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AAP Swot

AAP SWOT Overview of the 2010 Colindale Area Action Plan Policy Chapters

Connecting Colindale

Strengths: • The existing AAP for Colindale recognises movement as a vital part of the Colindale’s development trajectory. • Plans to upgrade and improve capacity of Colindale Underground Station is a strength of the existing AAP.

Weaknesses: • Whilst the existing AAP acknowledges the importance of transport development in Colindale, it overlooks pressing concerns that undermine a movement toward sustainable transport modes. The

AAP provides no policies which limit the use of private vehicles in

Colindale. Current congestion levels in Colindale are a major obstacle to the improvement of the pedestrian and cyclist environment, as well as a barrier to efficient public transit on busses around the centre of

Colindale.

A High-Quality Environment in Colindale

Strengths: • The existing AAP provides clear requirements for new developments to provide children’s playgrounds based on the needs of new residences. • The AAP clearly stipulates that new developments must provide quality homes, which meet the Building for Life and Lifetime Homes standards. • The AAP is clear that 10% of residences within new developments should be disability adapted. • A key strength of the AAP is its retention of policies that look to enhance existing green spaces. Whilst the policies concerning green space enhancement are not totally coherent, in general there is an understanding that these spaces are great assets for the local area.

Weaknesses: • The existing AAP stipulates that development in Colindale should evoke a ‘distinct identity’ of the area. However, the AAP fails to establish what is meant by the character of Colindale. As such, interpretation of the local character is left to individual developers, resulting in a lack of coherence and agreement as to the type of design appropriate for the area. The AAP stipulates that Colindale Avenue and Edgware Road should be transformed with hard landscaping to create pleasant pedestrian locations in the form of piazzas and boulevards. However, without measures to mitigate traffic congestion in these areas, landscaping to improve the pedestrian environment is undermined.

Opportunities: • Whilst the AAP clearly states that it is the responsibility of the developer to provide children’s play space for new developments, it misses the opportunity to ensure that these spaces should be disability adapted.

Moreover, the AAP neglects to clarify what play provision should be incorporated into the wider public realm improvement measures and who should be responsible for its provision. • Generally, the existing AAP fails to link the aims of a ‘sustainable environment’ and the exciting public realm in Colindale. For example, this could have been achieved by specifying sustainable design codes for children’s play equipment and encouraging environmentally friendly behaviours in the public realm etc. Opportunities: • The existing AAP does not go far enough to connect Colindale to its wider surroundings. This is particularly true for neighbouring Burnt Oak, which could be reached if the Silk Stream was opened up to create an attractive green connection between Colindale and Burnt Oak. • In the existing AAP, an opportunity for a modal shift to clean transport by disallowing residential developers to provide private parking, has been missed. With the residential densification of the area, this would have presented a huge opportunity to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions from private vehicles.

Threats: • The greatest threat is the continued reliance on private vehicles for transport. Without incentives or control measures to ensure that developers do not provide new car parking for all new residences, then efforts to encourage walking and cycling will be undermined.

The document fails to specify how increased ‘biodiversity’ can be achieved in existing green spaces. This focus on biodiversity and the asset of bountiful existing green spaces presented a unique opportunity to guide biodiversity and ‘new habitat’ provision, but the language used in these policies was vague and unclear.

Threats: • Whilst the AAP notes poor levels of legibility in Colindale for both residents and visitors alike, efforts to improve this will be likely undermined by the absence of pedestrianisation and car-control policies to open up the pedestrian environment and make Colindale easier for pedestrians and cyclists to negotiate. In this sense, the policy goal of increased ease of movement is undermined. • The AAP specifies that tall buildings (in excess of 6 stories) ought to be located only in the most ‘sustainable locations.’ The wording of this, is somewhat misleading and confusing as the word ‘sustainable’ is used elsewhere within the AAP with regards to natural biodiversity and other environmental concerns. Moreover, the policy concerning tall buildings is at odds with what many would consider to be the architectural character of Colindale. The AAP does not engage with this issue, instead, it seems that tall buildings pose a potential threat to the existing architectural character of the area.

AAP SWOT Overview of the 2010 Colindale Area Action Plan Policy Chapters

A Green Future For Colindale

Strengths: • In principle, the existing AAP’s vision of a Green Future for Colindale contains some strong guidance policies. For example, the AAP takes into consideration renewable energy generation and use of sustainable building materials for new residential developments.

Weaknesses: • In practice the policies, such as those concerning local renewable energy generation or sustainable building materials, are not strong enough to either incentivise or control developers to ensure that these regulations are followed. As such, implementation of these policies was inconsistent and therefore, weak.

Colindale-wide Policies

Strengths: • The Colindale-wide policy section looks to fill in the gaps between policy guidance for each of the four corridors of change. In this sense, this section as a whole looks to mitigate incoherence between policy adoption and clarification of the bigger policy picture for development in Colindale. • This chapter contains the stipulations for affordable housing provision, in line with the wider London Plan requirements. • This chapter also specifies precise redevelopment sites, providing clear guidance on areas to be developed for residential, retail and leisure provisions.

Weaknesses: • A big focus of this chapter is on local retail provision, ensuring vital amenities for an increased local population. Whilst ‘diversity’ is a key component of the AAP’s vision, there is no policy here which

considers measures to ensure a diversity of choice for retailers. For example, providing a variety of price points and taste-options to reflect a multicultural and diverse population. Opportunities: • The original Colindale AAP overlooks the fantastic opportunity for significant design improvements to the Silk Stream to enhance the local environment. Whilst the document does propose improvements to the Silk Stream’s biodiversity levels and flood mitigation capabilities, it does not capitalise on the wide number of environmental benefits this blue infrastructure asset could bring to the surrounding area.

Threats: • The greatest threat to the achievement of a ‘Green Future for Colindale’ is the lack of policies in the AAP to mitigate traffic congestion and high levels of reliance on private vehicles. Without stricter controls to limit the number of vehicles arriving in Colindale with new residents and to limit the access of vehicles across the neighbourhood, increasingly high levels of pollution threaten to undermine all other policies concerning sustainable development patterns. • Overall, the vague language used and failure to incorporate incentive or control measures in environmental policies in this chapter allows for inconsistent policy implementation and reduces the meaningfulness of measures to reduce environmental degradation.

Opportunities: • One of Colindale’s great assets are its pre-existing plethora of education facilities, ranging from nursery to university level. Despite this, the existing AAP overlooks the opportunity to use these assets as a catalyst for achieving its goals such as a ‘green future’ for Colindale and an improved public realm. Including policies to encourage greater involvement between these educational institutions and the wider development programme would have benefitted the smooth implementation of the AAP’s policies.

Threats: • Without proper policies ensuring a diverse provision of retail and community amenities, there is a significant risk that new amenities will not be accessible to all, particularly long-standing existing residents, in terms of affordability. Moreover, without measures to safeguard existing businesses and facilities against the effects of upgraded spaces and rising rents and rates, such amenities which contribute to the area’s character could be lost. The policies in the

Colindale-wide chapter should have included measures to mitigate this threat by, for example, providing ‘right-to-return’ tickets to businesses and services of significant importance to the local area upon completion of redevelopment sites.

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