The City of London Corporation’s recently published paper, The Square Mile: Future City, provides a summary of its intended five-year plan for a post-pandemic recovery.

The document is relatively lightweight and extends beyond planning, however it is clearly designed as a general road map, laying out what the Corporation wants the City to be going forward. A number of themes are discussed, such as sustainability, encouraging walking and cycling, an increase in leisure options and providing wider services to support the ongoing principal office function.

Notably it includes the intention to look at new ways to use vacant space and the aim of at least 1,500 new residential units by 2030 – a significant rise. There’s no further information in the document about how these housing numbers will be achieved nor any detail of how the Corporation plans to repurpose office/commercial spaces policy wise or in planning terms other than a promise to explore.

The Corporation’s both adopted and emerging planning policies still seek to retain and protect existing office stock and only allow residential in specific locations within the square mile. A number of press articles have appeared claiming that empty offices will be turned into homes, which is not what the document states.

However, it is clear that landowners and businesses have been consulted on how the pandemic has and will continue to affect working patterns and their responses have indicated that there will be a significant amount of vacant office space over the next five years. This is obviously concerning for the Corporation, so it needs to increase footfall throughout the City and protect/repurpose vacant buildings.

While the Corporation’s statement regarding residential is important for the City, we would be interested to see just how this promise can be delivered. The draft City Plan is yet to be adopted, and we would expect to see protection of office policies modified to reflect the Corporation’s statement if that is indeed its intent.  Consultation on the draft Plan finished on 10 May, therefore the draft policies could change as a result.  An updated version of the draft City Plan (submission version) is expected later this year.

Further information

Contact Scott Hudson

Contact Savills Planning

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