Suburban Task Force takes stock | Peter Eversden

Suburban Task Force takes stock

Peter Eversden attended the launch of the All Party Parliamentary Group Suburban Task Force report* at Parliament on 5th September

Rupa Huq MP, Bob Neil MP, Lord True and Peter Murray talked about their contribution to its content and the importance of finding the right policies for the suburbs. Other cross-party politicians were part of the task force and the London Boroughs of Sutton and Waltham Forest gave evidence to it.

The study took stock of the suburban places where many people live and ways in which they were experienced through the pandemic.

A repeated observation was the way the suburbs of London have had inadequate policy development for their opportunities and challenges.

The Task Force recommends consideration of a spectrum of characteristics that should be applied to the suburbs and five statistically significant suburban typologies were identified. New working practices require a revised approach to the future of employment.

The report states that “There is evidence that the use of permitted development rights undermines the ability of local authorities to fully manage and mitigate the impacts of certain forms of development.”

Increased digitisation and the engagement of communities and other stakeholders in local plan making, pre-application discussions and decisions are recommended. Some clauses in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (LURB) may lead to that becoming policy.

The task force seeks national policy guidance on the key principles for handling small scale applications in suburban locations. However, the focus of this APPG is London and new guidance for suburban densification will be published before the end of 2022 by the GLA to help boroughs apply the policies in the 2021 London Plan for small and windfall sites. The London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies has opposed the LURB proposals for imposition of National Development Management Policies as there are too many local variations and options for the Government to try to cover them all.

A correspondent told the taskforce “The diverse nature of suburbs makes it difficult to develop targeted policies.” There will need to be specific policies in each Local Plan developed with local people.

The impact of development in the suburbs such as very tall buildings without social infrastructure is causing tensions and needs to be better managed for design and context considerations. The report suggests that it is “creating ‘growing pains’ which might contribute to ‘tipping points’ in terms of community support for change.” There is a recommendation for further consideration of the potential ‘tipping points’ which exist in our suburban communities and ways that these might be managed.

The National Planning Policy Framework will be revised next year and that would be an opportunity to include policies that would address some of the recommendations of the Suburban Task Force. For those policy options, the report recommends further research is carried out to identify suburban challenges.

In considering suburban ‘types’, the taskforce concluded that considerations are important for green space, density of overall development and local land uses (including dwelling types, retail, leisure and office space). That led to the identification of five suburban types. The taskforce’s report has a lot of detail on the types of suburban environments within those categories including their social infrastructure.

There is a recommendation that “consideration should be given to a new spectrum model for understanding the suburbs and used by those in research, practice and policy.”

The taskforce report has an analysis of the requirements in suburban areas for transport and traffic, employment, housing and green space. It is recommended that “further consideration is given to the opportunities which exist for an evolution in the nature of local employment as a result of changes to working practices during the Covid-19 pandemic.” In considering how change should be understood, the taskforce report has a section on local identity.

In its conclusions the taskforce hopes their report will provide a platform from which to begin a meaningful public discussion and will help support the introduction of policies which are popular, informed and evidence-based for the suburbs. The taskforce intends to do more work on matters such as place-making and suburban culture and it recommends that further research is undertaken to explore possible policy solutions to address the challenges identified. n

Peter Eversden MBE is Chairman of the London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies