Policy information sourced from the Richmond Upon Thames Local Plan

Policy 1 Living Locally and the 20-minute neighbourhood (Strategic Policy)

A. To help people and places to thrive we need to transform the way we live. We need to create environments that make it easier to be physically active, enhance opportunities for walking and cycling safely, create high quality public spaces and public realm, improve connectivity and accessibility for all, and focus on supporting the high streets, centres and parades as destinations that people want to go to and use to ‘live locally’. Creating a borough where everything a resident needs can be reached within 20 minutes by foot or bike will not only improve the quality of life but will bring multiple benefits of healthier lifestyles, cleaner air, stronger local economies and above all better resilience against climate change.

B. The ‘living locally’ concept will be achieved by:

  1. giving people the ability to meet most of their daily needs, through a mixed pattern of land uses including food and necessities, within a 20-minute walk from home, with safe cycling and local public transport options;
  2. facilitating access to quality public transport that connects people to jobs and other places they need to go to, especially improving inclusive access and overcoming barriers for people who experience reduced mobility;
  3. promoting and enabling healthier lifestyles and active living by improving walking and cycling infrastructure to achieve the borough’s target of 75% of trips being undertaken by walking, cycling and public transport;
  4. offering a high-quality public realm and open spaces;
  5. delivering new developments at densities that make local services and transport viable;
  6. improving accessibility and connectivity of green infrastructure;
  7. facilitating thriving local economies;
  8. following the Mayor’s Healthy Streets Approach to ensure walking and cycling are the natural choices for local journeys, and using the Healthy Streets Toolkit to assess new infrastructure schemes.

C. All development (except householder applications for alterations) should:

  1. demonstrate how they will deliver improvements that support the ‘living locally’ concept;
  2. be permeable by foot and cycle, with good connections and signage to local walking and cycling routes/networks as well as public transport;
  3. demonstrate that future occupiers of the development are able to meet their shopping, work, recreational and cultural needs within a 20-minute walk or cycle and how the new development will contribute to sustaining the ‘living locally’ concept;
  4. demonstrate that the proposals will not lead to any deterioration in the provision of, and access to, services to meet shopping, work, recreational and cultural needs for local communities;
  5. demonstrate how a proposal will reduce the dominance of vehicles.

    Major developments of 10 or more residential units or non-residential development of 500sqm of floorspace or more:

  6. must demonstrate how the proposal will improve local walking and cycling routes, including accessibility to the existing network, in areas with lower levels of public transport accessibility or higher levels of health deprivation and disability.

D. The Council will make use of planning obligations to create or reinforce successful 20 minute neighbourhoods.This could be relating to play and recreational facilities, low traffic neighbourhoods, walking and cycling infrastructure and active travel networks, public space and public realm improvements, green infrastructure provision, daily service provision, in line with other policies in this Plan. Conditions may be applied to planning permissions to retain a specific land use to ensure the continued and reinforced provision of services that enable living locally.

For more information please see the Richmond Upon Thames Local Plan