Greenwich or Greywich? Does London need this new town?

Greenwich needs to protect its green sites, including bringing out-of-use playing fields back into use, and pushing back against an unnecessary new town on the green, nature-rich Thamesmead Peninsula.

CPRE London has this week responded to the Greenwich Local Plan consultation (closing 8 Feb). We raised concerns about a number of sites where green spaces or nature sites are under threat.

Our primary concern is that Government’s unrealistic housing targets are forcing release of green field sites. We said:

CPRE London is extremely concerned about the reliance on housebuilding as a means to tackle a housing crisis whose roots lies in affordability, not total quantum of housing.* While we appreciate targets are given to the council, councils must also plan positively, meaning – in our view – that it should not plan to allocate far more land for housing than can ever realistically be built. The council must recognise that green land in particular should not be allocated if it is highly unlikely to be needed; and should instead allocate green sites for green infrastructure purposes like parks, nature habitat or wetland.

Assuming it is plainly clear that housing targets cannot be met within the life of the plan, then the council should be very clear with the public and Inspector that green sites will not be allocated for development, and certainly not unless or until all brownfield sites have been exhausted, bearing in mind the harm this will do when weighed against the potential benefits of using them for green infrastructure purposes instead.   

*We have written elsewhere about why building more houses won’t make them any cheaper, how housebuilding in London has outstripped population growth, and how we need to focus on building the 300,000 homes which already have planning permission and building on the many other brownfield sites available (at least a 10 year supply more likely 20 years at current build rates).

Thamesmead Peninsula

This site (pictured above) is allocated for one of the Government’s ‘new towns’. This is partly because it is regarded as ‘brownfield’ – because part of it was built on many years ago. But, we said, we believe this entire site should be protected as Metropolitan Open Land and allocated for nature recovery and/or wetland and water management and a new park. It should not be allocated for housing as this undermines the brownfield (and regeneration) first principle. Also it is a very rare remaining waterside, large, green space and should be protected permanently from development or at an absolute minimum safeguarded to accommodate future green infrastructure needs including possibly water management infrastructure (London’s current sewage facilities are literally at breaking point, for example – why are sites like this not being allocated to resolve that issue?).

We added that green space, SINCs, Borough Open Land and MOL on this site should be protected from development and enhanced for the benefit of people and nature.

Landbanked sites

We also pointed to several green spaces in Greenwich which lack a clear identity or have been ‘landbanked’ for years. We said the Local Plan must ensure these sites are allocated for specific purposes and protected from neglect and future attempts to develop them. These sites include:

• • Manor Way Playing Fields (also marked as ‘Blackheath Park’ on other maps)
  • Willow Playing Field (adjacent to Manor Way Playing Field)
  • David Lloyd Kidbrooke (a major concern given recent development at the David Lloyd site)
  • Avery Hill site (to the east of Butterfly Lane, the south of Bexley Rd, west of allotments)
  • Site bounded by Erebus Dr, Pier Way and Camelot Close

We said: These sites can all deliver important new habitat and/or water management (e.g. wetland), contribute to the Local Nature Recovery Strategy and/or be sites for sport or recreation.

We also raised issues about sites allocated for development among other comments. Our full response is here:

• CPRE comments Greenwich Reg 18 Local Plan consultation Feb 2026