Which applications are referable to the Mayor of London

An application in Greater London is referable to the Mayor when it falls into one of the categories of potential strategic importance set out in the Schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008. The headline triggers are residential development of more than 150 homes, floorspace above thresholds that vary between central London, outer London and the City, and buildings above stated heights, with further categories for Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land, waste and minerals. Referral is automatic on those facts. The borough still determines the application, but it cannot issue a decision without going through the Mayor twice.

Read the Schedule rather than a summary before you rely on the position, because the categories are drafted tightly and a scheme can be referable on a ground you did not expect.

The categories of potential strategic importance

The Order groups the triggers into categories. In practice four sets of facts catch most schemes.

Residential scale is the one everybody knows: development comprising or including more than 150 houses, flats, or houses and flats. Note "more than", so 150 units exactly is not referable on that ground and 151 is.

Floorspace thresholds differ by location. Outside central London and outside the City, the threshold is lower than the central London figure, and the City of London carries a much higher one. Establish which zone the site sits in before measuring, because the boundary of central London for these purposes is defined in the Order and is not the same as any borough boundary.

Height triggers bite on tall buildings and on riverside sites. Buildings adjacent to the River Thames become referable at a lower height than buildings elsewhere, and the City of London has its own much higher figure. The riverside trigger catches modest buildings that nobody thinks of as tall.

Then there are the designation and use-based categories: development on Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land above stated floorspace or site area figures, waste development, and mineral working. A small building on Metropolitan Open Land can be referable where a much larger one on an ordinary urban site is not.

Residential thresholds and how units are counted

The count is of houses and flats in the development, and two questions follow from that.

First, what counts as a unit. Purpose-built student accommodation and large-scale shared living are not houses or flats in the ordinary sense, and whether a scheme of that kind is referable on the residential ground depends on the form of the accommodation. Schemes of that scale usually trip a floorspace trigger anyway, which makes the question academic more often than not.

Second, whether phases are aggregated. An application for a phase of a larger site is assessed on the development applied for. Splitting a site into two applications of 90 and 80 units to avoid referral is the kind of arrangement the Greater London Authority looks at closely, and a borough is unlikely to help you with it.

How the stage one and stage two process runs

The mechanics are what add time to your programme, so plan for them.

1. Before the borough determines the application, it refers the case to the Mayor. The Mayor has six weeks to provide a statement on whether the proposal complies with the London Plan and, if not, what changes would make it comply. This is the stage one report.
2. The borough continues to process the application, usually negotiating on the points the stage one report raised.
3. When the borough's committee or delegated officer resolves to grant or refuse, the borough refers the case back to the Mayor for stage two.
4. The Mayor then has 14 days to decide whether to allow the borough to determine the application, to direct refusal, or to take over the application as local planning authority.
5. If the application is not called in and refusal is not directed, the borough issues the decision.

The stage one report is a public document and it is the single most useful thing you will read about your own scheme. It states the Greater London Authority's position on housing, affordable housing, design, transport, energy, fire safety and whatever else is in issue, and it usually tells you exactly what will be negotiated for the next four months.

Mayoral direction to refuse or call in

Two powers sit at stage two and they are different in kind.

A direction to refuse ends the application. The borough must refuse, and the applicant's route is an appeal to the Secretary of State against that refusal.

Taking over the application, commonly called a call-in, is a power under section 2A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, inserted by the Greater London Authority Act 2007. The Mayor becomes the local planning authority for that application and determines it, normally after a public representation hearing. The borough remains a consultee and often objects. What the Mayor cannot do is direct a borough to grant permission.

A call-in is not a shortcut to consent and it is not something an applicant can require. The decision rests on whether the scheme has a significant effect on the implementation of the London Plan, and on the other tests in the Order.

Timescales and what they add

Assume the referral adds between two and four months to a scheme that would otherwise have been determined by the borough alone, and more where the stage one report asks for material change.

The six-week stage one period runs in parallel with the borough's own consultation, so it is not wholly additive. The stage two period is short but it comes after the committee resolution, which means the time between resolution and decision notice is longer than applicants expect. Where a section 106 agreement is being completed in the same window, the practical delay is usually driven by the agreement rather than by the referral.

Build the referral into the survey and reporting programme rather than treating it as a procedural afterthought. Referable applications attract a defined set of supporting documents under the London Plan: an energy assessment following the "be lean, be clean, be green, be seen" hierarchy, a whole life carbon assessment, a circular economy statement and, for relevant buildings, a fire statement. Those are substantial pieces of work.

Preparing for a GLA case officer

Ask for a pre-application meeting with the Greater London Authority as well as with the borough, and ask for it early enough to change the scheme.

Bring the strategic case rather than the local one. The GLA case officer is testing the proposal against London Plan policy: housing delivery and affordable housing tenure and proportion, density and design quality, agent of change and noise, transport mode share and car parking, urban greening, energy and carbon, and fire safety under the London Plan's design policy on fire.

The documents to have in order before that meeting are the Energy Statement with the hierarchy set out stage by stage, the Whole Life Carbon Assessment prepared to the RICS methodology, the Circular Economy Statement and, where the building is caught, the Fire Statement prepared by someone with fire-engineering competence and submitted for Planning Gateway One.

Get the affordable housing position settled before stage one if you possibly can. A stage one report that records an unresolved affordable housing offer sets the tone for everything afterwards, and it is the point on which most referable schemes spend the longest.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the current Order, the London Plan and the relevant Mayoral guidance before relying on it. Fire statements require a professional with the necessary fire-engineering competence, and PlanScope's draft is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.