A new Local Plan that will shape the future of Richmond Borough for the next 15 years will be built around the philosophy of creating '20-minute neighbourhoods'.

The intention is to promote walking, cycling and public transport while actively discouraging petrol and diesel car use – so improving air quality, reducing pollution, climate change emissions and congestion.

Richmond borough has the highest car ownership per household in London and some have demonised the Council's approach as some sort of socialist attempt to restrict people's freedoms.

This is categorically rejected by Councillor Julia Neden-Watts, who is chairman of the Council's Environment, Sustainability Culture and Sports Committee.

Here – in an exclusive interview with Nub News – Cllr Neden Watts sets out the Council's new approach to planning saying: "The vision is we have greener communities, more biodiverse communities, more access to travel and more affordable housing."

Council to urge people to leave cars at home

Q: We can see that the central philosophy of the new Local Plan is the desire to create 20-minute neighbourhoods. Can you describe what you mean by this?

A: 20-minute neighbourhoods are about living locally, enabling people to access the shops the services the other things they need within their neighbourhood all within a short journey.

Q: What would you say are the advantages of taking this approach for residents?

A: It's very much about enabling not restricting so there are no zones or restrictions it's about enabling people to have what they need in their local area.

It's about sustainability it's about happy healthy communities it's about not undertaking unnecessary journeys, that's the overarching philosophy. It's about sustainability.

Q: How will this affect the many major planning applications that are currently in the pipeline – for example, the Stagg Brewery development, in Mortlake; the Homebase site, in north Sheen; Kew Retail Park; Greggs Bakers, Twickenham; Twickenham Riverside; and Barnes Hospital?

A: Several developments are at different stages of the planning process. The Riverside, for example, has been assessed against the existing plan so if it proceeds as we hope it won't be assessed with the new Local Plan, the same with Homebase.

Stag Brewery may be affected dependent on timeline. As the new Local Plan moves forward and gets closer to coming into effect, we can attach more weight to the policies within it so we can take it into account in decision making and it's a balance as it gets nearer to adoption.

Q: How will major new housing developments look different based on this 20-minute neighbourhood approach to planning?

A: New builds will be more sustainable, they will have more affordable housing on site and are more likely to be net zero. The life cycle of the carbon embedded will be taken into account and it will be weighed up against all the policies, for instance; policies concerning access to healthcare, access to schools and all the things we need.

The vision is we have greener communities, more biodiverse communities, more access to travel and more affordable housing.

New developments will include car free streets (Credit TCPA)

Q: As I understand it, one key element of moving to 20-minute neighbourhoods are measures to discourage people from using their cars. What measures will the Council be taking to encourage people to leave their cars at home?

A: Our active travel strategy will be focussing more on the car side of the issue but we will be aiming to encourage residents to make more sustainable choices by improving cycle networks, improving cycle parking (including for cargo bikes), improving access to EV charge points on streets.

It is outside of the Local Plan, but all of our strategies interlock and need to be borne in mind.

The plan aims to ensure residents have shops that are a short walk away rather than allowing policies that mean all those shops can be converted to housing.

It's about making sure we can promote the uses and needs that people have rather than ending up with somewhere that's just housing; making sure people have access to the things they want so they don't have to get in the car to go to another place unless they want to do that.

We acknowledge there will always be reasons why you need to use a car and some people have to but we want to enable other options.

Q: Other areas that have introduced these 20-minute neighbourhoods have pursued this by introducing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, which actively block non-residents from using streets as short-cuts or rat runs. Will Richmond borough be introducing these Low Traffic Neighbourhoods?

A: We won't be introducing LTNs under the aegis of the Local Plan and not without agreement from the communities themselves.

We do look at ways to ensure roads are safer and there are some controversial areas where people disagree on what the solution should be and that will always be the case.

If you restrict movement through an area you need to look at how that impacts different people and try and work out a consensus rather than imposing something and we will be looking at that across the borough but it's more of a focus for transport strategy than the Local Plan.

Q: There have been calls from some for pedestrianisation of the borough's town centres, would the Council support that? If so, which areas would be best suited to pedestrianisation?

A: I think it's worth looking at pedestrianisation and again it needs to be community led and not imposed as an ideology by a council.

We already have temporary pedestrianisation in some places, for car free day for example, and we are looking at some places where that could work.

We very successfully pedestrianised Church Street which is the envy of the borough, people often say 'can we do this?'.

The unique circumstances of Church Street meant that it was possible. We working with the traders and communicated with the local residents and it worked very well, whether there are other streets in the borough where we can do that... well we are always looking.

Obviously you have to bear in mind the other needs of the bus users, people that need to get to businesses and delivieries. It's something that we are looking at on an ongoing basis. I'm not aware specifically of where the next place is but we are always looking.

We are also looking at how best to deal with the more polluted streets we have in the borough such as George Street and York Street and what we can do.

A lot of that is encouraging people to more away from polluting to vehicles to non-polluting vehicles, to make sustainable journeys and to use the public transport network. There are many strands to try and tackle for that issue,

Could Richmond Bridge be pedestrianised? (Credit Google Streetview)

Q: Some cycling supporters would like to see Richmond Bridge pedestrianised. Do you think this would be desirable or feasible?

A: I see the pedestrianisation of Richmond Bridge as something that would need to be discussed as part of a Richmond town centre solution.

Personally, I think we would still need to see the busses go over at the very least and work out how deliveries can still make it to the town centre and make sure that emergency access and people who need to go across there can get across there.

I acknowledge that cycling across the bridge is an unpleasant experience and when I go across there I walk with my bike.

Q: Some on the right of politics, including some Conservative MPs, have suggested that 20-minute neighbourhoods and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are some sort of socialist concept that unfairly limit people's freedom to move in and out of their neighbourhoods. What would you say to this criticism?

A: I would refute that criticism. I think it's about freedom, freedom to go around your own lovely local neighbourhood, it's about not needing to travel far. There is absolutely nothing in there about restricting people from travelling to Kingston, to Reading, wherever they want to go.

It's also about making sure that people who don't have cars or who can't drive also have freedoms. I don't think it's about restricting freedoms at all, I think it's a wilful misunderstanding of the concept.

Q: On another issue, Richmond property prices are so high that many young people find they are unaffordable and so have no choice but to move away from family and friends. Does the Council recognise this problem and what does it plan to do to address this?

A: We recognise the problem. It's very difficult because of course it suits many residents to have high house prices it's very nice to know your house has gained value.

However, we do need to deliver more housing and that needs to include affordable housing ,so we have strengthened our policies in the new Local Plan to challenge developers to put more affordable housing on the development site.

If they don't do that then they will need to pay a contribution to the council so that we can deliver social housing ourselves. That's housing for social rent but also the shared ownership type of model, which is aimed typically at key workers, not those with the highest incomes but those with modest incomes who also struggle to find housing here.

There are several types of affordable housing, and we want to make sure we are covering the needs and it's absolutely recognised that teachers, health workers and so on need more in the way of affordable housing.

Q: Many of the properties being planned in the borough seem to be expensive apartments. Is the Council doing anything to promote new family homes and, if so, where will these be?

A: We have thousands of people on our housing list who are currently waiting for a home, they are either considered homeless or they are in overcrowded accommodation. If you just look at that it's a huge amount of housing that we need to deliver and we can't do that all in one year, we need several years to do that and we have a pipeline of housing.

You will have heard about Ham Close, which is and affordable housing development, Elleray Hall, which is another one we are going to have affordable housing.

In the Twickenham Riverside development, that's going to be approximately 50% affordable housing, and our other big developments also have a proportion of affordable housing in them. So, there's a pipeline and we are starting to deliver but it is agonisingly slow.

Through strengthening the policies in the Local Plan, we are trying to make sure developers understand they need to come to us with plans that include affordable housing in them if they want an easier passage through planning.

The Local Plan sets out what locations would be more appropriate for one-bedroom flats or generally smaller properties and also the need for larger three bedroomed homes because we recognise there is a need for families as well.

It's about making sure there is a good mixture, and our planning officers are thorough when developers come with proposals, they have robust discussions about the composition of the units within those developments to make sure we get the right sorts of housing in the right places.

Q: How can residents make their views known?

A: I would encourage residents to attend engagement events with the council. I would encourage them to get invlolved with the consultation.

Q: What are the other key elements of the Local Plan?

A: It aims to strengthen biodiversity. We are in a climate emergency but it is also an ecological emergency. Richmond is a green borough, but we cannot be complacent about it.

We are asking for 20% biodiversity net gain on developments, measuring it before with complicated metrics and then measuring it afterwards according to what the proposals are and seeing a tangible increase in biodiversity.

We are also looking much more closely at the embedded carbon in developments, the lifecycle of carbon and the life cycle of materials so that we are making good decisions about carbon emissions related to development.