London's Foundations SPG

The London's Foundations Supplementary Planning Guidance has been published.

London’s Foundations (2009) was a joint publication with Natural England setting out London’s geological heritage, explaining the process for identifying sites of national, regional and local geological importance, identifying important geological sites for protection and advising boroughs on how to promote as well as protect geodiversity.

It has now been updated to reflect:

• The publication of the 2011 London Plan;
• The emerging advice of the Government in its National Planning Policy Framework;
• The ongoing work of the London Geodiversity Partnership (LGP) in updating the number of sites that should be promoted/protected by boroughs via their development plan documents;
• The publication by the LGP of their Geodiversity Action Plan.

The report provides advice that demonstrates how the policy aims set out in the London Plan can be achieved. It:

• sets out the geological heritage of London
• identifies strategically important features that are found in open spaces that are recommended for protection
• explains in detail how the regionally and locally important sites were selected and assesses the quality of the sites
• recommends regionally important sites to boroughs for identification in Local Development Documents
• identifies potential locally important sites to boroughs to consider for identification in Local Development Documents
• provides advice to the boroughs on implementing the aims of protecting and promoting geodiversity.

It is available in pdf and rtf (text only) files to download, below. Because of the size of the pdf, the main text and the appendices are also available as separate files.