This report has been produced by HTA Design LLP and Pollard Thomas Edwards, with support from Savills and Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners.

It has grown out of an earlier report - Supurbia: a study in urban intensification in Outer London produced by HTA in 2014 – and from recent submissions by both practices to the NLA’s New Ideas for London Insight Study. The report contained input from Savills on delivery and viability.

HTA’s Supurbia - one of the ten winning entries to the NLA competition – covers a wide range of potential initiatives to transform the suburbs. Supurbia is offered here as an umbrella title not only for the ideas set out below, but also for other contributors to bring forward their own proposals. Supurbia also features in a Policy Exchange report on The Homes London Needs.

Semi-permissive is Pollard Thomas Edwards’s more detailed proposal to use carefully-framed permitted development rights to bring about beneficial change and to incentivise householders to become micro-developers. PTE was supported by planning consultants Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners.

The two approaches have much in common, but also show distinctively different attitudes to planning and delivery: PTE and NLP propose a more market-led approach facilitated by top-down planning reforms, while HTA propose a more consensual approach based on neighbourhood planning and local development orders. We have found the debate stimulating: we hope that the readers of this report will add their own contributions through our website.