Westminster City Council – Homepage

Providing a framework for delivering long-term housing, commercial and infrastructure growth in Westminster

City Plan

What is the City Plan and why are we reviewing it?

City Plan

Our City Plan provides our vision and framework for how long-term housing, commercial and infrastructure growth will be delivered in Westminster. The policies within the plan cover a range of topics including housing, sustainability, heritage, transport, the visitor economy and employment.

These policies are used to determine whether new developments including new housing and commercial floorspace are suitable to go ahead. The current City Plan was adopted in April 2021 and we are now refocussing our ambitions to build more affordable homes and prioritise the retrofitting of existing buildings, and steer growth on identified sites.

To address these priorities, we have now launched a partial review of our adopted City Plan.

The new and revised policies will together contribute to our vision for making Westminster a fairer and more inclusive city, where residents benefit from the opportunities new developments bring, and workers and visitors from all backgrounds feel welcome and safe.

What is happening now?

The Regulation 19 consultation on the City Plan Partial Review has now closed. We will be using the next few weeks to read your representations. We'll update this page with what happens next in due course.

The Regulation 19 process allows the public and key stakeholders to make comments on the proposed changes to the City Plan, with a view of ensuring that the changed and new policies are legally compliant, sound and have been prepared in accordance with the Duty to Cooperate.

Visit the Regulation 19 consultation portal.

The consultation period ran from 14 March 2024 to 9 May 2024.

Affordable Housing

Illustration of a house with people sitting in the windows
  • We want to strengthen our existing affordable housing policy to maximise the provision of genuinely affordable housing for those most in housing need.
  • Our consultation proposes to change policies that will require developers to help us meet increasing demand for more genuinely affordable housing.
  • Policies to build more genuinely affordable homes will help local businesses recruit staff that have a genuine choice to live close to where they work.

Retrofitting

Isometric cutaway of a living room with green elements
  • Our new retrofit-first policy will prioritise the retrofit and refurbishment of existing buildings to meet future needs over unnecessary demolition and redevelopment, reducing the impact of development on climate change.
  • We want to partner with landowners and developers to help them demonstrate their commitment to doing all that we can together to respond to the climate emergency.
  • We know there are challenges to constructing and retrofitting more sustainable buildings. Therefore, we want to work more closely with architects and construction experts to find the right solutions.

Site allocations

Illustrated hand dropping a 'pin' onto a map
  • Westminster is a wonderful place to live, and we want existing and future residents to feel they can build a future here. Our consultation will help transform underused sites by allocating them in the Plan to potentially provide more affordable homes, job opportunities and support infrastructure. 
  • Site Allocations in the City Plan will present greater certainty to developers and landowners on what type of proposals are likely to be granted planning permission.
  • Site Allocations can identify site-specific matters that will influence new designs – such as important buildings on site to retain or the need to provide new areas of open space.
  • We have been gathering evidence to support these allocations including a call for sites which took place in January-May 2022 and as part of the Regulation 18 consultation on the partial City Plan review which took place October – November 2022.  

Regulation 19 City Plan and Simple English Explainer

Regulation 19 City Plan PDF, 37.06 MB, 246 pages
Plain English Guide to the City Plan PDF, 42.37 MB, 13 pages
 

Core Supporting Documents

Revised Policies Map PDF, 29.08 MB, 1 page
Schedule of Changes to Policies Map PDF, 1.74 MB, 10 pages
 
Equalities Impact Assessment PDF, 1.71 MB, 41 pages
Consultation Statement PDF, 2.64 MB, 40 pages
Duty to Co-operate Statement PDF, 1.11 MB, 26 pages

 

Habitat’s Regulation Assessment PDF, 1.15 MB, 21 pages
Statement of Representations Procedure PDF, 233.29 KB, 2 pages
 

 

Evidence base

Five Year Housing Land Supply Statement 2022-2027 PDF, 495.74 KB, 22 pages
City Plan Regulation 19 Consultation Cabinet Member Report PDF, 192.5 KB, 10 pages
Archaeological Statement PDF, 1.6 MB, 18 pages

 

Embodied Carbon Evidence Base PDF, 2.74 MB, 73 pages
Grosvenor Sidings Design Review Panel Report PDF, 184.11 KB, 6 pages
Level 2 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment PDF, 2.71 MB, 30 pages

 

Retrofit-first Topic Paper PDF, 1.54 MB, 73 pages
Royal Oak Design Review Panel Report PDF, 191.37 KB, 5 pages
Site Allocations Heritage Impact Assessments PDF, 14.09 MB, 64 pages

 

Strategic Housing Market Assessment PDF, 1.44 MB, 89 pages
Viability Report PDF, 6.23 MB, 114 pages
Westbourne Park Bus Garage Design Review Panel Report PDF, 178.78 KB, 5 pages

 

What happens next

Following Regulation 19, the council will review and consider all provided comments. The revised City Plan, along with representations made, will be submitted to the Secretary of State for public examination by a Planning Inspector. 

Due to the process of having an Independent Examination, representations cannot be treated as confidential and will be published on our website. If the Inspector finds that the proposed changes to the City Plan are legally compliant, sound, and have been prepared in accordance with the Duty to Cooperate, the existing City Plan will be amended and adopted by the council for use in planning decisions. 

Regulation 18 consultation

Regulation 18 consultation for the City Plan Partial Review took place from October 2022 to November 2022. During this period the council advised the community that it intended to partially review the existing City Plan, with a focus on affordable housing, new retrofit policies and the introduction of site allocations.

Below are the documents that were provided during Regulation 18 consultation.

Regulation 18 Statement PDF, 151.81 KB, 3 pages
Local Development Scheme 2024-27 PDF, 851.13 KB, 6 pages
IIA Scoping Paper PDF, 635.37 KB, 10 pages