Who decides your application in a London corporation area

Before you submit anything in a development corporation planning London area, check which body currently holds the local planning authority functions for the site. Mayoral development corporations are set up under Part 8 of the Localism Act 2011, and the order establishing one can transfer development management and plan-making functions from the host boroughs to the corporation for a defined area. Those arrangements change. The London Legacy Development Corporation's development management functions returned to its four host boroughs in December 2024, while the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation has continued as the local planning authority for its area, and the position should be verified before an application is prepared.

Submitting to the wrong authority does not just waste a fee. It wastes the determination period.

Where development corporation areas exist and what transfers

A Mayoral development corporation is created by the Mayor with the consent of the Greater London Authority and the relevant boroughs, and its powers come from the designation order rather than from the Act alone. That order is the document to read, because it says exactly which functions moved.

The functions that are commonly transferred are development management, so the corporation determines applications, and plan-making, so the corporation prepares its own local plan. Functions that often stay with the borough include building control, environmental health, highways where the borough is the highway authority, council tax and business rates, and licensing. Enforcement normally follows development management.

Two consequences follow for an applicant. The planning application goes to the corporation while the building control application, the licensing application and the highway agreement may go to three different places. And on a scheme that straddles the boundary, you may be dealing with two local planning authorities on one site.

Which plan policies apply

The development plan for a site inside a corporation area is the London Plan plus the corporation's own local plan, once adopted, and any neighbourhood plan covering the area. Before a corporation adopts its own plan, the host borough's plan generally continues to apply as part of the development plan for that area.

So the policy search is different from the usual one. Look for the corporation's local plan and its supplementary guidance first, then the London Plan, then check whether any borough policies still apply through the designation order or through a saved plan.

This is also where the detailed requirements sit. Corporation local plans tend to carry distinctive policies on industrial land, tall buildings and estate regeneration, because the areas were designated for a reason. A Planning Statement that cites borough policies for a site inside a corporation area will be read as a sign that the agent has not checked, which colours everything else.

Industrial designations are frequently the point. Corporation areas often contain substantial strategic industrial land, and the no net loss approach that applies to it is the most common constraint on a residential-led scheme, as our note on industrial land and the no net loss approach explains.

How referral to the Mayor works inside the area

Referral still operates. An application of potential strategic importance inside a corporation area is referred to the Mayor in the same way as one determined by a borough, which creates the slightly odd position that the Mayor comments on, and may direct refusal of, an application being determined by a body he established.

In practice the stage one report tends to be shorter and more aligned with the corporation's own officer view, because the policy framework is one the Mayor approved. That does not make it a formality, and the referable thresholds are the same ones set out in the relevant order.

Plan for both the referral period and the corporation's own committee cycle, which on a small board can be less frequent than a borough's planning committee.

Consultation arrangements that differ

Publicity obligations are the statutory ones, so site notices, neighbour notification and the consultation period work as they do elsewhere. What differs is the local layer.

Corporation areas often have their own community forum, planning committee arrangements with members appointed rather than elected, and in some cases a local community review panel or design review panel whose comments carry weight with officers. Find out which of those exist and when they meet, because a design review slot booked late can add six weeks.

Statutory consultees are unchanged. The borough, though, becomes a consultee rather than the decision maker, and its comments on matters it still controls, particularly highways and environmental health, are the ones that shape conditions.

Pre-application advice and working with a small team

Corporation planning teams are small. That has two effects worth planning around.

The case officer is often more senior than the equivalent would be at a borough, with more scope to negotiate, and a pre-application meeting tends to be more productive because the people who will determine the application are in the room. Use it. Bring the constraints you expect to fail on rather than the drawings you are proud of.

Against that, capacity is limited, so the queue for pre-application advice and for validation can be longer than the published target, and a single officer's absence shows up immediately in the programme. Agree a timetable in writing and ask what the realistic validation period is before relying on the statutory determination period in a funding appraisal.

Documentation standards also tend to be tighter rather than looser. Corporations were set up to deliver, so officers read the technical evidence base closely and expect the policy argument to be made against their own plan rather than against national policy in general.

Section 106 negotiation with the corporation

The corporation negotiates the planning obligations for the development it determines, and its priorities reflect its regeneration remit rather than a borough's service pressures. Expect emphasis on affordable housing, employment and training, industrial floorspace replacement and infrastructure within the designated area.

Where obligations relate to services the borough still provides, such as school places or borough highway works, the agreement has to bring the borough in as a party or provide for payments to it. Sorting that out takes longer than a straightforward two-party agreement, so start the heads of terms early.

The levy position needs checking separately. A corporation may become the charging authority for the community infrastructure levy in its area, in which case a different charging schedule applies from the surrounding borough's, and the Mayoral charge applies on top either way.

Checking the boundary before you submit

Boundaries follow the designation order and they are not intuitive. They cut across wards, sometimes along a railway or a canal, and they can leave part of a site inside and part outside.

Three checks take an hour between them. Look at the published boundary on the national planning data service, which carries development corporation areas as a dataset. Ask the corporation and the borough, in writing, to confirm which authority will determine an application for the site address. And check the designation order itself for the functions transferred, rather than relying on a web page summary.

Where the site straddles the line, the usual approach is parallel applications to each authority for the part within its area, with a single supporting evidence base and matching descriptions of development. It is administratively tedious and it works. Our note on what an opportunity area allocation changes covers the policy layer that often sits over these same areas.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with the relevant authority or a qualified professional before relying on it, and verify which body currently holds the functions for your site.

To see which reports a scheme in a regeneration area is likely to need, browse the 66 report types and start from the project description.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.