Category: Front Page News

  • ACTIVITY

    ACTIVITY

    As an informal alliance, Just Space hosts regular meetings, workshops, and conferences to share ideas and news about campaigns, as well as developing alternatives.

    We produce publications – the Alternative London Plan for a caring city is our latest. We also encourage participation in external events such as GLA consultations, planning inquiries and conferences; we give presentations; and we work with local groups on issues such as Local Plans, specific policy development or long-term strategic planning. We are supported by student volunteers and academics who advise and work on projects of benefit to community groups.

    Our own events and others we learn about are listed at EVENTS here

    We are only as strong as our members. Every community has knowledge – share yours and keep in touch by signing up here or email Just Space at office@justspace.org.uk  

    ALTERNATIVE LONDON PLAN FOR A CARING CITY: Just Space groups have collaborated on this, published April 2026, driven by the need for a different approach to London’s development. See the Alternative Plan page . Make your own comments as the document is further developed online.

    It follows our 2024 MANIFESTO which sums up our aims, objectives and hopes for fairer London planning. We printed 1000 copies and distributed them individually including to the GLA and local councils. If you would like printed copies please email office@justspace.org.uk
    Manifesto: for print
    Manifesto: for small screens
    Supporting and backup documents
    Publication story

    Other publications

    Alternative good practice guide to estate regeneration, Estate Watch, a joint project of Just Space and London Tenants Federation (since January 2023)

    COMMUNITY-LED RECOVERY PLAN (2022)

    Towards a Community-Led Plan for London – policy directions and proposals (August 2016)

    Towards a Community-Led Plan for London – ideas for discussion and debate (February 2016)

    London for All! A handbook for community and small business groups fighting to retain workspace for London’s diverse economies (September 2015)

    See other related publications

    PROJECTS

    Just Space runs or takes part in a lot of project work, based around helping community groups to make their own plans or contribute meaningfully to Local Plans, and other research work. Some current projects include working with tenant’s groups on planning issues for estates under threat of demolition/’regeneration’, in collaboration with the EstateWatch project (see below).

    We are also working with students and communities on:
    — New approaches to greening the public realm after LTNs and traffic calming is implemented
    — A project comparing different borough approaches to tall buildings
    — A project protecting central London’s wholesale food markets (Billingsgate and Smithfield)
    — An investigation into the urgent need for planning policy on data centres
    — A project around traditional street retail markets
    — A project to gather historical community knowledge.

    Estate Watch provides help and guidance to residents living on estates listed for demolition. The Estate Watch website – https://estatewatch.london/about/ – is maintained as an open-source project and is being kept up to date by voluntary contributors via its Github interface. The website was developed as a resource for communities on estates facing regeneration, to know their rights and to ensure that tenants and residents’ choices will be respected. The intention is to monitor each scheme as it progresses and make space for residents to add updated information about their estate in real time. This can be a precious tool to hold Councils across London and the Mayor to account and make sure that future regeneration schemes benefit existing local communities.

    The project was kickstarted in 2020 by Just Space and The London Tenants Federation working together with the University of Leicester and King’s College London on a research project that has provided detailed evidence since 1997 of the displacement of London council tenants and leaseholders through regeneration schemes. We have recently re-energised the project with a grant from Trust for London and updates gathered by students in the UCL Bartlett Knowledge Exhange..

    Recent projects:

    Thames Life Community Development Trust in Barking Riverside (within LB Barking & Dagenham) is being supported by Just Space which has provided advice on the new Thames Road Vision and Design Code, a critique of the GLA/Barking and Dagenham Opportunity Area Planning Framework, together with various presentations to public meetings.

    Grand Union Alliance –https://grandunionalliance.wixsite.com/grandunionallianceance – is a community network from in and around Old Oak & Park Royal connecting resident, business and community groups from Hammersmith and Fulham, Ealing, Brent and Kensington and Chelsea. It is focused on influencing plans for large scale development by the Mayoral Development Corporation OPDC so that they will sustain and enhance existing communities and neighbourhoods. Currently supported by Just Space following the end of grant funding from a UCL international research project.

    Fairville is a European collaboration funded by the EU and the UK which enables Just Space and London communities to take part. This contributes to our policy development on tackling poverty and inequality through the caring city, co-production. Details of the whole collaboration are at https://www.fairville-eu.org. Just Space enabled the Fairville (London Lab) to transition into an autonomous body as a Community Interest Company.

    Project archive

    What would you link to here?

  • Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill

    Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill

    3 January 2023. This is the name of the Bill going through Parliament which includes the government’s current ideas on planning “reform”.

    Back in 2020 the government held a consultation on proposed changes to the Planning system for England and Just Space did briefings for members and consulted members on a draft before responding formally to the government (and to the parliament which conducted its own consultation).

    In 2020 the government was proposing a number of big changes – crucially

    • calling for all land in England to be allocated by local authorities (LAs) in their Local Plan to one of 3 zones, each of which would be defined by central government. Development proposals which conformed to the specification for that zone would then proceed to planning permission without planning committee or community involvement. 
    • calling for community involvement to be strengthened at plan-making stage. But it would cease at the stage of planning permission (except for schemes in the ‘protected’ zone, including conservation areas).
    • Section 106 and CIL would be replaced by a new Infrastructure Levy designed to cover infrastructure and affordable housing costs. Within the housing element, the first call on the money would be for “First Homes” which were to be cut-price homes for sale. 

    The consultation / white paper produced 4,000 responses and enormous controversies among community groups, local governments, professions, with many attacks on the proposals as a gift to land owners and developers, bad for social housing delivery, bad for democracy, unworkable and so on. We linked many of these responses. including some from Just Space groups.

    Jump to 2022 when the government finally sent a draft law (a Bill) to parliament, combining a reduced set of planning changes with its new idea— Levelling Up. The Bill is thus called the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. Just Space was busy with other things at the main consultation stage of the Bill (the Committee Stage) and sent an update to members in November. Zoning had been dropped but the government’s aim of minimising community and council powers on individual projects was to be achieved by establishing National Development Management Policies which would take precedence over any local policies and plans. These policies would be written as regulations by ministers after the new law was in force.

    The attached PDF briefing has been prepared for members by Jonathan Moberly, with inputs from many Just Space groups and policy documents. It brings us up to date with the progress of the Bill to the end of 2022. The Bill now passes to the House of Lords on 17 January 2023 and we are hoping to post some further briefing on the potential to influence the Bill during its passage through the Lords.

    The briefing contains links to the Bill itself, many supporting documents and some critical comments. In addition, members may want to look at the report on the debate at the London Assembly Planning Committee, kindly prepared for us by Shibo Chen, and at the web site of the London Forum of Civic and Amenity Societies.

    Michael Gove has launched the long-awaited consultation on revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework – see here. The consultation runs until the end of February 2023 and we hope to provide some commentary to members.

    checked M E July 2025

  • About JUST SPACE

    About JUST SPACE

    Just Space is an informal alliance of community groups, campaigns and concerned independent organisations established in 2007 to act as a voice for Londoners at grass-roots level during the formulation of London’s major planning strategy, particularly the London Plan.

    Everyone is affected by planning but how it works and the making of its policy are daunting to most people, even though we all understand and experience the issues: housing, parks, transport, pollution, and so on. The aim of Just Space is to improve the public’s participation in planning to ensure that policy and process are fairer towards communities, in a system that is dominated by the interests of property developers.

    The Just Space Network brings together a wide range of groups, some with a London-wide remit (such as the London Tenants Federation, the London Forum of Civic and Amenity Societies), others locally-based community groups (such as Latin Elephant and PlushSE16) and some issue-based groups like the London Friends of Green Spaces Network. 

    The Network also has links with some of the Universities in London (e.g. UCL, CASS and LSE) whose staff and students provide research that the network presents alongside their own grass roots evidence at London Plan hearings and in other contexts.

    We work by supporting our member groups and spreading information further afield. Groups collaborate and coordinate in making representations to planning authorities, share learning, research and experience through workshops and publications.

    Just Space is run by volunteers with one funded role, the Organiser. We’re always looking for people to get involved or contribute their skills and we welcome any financial help.

    Current funding comes from Trust for London and we also receive funds from UCL The Bartlett through working programmes with students on mutually beneficial projects.

    MEMBERS
    We have over 80 participating groups. Some are core, long-term ‘members’, others are new or taking part in the work we’re doing.

    ACTIVITIES

    View our Constitution

    CONTACT Michael Ball, Organiser. Email office @ justspace .org.uk

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