London Planning is a publication about how the city gets built and rebuilt: the applications, the appeals, the housing numbers, the conservation fights and the streets that quietly change shape while everyone argues about towers.
What this site is not
This domain formerly hosted the London Planning Awards. That awards programme continues today, independently of us, as the Building London Planning Awards, run with BusinessLDN and the Mayor of London. This site is unconnected to it. We do not administer it, judge it, speak for it or have any relationship with its organisers. We cannot accept entries, answer questions about categories or deadlines, or pass anything on. If you are looking for the awards, please search for the Building London Planning Awards and contact the organisers directly.
To be completely plain about it: this site does not run any awards and will not run any awards. It is a publication, nothing more.
What we cover
- Planning — the system itself: policy, applications, committees, appeals and the London Plan.
- Housing — delivery, affordability, tenure, estate regeneration and who actually ends up living where.
- Architecture — buildings as built, not as rendered.
- Conservation — listing, heritage assets, conservation areas and the arguments about what is worth keeping.
- Streets — public realm, transport, active travel and the small interventions that change how a place is used.
Who writes it
Everything is published under the byline The London Planning Desk. We work as an editorial team and each article is read by an editor other than the writer before publication.
Editorial standards
Planning is a subject where the documents exist, so we use them. Where we describe a scheme, a decision or a policy, we work from the application papers, the committee report, the decision notice, the inspector’s decision or the published policy itself, and we link to the source so you can read it yourself. We distinguish between what a document says, what a party claims and what we think.
We do not take payment for coverage, and we do not run advertorial dressed as reporting. Where a piece is comment, it is labelled as comment. Where we get a figure, a date or a reference number wrong, we correct the article and say that we have. Anyone criticised in a piece is welcome to reply, and we will publish a considered response.
