air, leading the UK with our ULEZ. We must continue to support our young people with Team London, the Music Fund, the educational and cultural initiatives and so much more.

I want by next year to have made decisive progress with Olympicopolis, with the Old Oak MDC and all the other opportunity areas. [Doubtlessly, not the corrupt Brent Cross planning consent, though.]

I am immensely proud of everything we have achieved in the last seven years. I am hugely grateful to everyone in City Hall.

But we have a massive amount still to do – and just the right amount of time to do it in. A year is a hell of a long time in politics, folks.

Let's put the pedal to the metal.

See you later on.

Best wishes,

Boris

"Local residents insist Ealing Council keeps skyscrapers OUT of Acton Central, W3"

Link to Friary Park Residents Association

To: Mr Martin Smith,
Chief Executive, Ealing Council:

"The residents of Acton protest at the proposal by Catalyst Housing to build a 20-storey block of flats on Friary Park estate, which lies in the suburban, residential area of Acton Central.

"The proposed high-rise tower is ill-matched and out-of-keeping with Acton's suburban area of semi-detached and Victorian houses.

"We call upon Mr Martin Smith, Chief Executive of Ealing Council to: STOP the proposal for these tower blocks of 20, 14, 10 and 8 storeys.

"... Catalyst tell residents that this ambitious and unpopular regeneration is the only way to finance the refurbishment of the 240 existing homes. This proposed 'urban' regeneration, three times the size of the existing estate, is unwanted, totally unnecessary, completely inappropriate and out of keeping with the suburban residential vicinity. We believe it is motivated by financial gain, due to the estate's proximity to the new Crossrail link, yards away."

---

Link to web site

ActonW3:
"Housing association plans to bulldoze and rebuild estate"

"Major plans are underway to completely rebuild the Friary Park estate in Acton with proposals to include a new 'landmark' tower block which could be up to 29 storeys high.

"Catalyst Housing (formerly Ealing Family Housing Association) bought the estate - close to Acton Main Line station - in 1987 and want to demolish the current housing stock and replace with between 500 and 650 new homes.

"...  The top end of this range would make the main tower West London's tallest building if it was completed before the skyscraper planned at the Carphone Warehouse site in Park Royal. The building would loom over much of Acton including some of the area's most expensive streets. Those backing on to Emanuel Avenue will be the lowest, with the tallest next to the railway and station."

"How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world"

"In the 1960s, Dutch cities were increasingly in thrall to motorists, with the car seen as the transport of the future. It took the intolerable toll of child traffic deaths – and fierce activism – to turn Amsterdam into the cycling nirvana of today"

Link to The Guardian

"Anyone who has ever tried to make their way through the centre of Amsterdam in a car knows it: the city is owned by cyclists. They hurry in swarms through the streets, unbothered by traffic rules, taking precedence whenever they want, rendering motorists powerless by their sheer numbers.

"Cyclists rule in Amsterdam and great pains have been taken to accommodate them: the city is equipped with an elaborate network of cycle-paths and lanes, so safe and comfortable that even toddlers and elderly people use bikes as the easiest mode of transport. It’s not only Amsterdam which boasts a network of cycle-paths, of course; you’ll find them in all Dutch cities.

"The Dutch take this for granted; they even tend to believe these cycle-paths have existed since the beginning of time. But that is certainly not the case. There was a time, in the 1950s and 60s, when cyclists were under severe threat of being expelled from Dutch cities by the growing number of cars. Only thanks to fierce activism and a number of decisive events would Amsterdam succeed in becoming what it is, unquestionably, now: the bicycle capital of the world."

Tue 12 May: New London Architecture: "Is West the new East?"

Tuesday 12 May 2015
09:00 – 16:00 (registration from 08:30)
Wood Lane Studios, 80 Wood Lane, Imperial West Campus, White City W12 0BZ

Old Oak Common, the ‘Canary Wharf of the West’, will become one of the best-connected places in the UK when HS2 and Crossrail arrive in 2026, and is set to deliver 24,000 new homes and 55,000 jobs for London.

This NLA full-day On Location event will focus on the development opportunities and investment and planning strategies around Old Oak Common and Park Royal, as well as Earls Court and White City - also major development opportunities in West London - and will mark the launch of the Old Oak Common OAPF and Mayoral Development Corporation. 

A morning conference hosted on the Imperial West campus will hear from key public and private sector stakeholders for these three key areas of West London, and will be followed by a networking lunch and afternoon site visits to these major areas of regeneration.

Timings:

08:30 Arrivals and networking breakfast
09:00 Morning conference
13:00 Networking lunch
13:45 Walking tours depart
16:00 End

Delegates can attend one of the following tours:

Tour A – Old Oak Common (led by Michael Mulhern, Head of Planning, Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation)
Tour B – White City (led by Alexandra Reitman, Principal Strategic Planner, GLA)

Speakers

• William McKee, Planning Committee Chairman, Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation
• Victoria Hills, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation
• Professor David Gann CBE, Vice-President (Development & Innovation), Imperial College
• Anette Simpson, Director of Planning & Development for Earls Court, Capco
• Alistair Shaw, MD - Television Centre, Stanhope
• Laura Kidd, Head of Architecture, HS2
• Alex Williams, Director of Borough Planning, Transport for London 
• Mike Cummings, Regional Director for Park Royal, SEGRO 
• Simon Earles, Head of Surface Access Strategy, Heathrow
• Paul Monaghan, Director, AHMM 
• Alexandra Reitman,Programme Manager, Old Oak and Park Royal Develompent Corporation
• Peter Murray, Chairman, NLA (Chair)

Ticket Information

Ticket Cost £299 +VAT - click here to book 

NLA members are entitled to discounted rates at NLA On Location conferences.
For all booking enquiries please contact Molly Nicholson or call 020 7636 4044

The Guardian: "End of the car age: how cities are outgrowing the automobile"

"Cities around the world are coming to the same conclusion: they’d be better off with far fewer cars. So what’s behind this seismic shift in our urban lifestyles? Stephen Moss goes on an epic (car-free) journey to find out"

Link to web site

"Gilles Vesco calls it the 'new mobility'. It’s a vision of cities in which residents no longer rely on their cars but on public transport, shared cars and bikes and, above all, on real-time data on their smartphones. He anticipates a revolution which will transform not just transport but the cities themselves. 'The goal is to rebalance the public space and create a city for people,' he says. 'There will be less pollution, less noise, less stress; it will be a more walkable city.'

"Vesco, the politician responsible for sustainable transport in Lyon, played a leading role in introducing the city’s Vélo'v bike-sharing scheme a decade ago. It has since been replicated in cities all over the world. Now, though, he is convinced that digital technology has changed the rules of the game, and will make possible the move away from cars that was unimaginable when Vélo'v launched in May 2005. 'Digital information is the fuel of mobility,' he says. 'Some transport sociologists say that information about mobility is 50% of mobility. The car will become an accessory to the smartphone.'

"Vesco is nothing if not an evangelist. 'Sharing is the new paradigm of urban mobility. Tomorrow, you will judge a city according to what it is adding to sharing. The more that we have people sharing transportation modes, public space, information and new services, the more attractive the city will be'."

New York Times: "How Do We Protect New York City’s Pedestrians?"

Link to web site

"For much of the 20th century, when the engineers running urban transit authorities thought about traffic, they thought less about the pedestrian experience and more about saving money, by saving time, by speeding movement, by enabling cars. They analyzed traffic flow, the backup of cars, stoplight times and right- and left-­hand turns, all in an effort to keep vehicles moving freely and quickly through the city. They ran the data through a program that would spit out a rating (A to F) for the 'level of service'. An 'A' meant that a street was congestion-free, which gave cars the potential to speed; an 'F' meant that it was too congested to be functional. The grade considered ideal for most streets in New York was a 'C'.

The value of speed, for car commuters, was an easy equation for engineers. Zhan Guo, a professor of urban planning and transportation at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service says:

"The assumption is that all travel time is a waste of time. But that rationale doesn’t apply to pedestrians."

The worth of the pedestrian experience, so pokey, so subjective, was scarcely considered, partly because it was hard to quantify.

"Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy organization, recalls that as recently as the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, he and his colleagues regularly heard top Transportation Department officials make references to 'pedestrian interference':

"They saw pedestrians as a nuisance - something that had to be dealt with."

No policy better reflected the administration’s regard for pedestrians than the barriers that Giuliani’s police force erected throughout Midtown in 1998 to rein in jaywalkers. The blockades were cumbersome, ugly and pre-­emptively punitive. As irritating as they were, or perhaps because they were irritating, pedestrians frequently made a point of finding their way around them."

Failed Architecture: Video: "The Pedway: Elevating London"

Link to web site

"The Pedway: Elevating London is a documentary about the ambitious attempt to create a network of raised walkways in the City of London. Constructed in the 1960s, the elevated infrastructure soon became obsolete, leaving behind haunting modernist traces in modern-day London. The film was screened at various festivals, including the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, and of course at The Barbican, which is integrated in the Pedway system. It is now online for a limited time. FA talked to director Chris Bevan Lee about the documentary and London’s ‘streets in the sky’.

After World War II, much of London was in rubble and had to be built up from scratch, allowing ambitious architecture and urban planning. One of the schemes for a new London was the ‘Pedway’, a network of elevated walkways throughout the City. The plan was only partially carried out as a result of budget cuts and modified plans, with part of the pathways leading to dead ends and physically decaying over time. Next to this, the idea of separating pedestrians from motorised traffic became outdated after changing planning paradigms and everyday urban dynamics. Nowadays, in a nostalgic, gloomy and inconvenient way, the Pedway’s remnants remind us of a future that never came."

"NLA unveils the New London Model and public spaces programme"

Link to web site

"NLA has kicked off its Public London programme of events to celebrate 10 years of transformations to the city's public realm and unveiled its new interactive model for the first time.

"The Public London exhibition tracks the key initiatives, people and projects from 2005 to 2015, uncovering what NLA chairman Peter Murray branded 'the incredible transformations' in the last decade or so and a shift in the way our public space is designed, delivered and managed, with 250 projects showcased through images and models.

"The show opened with private view attended by John Gummer (now Lord Deben) who was a prime mover in the World Squares for All concept and kicked off some of those key changes, added Murray. 'While London’s public realm has clearly come a long way in 10 years, there is still a lot to be done,' Murray added, so the show includes recommendations that might ensure that London remains an 'open and inclusive city in future'."

The OPDC: Towards a Local Plan

Development Plan 

The Development Plan forms the policy framework against which planning applications in the OPDC area will be assessed. The Development Plan consists of the following policy documents:


Local Plan

As a Local Planning Authority the OPDC has a duty to prepare a Local Plan that sets its strategy for development within its area and the policies that will be used to direct development and determine applications for planning permission across the entire OPDC area. The OPDC is currently in the process of producing the first draft of the Local Plan and plans to consult the public on this draft in Autumn 2015.


Local Authority Development Plans

Until the OPDC adopts its own Local Plan for the OPDC area, Local Authority Development Plans will apply to the areas that they cover (as illustrated in the above map). Links to the relevant Development Plan Document are provided below.


London Borough of Brent

• Core Strategy
• Site Specific Allocation DPD
• Draft Development Management Policies DPD
• Saved UDP Policies
• Policies Map
• West London Waste Plan

London Borough of Ealing

• Development (Core Strategy) DPD
• Development Management DPD
• Development Sites DPD
• Draft Planning for Schools DPD
• Policies Map
• West London Waste Plan

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

• Core Strategy
• Development Management Local Plan
• Proposals Map
• Draft Local Plan

Mayor’s London Plan

The London Plan is the overall strategic plan for London, and it sets out a fully integrated economic, environmental, transport and social framework for the development of the capital to 2036. It forms part of the development plan for the OPDC.

WSP: "Old Oak Common London Overground connectivity"

"WSP was appointed by client Transport for London (TfL) and Network Rail to develop options and recommend a preferred solution for a London Overground station to link to the proposed High Speed 2/ Crossrail interchange at Old Oak Common. [We offered:]

• Collaborative approach with the client working together as one team
• Multidisciplinary team advised on wide ranging client issues
• Managing conflicting stakeholder requirements for a preferred solution.

"Government proposals for a new High Speed 2 (HS2) and Crossrail station at Old Oak in London could make it one of the UK’s best connected railway stations by 2026. The proposed interchange will bring long and medium distance rail access, delivering huge regeneration potential to Old Oak. However, the HS2 Hybrid Bill did not include providing more local rail access via connections to London Overground services.

"WSP was appointed in 2013 to work collaboratively with client Transport for London (TfL) and Network Rail to develop and assess opportunities to connect the London Overground network to the HS2 and Crossrail interchange.

"The WSP team, including Terry Farrell Architects, Sweets Cost Consultant and Laing O’Rourke, provided engineering, environmental and station planning services to the study, with TfL providing most of the railway planning, operations and public consultations input.

"Following an initial review, four preferred options were developed to Grip 2 design level, three of which were further developed to enable a preferred option to be selected. The team worked successfully with TfL to identify a comprehensive train operational and timetabling analysis, pedestrian movement modelling, engineering and environmental assessments, together with construction methodology and programme implications, and developed and evaluated the cost of each option.

"Following a public consultation exercise in 2014 and completion of a combined assessment report, TfL’s preferred option was announced in early 2015. This recommends two separate stations to serve the West London Line and the North London Line."