London’s infrastructure is facing significant challenges, constraining the capital’s ability to grow. As the new Labour government begins its mission to 'rebuild Britain', NLA presents key recommendations to decarbonise and modernise the systems that keep London running.

The city’s complex network of infrastructure, both above and below ground, offers a unique opportunity for a coordinated approach. By co-locating and designing infrastructure to serve multiple functions, we can meet the diverse needs of London’s communities while supporting the energy transition. Achieving this vision requires innovation, collaboration, and training a workforce for the green economy. By embracing new partnerships and fostering community leadership, we can create adaptable, sustainable infrastructure that drives growth, prosperity, and equity across the capital.

As London’s political leaders prepare its Growth Plan, it is clear that London’s infrastructure has fast become a key limiter of the capital’s growth.

Chronic underinvestment and a lack of political alignment (at least until this years’ General Election) has seen major transport projects stall, while rapid societal and economic trends have led to vast transformations in our requirements for energy, data and logistics. If we want to deliver the housing and quality of life Londoners so urgently need, improving the city’s infrastructure must become a priority for our policy-makers and for our industry.

Aligning all this is the need for London to rapidly decarbonise, which requires careful, coordinated thinking, and which cannot be achieved in siloes.

At the beginning of this year, we launched the New London Agenda — our framework for best practice in city-making. Now, as we stand at the beginning of both a new development cycle and a new political cycle, we have the opportunity to bring the principles of the New London Agenda to life, working together to deliver the infrastructure we need with a place-based lens.

In this report, we call for more holistic and place-based thinking to deliver London’s future infrastructure needs. We must work together, across sectors, to recognise the mutual gains to be had from co-locating our infrastructure assets, the role that ‘softer’ green infrastructure can play, and the opportunities for infrastructure to positively contribute to our neighbourhoods. All this requires design ingenuity, new funding models, and innovative approaches to planning. No longer can we afford to build infrastructure with a single purpose.

Our definition of critical infrastructure is changing too and in this report we call for affordable housing to be added to this definition, aiding us in taking a longer-term view that transcends political cycles.

To do all this effectively, we believe the layers of local thinking demonstrated throughout this report need to be supported by a coherent place-based infrastructure plan for London, including affordable housing, which is focused on driving growth and productivity in all corners of the city.

Over the following months, and in the lead up to the launch of the Growth Plan and revised London Plan, our Expert Panels and wider community will help to coordinate knowledge and translate this approach spatially across the capital — supporting our mission to deliver a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous city for all Londoners.

Our Project Showcase features a selection of standout schemes, either completed or in development, that demonstrate exemplary place-based approaches to infrastructure across the capital. Ranging from community-led neighbourhood projects to sub-regional networks and city-wide frameworks, the showcase highlights a diverse array of typologies and delivery scales.

04 Forewords
06 Executive Summary
08 Setting the Scene
30 Types of Infrastructure
98 Delivering a 'Place-Based Approach'
122 Conclusion
124 Project Showcase
176 Endnotes
179 Further Reading
180 Acknowledgements

Published 16 October 2024
183 Pages