Why London's Olympics town planners deserve a gold medal

It’s a little-known fact that medals have been awarded for town planning in four Olympics: in 1928, 1932, 1936 and 1948.

And some would say that town planning deserves a medal in 2012. After all, planning is all too often seen as a barrier to development, but the innovative and can-do approach taken by the Olympic Delivery Agency (ODA) has enabled the planning process to be navigated unusually quickly and relatively painlessly.

If proof were needed, planning permission was granted for the overarching masterplan for the Olympic Park just seven months after a planning application was submitted. That may sound a long time to make a decision, but bear in mind that this was one of the largest planning applications ever submitted in the UK – a 10,000-page document split into 15 volumes. The permission meant that the London Olympic bid was submitted with outline permission in place, which Steve Shaw, the chief planner of the ODA's town planning promoter team, says was “highly instrumental” in securing the Games.

And that wasn’t it. Many other planning applications had to be prepared, submitted and determined; some 2,400 by the end of June this year. Many of these have been significant enough to require that they are decided by the ODA’s planning committee, which is made up of elected members from the four boroughs over which the Olympic park extends, two non-borough ODA board members, and five independent members. That the committee is approaching its 100th meeting is testament to the number of applications with which it’s had to deal.

The emphasis on securing a legacy has meant that work on a planning application for a post-Games masterplan has been underway for some time, and it was granted outline permission shortly before the Games opened. The Legacy Communities Scheme, which covers 64 hectares of the 226-hectare park, includes 6,800 homes in five new neighbourhoods, alongside schools, nurseries and health centres, promising to avoid the ‘ghost towns’ which now exist at the site of some previous Games.

All this has taken place in a little over ten years, since CBRE (then as Insignia Richard Ellis) identified Stratford as one of four potential sites for an Olympic Park. CBRE continues to have a strong involvement in the park as advisors to the London Legacy Development Corporations – currently assisting in the disposal of the media centre – and as advisors to Westfield and other major landowners in and around Stratford.

Planning has played its part in an exciting festival of sport that will leave a positive, lasting memory and put this part of London firmly on the map.