About the Forum: We are a neighbourhood forum designated by OPDC in 2018 and redesignated in 2023. We hold meetings via Zoom each month, open to all our members. Our next session will be on Tuesday 3rd November at 6.30pm.
The Zoom link and agenda will be circulated a few days in advance.
Slides from our October 7th meeting are now posted on this site.
In July, OPDC concluded the first stage of its procurement exercise to select a long-term Joint Venture partner/master developer for delivery of the Corporation’s Masterplan Framework at Old Oak. OPDC is maintaining total confidentiality on the bidders with whom it is now negotiating.
This Framework document is a non-statutory prospectus which had limited public consultation. It has not been ‘examined’ as would happen for a development plan document and it does not replace the 2022 OPDC Local Plan. The OPDC report on the consultation includes only generalised feedback and does not show responses from consultees or the public.
In July 2026 the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum launched its Presubmission Consultation on our Draft Old Oak Neighbourhood Plan. This ran until September 22nd.
The next stage on the neighbourhood plan will be the preparation of a ‘submission version’ along with Consultation Statement and Basic Conditions Statement. Revisions to the Pre-submission Draft will take account of responses received including the two sets of comments from the OPDC (as planning authority and as delivery agency). The recently published Draft London Plan also has signficant implications for the neighbourhood plan. So the revising process will take some time.
After submission, OPDC will carry out a further ‘Regulation 16’ consultation by publishing the Draft Neighbourhood Plan on its website. Exmaination by an independent Examiner will then take place, followed by a local referendum (provided that the Examiner is satisfied that a final version, with any modifications, meets the legal tests and basic conditions for a neighbourhood plan).
If supported by more than 50% of voters in the Old Oak neighbourhood area, the neighbourhood plan becomes part of the statutory development plan for the OPDC area. As such it will carry more ‘material weight’ than OPDC’s Masterplan Framework – at least for the period until OPDC adopts a new Local Plan (scheduled for December 2029).
The reasons why the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum is undertaking this work are:
- OPDC’s Masterplan Framework involves very high-density high-rise housing of a kind for which demand in London has fallen away. The new Draft London Plan is moving on from this model and towards mid-rise housing.
- national planning policy (the August 2026 NPPF) and the Draft London Plan have a new focus on ‘intensification’ of housing around rail stations.
- OPDC’s plans would make more sense if Old Oak Common atation had opened in 2026 (as originally planned). The latest official timeline for the station to open in 2036-9 and this may not be the end of the HS2 fiasco.
- There are no firm or funded plans for other transport improvements in Old Oak in the meantime. Access to public transport remains poor, not least because the barriers of multiple rail lines extend walking distances.
The Forum believes that the proposals in the Draft Neighbourhood Plan offer a better way forward for the eastern end of Ealing. All comments and views are welcome at oonforum@gmail.com.
Please email if you would like to join the Forum. We have ‘affiliate’ members from the wider area, along with ‘full members’ who either live or work within the designated neighbourhood area.