Most of the recent Planning Forum meeting at the Town Hall focused on updates to the Wandsworth Local Plan. There were also brief updates on the Clapham Junction masterplan, as well as a debate about increasing transparency by making the forum’s minutes publicly available.
Discussion on the Local Plan amendments was already underway, with council officers updating participants on recent developments. Then, in a moment that felt almost choreographed, one officer checked his emails and announced that the submission had just been made—presumably by the core team back at the office while the meeting was in progress.
We’ve reported on the Local Plan a few times before. In short, a local authority like Wandsworth needs to ‘have a plan’ which specifies what the long term aims for development area, and what developments should broadly speaking do to deliver them. It includes the scale and broad nature of housing, retail, industrial and commercial space, as well as all the wider infrastructure that needs to go alongside it.
The current Local Plan, adopted in July 2023, sets the borough’s development strategy through 2038. However, the Council – now under a Labour majority – is seeking to update several key policies, especially to deliver more genuinely affordable and social rented homes.
Labour’s push to amend Wandsworth’s Local Plan inherited from the Conservatives
The Local Plan plays a particularly big role in housing – and a notable change since Labour took over the running of the Council is a desire to be able to make developers of larger new projects go further on affordable housing provision.
Back in January we spoke to Aydin Dikerdem, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, about the proposal to change the Local Plan to include a 50% requirement for affordable housing in new developments.
- Read our interview of Aydin Dikerdem: Make Wandsworth more affordable: the big task of the Council
This had been a key campaign promise – alongside the promise to build 1,000 new Council properties (which has got off to a rather shaky start, with the developer partner at Winstanley, a core location for many of those properties, parting ways with the Council – as we reported a back in April).
- Read our article: Taylor Wimpey and Wandsworth Council end partnership on Winstanley and York Road estates redevelopment
The amendments to the Local Plan have been some time in the making – including a consultation that received a good number of comments. They now have a fair few hurdles to get through, including examination by the Planning Inspectorate – a relatively big job that could take a week or so and which will hopefully happen by September.
There are divergences between GLA’s London Plan and the approach Wandsworth is proposing to take (the Mayor’s plan has a fast-track threshold of only 35 per cent for sites that are not on publicly-owned or industrial land and it typically expects a 60/40 split social rent/intermediate), so nothing is guaranteed – however the general feel was that Wandsworth has a sound plan, and that the approach is in broad conformity with the London Plan.
Clapham Junction Masterplan: Progress, community involvement, and the road ahead
The Clapham Junction Masterplan, first outlined in early 2024, continues to move forward, albeit with a pace some have described as sluggish. The project, led by Wandsworth Council in partnership with Network Rail, the Greater London Authority, TfL, and local stakeholders, is structured as an 18-month process in two phases: initially focusing on improving the station’s interchange, followed by potential development in the surrounding area.
Early presentations, as reported by Clapham Junction Insider, focused on broad options for addressing chronic congestion and connectivity issues at the station—ranging from new overpass bridges to tunnels and wider expansions. While cost and feasibility studies are ongoing, and international examples such as Utrecht and Reading stations have been cited, many options remain at a conceptual stage. Residents attending the March 2024 exhibition expressed frustration at the lack of detailed information, and local groups like the Battersea Society have called for genuine, early-stage community engagement rather than post-hoc consultation on pre-determined plans.
- Read our article: Clapham Junction Masterplan: initial presentation focusing on vague options for overpass bridges
Over the summer, attention also turned to the Falcon Bridge underpass, with a high-profile design competition run in partnership with the London Festival of Architecture. The winning proposal, “Beyond the Bridge,” was selected in January 2025 and is set for installation by September 2025, aiming to transform the underpass into a safer and more welcoming community landmark.
- Read our article: Winner for Falcon Bridge makeover competition revealed
Despite these visible steps, progress on the main masterplan has been slow, with little tangible advancement reported since the initial phase.
Behind the scenes, the project has now received the green light to proceed to a more detailed Phase 2. This next stage includes the recruitment of a Community Panel (open to all local residents) and interviews for applicants to be organised the following week.
Due to the current deadlines, the initial goal for the panel to report by June 2025, ahead of a formal Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) consultation covering the wider masterplan area, including York Road, Winstanley, and key issues such as public benefits and affordable housing, is not happening and more delays are to be expected.
However, even before starting, the project is already facing constraints. Long-term safeguarding for major infrastructure projects like Crossrail 2 limits the scope for immediate improvements, particularly in areas such as Falcon Road. There are also questions about the likelihood of major redevelopment on key sites like Boots and Asda without a catalytic project like Crossrail, given how profitable some of the sites currently are.
A Council reticent to transparency?
Toward the end of the meeting, the question of public availability of the Planning forum meeting’s minutes and its recording was addressed. The point was originally made by the Clapham Junction Action Group (the community group at the origin of CJI).
Unlike other Council meetings, the Planning Forum’s videos are not published, and minutes are only shared by email with participants, despite meetings being filmed and remote attendance allowed. For years, only CJI has consistently reported on these sessions.
CJAG argued that making minutes and recordings public – especially since other advisory groups are listed on the Council’s website – would boost transparency and local democracy. Their call, supported by the Wandsworth Society, highlighted how easy it would be for the Council to publish these records, even retrospectively.
However, Nick Calder, Head of Development Management, was notably reluctant, emphasising that the forum’s informal nature encourages more open and candid discussions. Some community members also appeared to favour keeping proceedings confidential—perhaps appreciating the sense of exclusivity or the opportunity for frank debate. Within the Council, there seemed to be a hesitance to break with the longstanding habit of closed-door meetings and an unease about greater public scrutiny.
The issue was left unresolved, with no commitment to change from Tony Belton, chair of the planning committee , who was chairing the meeting; a move some see as quietly burying the idea.
What is the Planning Forum and how does it work
Once every six months, representatives of community groups, forums, or societies from various areas of the Wandsworth Borough focused on urban planning meet at the Council to discuss planning issues with planning officers. The meeting is chaired by the Councillor who chairs the Planning Application Committee (PAC), currently Tony Belton, and not other councillor is invited on a regular basis.
The forum serves as a platform for officers to update attendees on planning matters specific to the Wandsworth borough without discussing individual cases (as they often remind the audience!). It is also (and this was implemented in January 2018 under Conservative Councillor Will Sweet after a strong request in July 2017) a forum for discussion allowing a large space for representatives of the community to bring forward specific topics. In other words, there is a shared agenda, with – it may vary depending on the agenda – one hour dedicated to officer updates and one hour for topics from the organisations.
Disclaimer: David Curran was representing the Clapham Junction Action Group at the Council’s meeting
