When a scheme becomes referable to the Mayor of London

An application in Greater London becomes referable to the Mayor when it falls into one of the categories of potential strategic importance set out in the Town and Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008. For most developers the trigger is residential scale: more than 150 houses or flats makes a scheme referable wherever it sits in London. Floorspace and height triggers catch commercial schemes, and development on Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land is caught at a much smaller size.

Referral does not move the decision to City Hall. It gives the Mayor a right to comment, a right to direct refusal and a right to take the application over, exercised through a two stage process that runs alongside the borough's own determination.

Where the referral categories sit in law

The categories are in Schedule 1 to the 2008 Order, which replaced the 2000 Order and lowered the residential threshold from 500 units to 150. Boroughs remain the local planning authority throughout unless the Mayor takes a scheme over.

The Order has been amended, so check the current consolidated version rather than working from a summary table in an old committee report. Whether a scheme is referable is a matter of fact rather than judgement, and getting it wrong has a procedural consequence: a borough that determines a referable application without referring it has not followed the statutory process.

One point that catches people out. The categories say "comprising or including", so a mixed use scheme with 160 flats above a shop is referable on the residential category even though the commercial element is small. Schemes are also assessed as a whole, so splitting a site into two applications to stay under a threshold invites a finding that the development is a single scheme, as with any other threshold that appears as a scheme grows.

Residential units, floorspace and height

The three quantitative categories are the ones most often in play.

Height is measured to the top of the building, and the Thames category bites at a low figure precisely because the river frontage is a strategic view corridor. A nine or ten storey block on the south bank can be referable on height alone while an identical block a mile inland is not.

Central London for these purposes is a defined area rather than a loose description, so confirm it against the Order and not against a mental map of Zone 1. Borough boundaries cut through it.

Protected land and the smaller triggers

Development on Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land is referable at a far lower level. The designation has a strategic function that does not depend on the size of the building. The practical effect is that a modest sports pavilion or a school expansion on Metropolitan Open Land can be referable when a much larger building on an ordinary infill site is not.

Other categories cover mining and waste development, and development that would prejudice the use of land for strategic purposes. These come up less often, but they are the ones where a scheme's referability is easiest to miss at feasibility stage, because nobody thinks to check them.

Where a scheme is also Schedule 2 development under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, the Environmental Impact Assessment screening question and the referral question are separate and answered separately. The Environmental Statement must be prepared by competent experts, and a PlanScope draft is a starting point for that team rather than a substitute for it.

Stage one: the Mayor's initial view

The borough sends the application to the Greater London Authority once it is validated. The Mayor then has six weeks to issue a Stage 1 report setting out whether the scheme complies with the London Plan, what would need to change for it to comply, and whether there are grounds on which he might later direct refusal or take the application over.

A Stage 1 report is a public document and it is the most useful thing a developer gets from the process. It tells you, in writing and before the borough's committee report is drafted, which policies the strategic authority thinks are unresolved. Affordable housing under Policy H5 and the threshold approach, design and tall buildings under Policy D9, fire safety under Policy D12, and energy and carbon under the relevant Policy SI provisions account for most of the substantive comments on residential schemes.

Referable status also pulls in documents that smaller schemes do not need. Greater London Authority guidance expects a Whole Life Carbon Assessment and a Circular Economy Statement for referable applications, which is a different exercise from the borough's own energy requirements and is why energy and carbon evidence changes as a scheme scales.

Stage two: direction, release or takeover

When the borough has resolved what it intends to do, it refers the application back. The Mayor then has 14 days to take one of three courses: allow the borough to issue its decision, direct the borough to refuse, or take over the application and determine it himself.

A takeover means the Mayor becomes the local planning authority for that application. In practice this is followed by a representation hearing at City Hall, at which the applicant, the borough and objectors are heard before the Deputy Mayor for Planning. The hearing is public and the decision is published with reasons.

Direction to refuse is rare. Takeover is rarer, and is usually reserved for schemes where the strategic authority supports development that the borough has resolved to refuse. Most referable applications are released at Stage 2 with no change, which is why the Stage 1 report matters so much: the negotiation happens before then, not after.

What referral does to the programme

The statutory determination period is unchanged by referral. A major application still carries 13 weeks, and 16 weeks where an Environmental Statement is submitted, but in practice boroughs rarely issue a decision on a referable scheme within those periods.

Build the sequence into the programme honestly:

1. Validation, then referral to the Greater London Authority.
2. Six weeks to the Stage 1 report.
3. Borough consultation, consultee responses and officer negotiation, usually overlapping Stage 1.
4. Committee resolution.
5. Referral back and 14 days to the Stage 2 decision.
6. Section 106 completion, then the decision notice.

An extension of time agreement is the norm rather than the exception on referable schemes, and a Planning Performance Agreement is worth considering where the borough's resources are the binding constraint.

Preparing for a strategic review

Engage with the Greater London Authority before submission, not after Stage 1. The authority publishes a charging schedule for pre-application planning advice, so check the current rates and build the fee into the appraisal.

Two habits pay for themselves. Write the planning submission so that London Plan compliance can be read policy by policy, with a short table cross-referring each strategic policy to the document that deals with it. And resolve the affordable housing position early, because a scheme that cannot use the threshold approach faces a viability assessment on top of everything else, which adds months rather than weeks.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. The referral categories are set by statutory instrument and have been amended, so confirm the current text of the Order and the London Plan position with the borough or a qualified planning professional before relying on it.

PlanScope can draft the London Plan compliance narrative and the supporting statements a referable scheme needs, so you can see which reports your site is likely to need from the postcode. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.