The ‘pre-submission consultation draft’ of our new Old Oak Neighbourhood Plan can be downloaded at this link Draft Old Oak NP. April version
This is a ‘soft launch’ of this new version of a Draft Neighbourhood Plan. We still have some legal issues to resolve with OPDC. Before the start of the statutory six week pre-submission consultation we will be adding details on the following requirements of the 2012 Neighbourhood Planning Regulations:
Before submitting an order proposal to the local planning authority, a qualifying body must—
(a)publicise, in a manner that is likely to bring it to the attention of people who live, work or carry on business in the neighbourhood area—
(i)details of the proposals for a neighbourhood development order or community right to build order;
(ii)details of where and when the proposals may be inspected;
(iii)details of how to make representations; and
(iv)the date by which those representations must be received, being not less than 6 weeks from the date on which details of the proposals are first publicised;
We will also be consulting with the required ‘consultees’ including the three Borough councils, the GLA and various national bodies. In the meantime please get in touch at oonforum@gmail.com if you would like to know more or would be interested in sending in a response to these proposals.
The remainder of this page gives background to the neighbourhood planning framework and explains why we have chosen this time to prepare and consult on a draft neighbourhood plan. This page on the website rehearses how the the Old Oak neighbourhood area was first designated by OPDC back in 2017 and what has changed in the context for a neighbourhood plan for this slice of East Acton
Neighbourhood planning – a brief history
Neighbourhood plans were introduced by the 2011 Localism Act. The statutory framework under which parish councils and neighbourhood forums has remained (more or less) unchanged since 2012, when the first set of Neighbourhood Planning Regulations came into force.
There have been a series of wider ‘reforms’ to the planning system since 2012. The National Plannig Policy Framework (NPPF) has been revised several times. Consultation on a substantive revision to the NPPF concluded in March 2026 and this new version is expected to finalised shortly. Two clauses in the the 2003 Levelleing Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) came into force on March 25th 2026, and involved significant changes to the ‘Basic Conditions’ which any draft neighbourhood plan is required to meet.
Neighbourhood planning was slower to take off in London than in rural areas, but numbers of neighbourhood forums being designated, and neighbourhood plans being adopted by London Boroughs grew during the decade from 2025. At the time of the last full survey by the network Neighbourhood Planners.London in 2022, there were 6f neighbourhood forums designated and 26 neighbourhood plans that had been ‘made’ (i.e. adopted by the relevant planning authority as part of the development plan for the Borough or Mayoral Development Corporation.
In 2025 the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) closed the longstanding programme which had provided funding and technical support to neighbourhood forums preparing a neighbourhood plan. NeighbourhoodPlanners.London is lobbying for this to be reinstated. Planning authorities continue to receive funding for their role in administering the processes of independent examination of draft neighbourhood plans, and holding a local referendum to establish whether there is majority support for adoption.
The Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum drafted a neighbourhood plan back in 2021. We did not progress this at the time, as the OPDC Local Plan was still being modified and the HS2 project in a state of flux.
In early 2026 the outcome of the HS2 ‘reset’ remains unknown. OPDC published in November 2025 a Masterplan Framework for the ‘Old Oak project area’ which is now the fous of the work of the Development Corporation.
We have many problems with the approach that OPDC has pursued in preparing and subsequently endorsing this ‘Framework’ document. What began as an exercise in drawing up an ‘illustrative’ masterplan morphed into a set of ‘planning parameters’ that introduces new development sites and ‘principles’ which appear to supersede the OPDC’s 2022 Local Plan. The Framework has not been consulted on nor ‘examined’ in the manner as required for a statutory ‘development plan’ document. Yet the document states All detailed development proposals within the Old Oak area are expected to take account of the vision, principles and guidance set out in the Masterplan Framework. On what basis have OPDC published this ‘expectation’?
Our Forum views the Masterplan Framework as no more than a prospectus designed to attract ‘development partners’ with whom the OPDC wishes to set up Joint Venture agreements to progress its delivery plans at Old Oak.
The document reads like a replacement Local Plan. It does not make clear that OPDC’s next Local Plan is not due for adoption until December 2029 and meanwhile the policies and site allocations in the 2022 adopted Local Plan prevail. Our correspondence with OPDC setting out our views on the status of the Framewok document, and the ‘material weight’ which it will carry on deciding future planning applications can be downloaded from an earlier post on this website.
How to join the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum
Please get in touch at oonf@gmail.com if you would like to know more about the Neighbourhood Plan, or have queries about any of the detailed policies and site allocations that have been included in this first draft.
Membership of the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum is open to anyone who lives or works in the designated neighbourhood area. If you live or work in the wider area you are also very welcome to join and to log in to our monthly Zoom meetings as an ‘associate member’. At the stage of a referendum on the Draft Neighbourhood Plan, it will only by those on the electoral register within the designated area who will have the opportunity to vote.