12. CONCLUSION

Following the introduction of NDPs in the English planning system in April 2012, they have proven to be an effective tool in facilitating community participation as well as educating and helping people understand the planning system. Prior to its introduction, policies designed to improve neighbourhoods were based on little (if any) consultation with its residents. People now have the right to a greater say in decision-making when it comes to strategic plans or development management. However, despite encouraging a community-led approach to the development of a neighbourhood, one must acknowledge how the NDP system operates, which is similarly critiqued for not being representative of the majority. NDPs are often constrained by their limited statutory powers and conservative goals that show little consideration as to what the wider community wants, rather than being a more radical means of engagement that considers a spectrum of diverse opinions.

This conservative approach directly relates to the limitations outlined during Stage 1 of the Fortune Green & West Hampstead 2015 NDP and how it played an overt role in trying to control the visual qualities of development and ensuring the village character of the area was conserved. Although an important factor to consider, the vision of this Plan builds on this heritage strength of the Fortune Green and West Hampstead by adding a new layer of place identity. This new layer respects what already exists, whilst ensuring the area can accommodate increased density and a more diverse population. Another fundamental factor that hindered the 2015 NDP’s approach was its consultation process. It was oriented towards the narrow focus of conservation and therefore failed to attract a more diverse group of participants. A main focus of this Plan was therefore to utilise a more radical form of consultation that reaches and benefits a wider variety of social groups to ensure increased levels of participation and the formation of more robust policies.

The referencing of higher policy in the 2015 NDP was an effective means of highlighting the importance of certain NDP policies, however this was overbearing at times and was often cited as a substitute for actual new policy. It was also at times the sole reasoning behind a designated policy, without any real consideration of the impact on the context of the Area. With this the policies were in many cases merely repetition rather than being solid forms of guidance as to what the area needed most. This Plan acknowledged this and ensured that policies were robust and site specific, providing a clear mechanism for achieving sustainable development.

The Alice House on West End Lane.

CONDUCT OF GROUP WORK

We began the task of forming a new Neighbourhood Development Plan for Fortune Green and West Hampstead by consolidating the strengths and weaknesses we discovered from the existing plan. As a group we discussed how each of the objectives of the existing plan could be strengthened based on the Forum’s requirements for development in the Area. It became apparent that the aspirations the Forum have for the future shape of development under the ‘Economy’ and ‘Public and Community Infrastructure’ objectives would be more effectively addressed in different sections of the new NDP. It was decided that selectively merging aspects of these two objectives with other objectives would make for a more succinct and effective document.

Whilst the previous ‘Natural Environment’ objective provided an extensive overview of the Forum’s desires to protect and enhance the green spaces in the Area, we concluded that it was highly ineffective in managing how future development (or lack thereof) may impact the future of these spaces. This runs contrary to how a neighbourhood development plan should ideally function. It also failed to differentiate between natural and built open space, only emphasising certain green open spaces as important characteristics of the area to address. For this reason, this objective was expanded to ‘Green & Grey Open Space’ which enabled us to address issues that are ostensibly of concern to the Forum, and also incorporate some of the development principles that were listed under ‘Economy’ and ‘Public and Community Infrastructure’.

These initial steps enabled us to address a major overarching critique of this document: a distinct lack of clarity in its structure. Though this critique initially stemmed from a collective frustration with navigating the document, it became apparent that this lack of clarity may in fact hinder the success of achieving the aims of the Forum. Once we consolidated a more concise set of 4 objectives, we were able to form policy strategies based on the concerns raised in the original document, and backed-up by our own observations, which were conducted on multiple group site visits.

Based on the current and projected pressures that the Area faces, it was agreed that a neighbourhood development plan is indeed the most effective means of addressing these issues. Development throughout the area will continue to be piecemeal, owing to the well-established nature of the neighbourhood: the strong heritage identity and conservation areas. Therefore, it is appropriate to form policies which guide and shape future changes according to the wants and needs of the Community but which are also, importantly, sensitive to the character of the area. However, analysis of the original document

Street Graffiti on entering Hampstead Interchange.

Billy Fury Way from the

revealed a series of concerns which are not contingent on future development (and so not best addressed through NDP policies). Accordingly, we researched different approaches that were comparable in size in order to address the more specific issues that the Forum identified.

The West Hampstead Growth Area will see more substantial change than other areas within the neighbourhood boundary. We concluded that policy for the Growth Area – which invariably took the form of general policy guidance – was highly unlikely to achieve the aims of the Forum. We drafted an altogether different approach for this area, based on precedent cases. The widespread criticism from locals surrounding the development at 187-199 West End Lane is testament to the need for improved public consultation processes, which we also introduced as a tool for delivering appropriate development in the Growth Area.

We approached the task of forming strategies for each objective in a similar way to task 1. Since each group member is familiar with a particular set of issues that the Area faces, we were each able to build on the strengths and weaknesses of the 2015 NDP’s approaches to these issues. Key to this aspect of the project was an understanding of why certain approaches were successful in precedent cases. This was to ensure the precedent cases did not act as case studies for product (though admittedly this is an effective policy guidance method that was lacking from the original document), but more as a case study for process.

In order to deliver a coherent Plan, it was fundamental that we worked collaboratively. Though there were rarely major inconsistencies in our approaches, there was occasionally an issue of repetition, as certain development pressures can be addressed under the banner of more than one ‘objective’. Identifying this enabled us to make sure that policies complimented and reinforced each other in order to deliver the overall vision.

From a practical point of view, conducting group work in the context of industrial action at UCL and the coronavirus pandemic did cause challenges. For all the benefits that video conferencing platforms can bring, it is no substitute for meeting up and talking things over in person. There are some technical considerations (a lacklustre internet connection or a microphone that does not register), but working through a collaborative report remotely requires an entirely different approach to group work, one which we had to adapt to fairly quickly. The normal pace of conversation, for instance, is heavily distorted: initially a trivial observation, it has big implications for working through problems collectively. The challenge then was to avoid a document that read as a conflation of individual inputs and more as a cohesive piece of work. That being said, routine group calls were more sharply focused on the task at hand than perhaps they may have otherwise been. Regular contact in this way helped to ensure a higher level of consistency in the individual elements that we were working on. It enabled us to make connections between the objectives and to avoid inconsistencies and repetition which we collectively rectified through efficient means of group communication despite the challenges we faced.

Group 7

Pieter-Jan Chielens Fabien Piesakowski-O’Neill Lucien Romer Toby Williams

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