First Cross-borough Neighbourhood Forum forms

Residents in Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham are getting together to write a neighbourhood plan for their local area.

They may be from different postcodes, but the St Helen's Residents' Association in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Woodlands area residents in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham are making a joint bid to become a Neighbourhood Forum using new neighbourhood planning powers granted by the government.

Neighbourhood Forums, as introduced in the Localism Act 2011, are designated community groups that can use these neighbourhood planning rights to shape development and growth in their area through the production of a neighbourhood development plan.

The area that they intend to focus their proposals on stretches north from the Westway to Dalgarno Gardens, east to St Helen's Gardens and St Mark's Road and west to Wood Lane.

If designated, the new St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Forum will put its proposals to the public and will invite local residents and businesses to comment on its neighbourhood plan, before submitting it to the councils for formal consultation, examination and eventually a local referendum. 

The Neighbourhood Forum would seek to build local consensus around a set of detailed planning policies governing issues such as rooflights, basement development, eco retrofitting, and supporting local shopping parades and the Latimer Road employment area. 

Councillor Tim Ahern, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's Cabinet Member for Planning, said: "We are great supporters of Neighbourhood Planning and were one of the first councils in the country to give the thumbs up to an application.

"This is our second application, and it's possibly another first as it straddles two boroughs and involves our neighbours in Hammersmith & Fulham. The two boroughs must now consider the application and we will report back in due course."