The City of London Corporation published the inspectors’ final City Plan 2040 examination report on 14th October 2026. Independent inspectors Jameson Bridgwater and Alastair Phillips concluded that the plan can proceed towards adoption, but only with recommended main modifications. Their report is dated 7th October.
The decision concerns the Square Mile in central London, where competing pressures for new office floorspace, tall buildings, heritage protection and housing have shaped a lengthy examination. The final report follows a ministerial intervention over the proposed City Cluster skyline.
For landowners and planning professionals, City Plan 2040 has reached a substantial new stage, not a fresh planning permission. I would pay particular attention to the office floorspace target, the safeguards around the Tower of London and the wording of the modified tall-building policies. None is yet adopted policy simply because the inspectors have reported.
Why City Plan 2040 passed only with modifications
The inspectors’ 50-page final examination report explains a distinction that headlines can easily miss. Paragraph 206 recommends that the submitted plan should not be adopted in its original form because of soundness deficiencies. Paragraph 207 then finds the plan sound and capable of adoption with the recommended main modifications. That is a conditional positive conclusion, not an outright failure.
In their summary, the inspectors say the plan provides an appropriate basis for the planning of the City of London
, provided the modifications are made. The necessary revisions concern tall buildings, heritage, office accommodation, housing delivery and other matters affecting the plan’s effectiveness.
The City Corporation’s official examination record confirms that the report was made public on 14th October. The examination hearings ran from March 2025, with an extra session on 2nd September 2026 after the government directed further scrutiny. Adoption requires a separate corporate decision and remains the next formal milestone.
Office growth stays central to the Square Mile
City Plan 2040 is principally an employment and commercial growth strategy for one of the country’s most concentrated business districts. Its office policy provides for a minimum net increase of 1.2 million square metres of office floorspace between 2021 and 2040, measured as net internal area, meaning usable accommodation inside the building.
The inspectors supported that economic ambition but required greater clarity in how floorspace is measured. Modification MM17 explicitly uses net internal area for the requirement and provides a corresponding gross internal area figure for capacity and development-management work. Those measurements cannot be swapped without risking misleading comparisons.
The policy also protects the existing office stock and encourages retrofit and environmental improvements. A developer promoting a conversion away from offices should not interpret the plan’s support for mixed uses as a general invitation to reduce employment space. Conversely, a proposal adding offices must still demonstrate acceptable design, environmental performance and infrastructure impacts.
Tall buildings, Broadgate and the Tower of London
The most contested part of City Plan 2040 was its approach to tall buildings. Historic England questioned the modelling of the City Cluster contours and potential effects on the Tower of London World Heritage Site. Ministerial directions prompted an additional hearing, but the inspectors concluded there was no soundness justification for reopening the City’s underlying skyline analysis.
That does not mean unrestricted tower development. Policy S12 confines tall buildings to defined areas, notably the City Cluster, Fleet Valley and Broadgate. The report supports a new Broadgate tall-building site, including Broadwalk House and the adjoining railway signal box, with a proposed height limit expressed as 180 metres above Ordnance Datum, not a building of 180 metres measured from street level.
Modifications MM47, MM48, MM52 and MM55 clarify the locations, heritage safeguards and mapped contours, including adjustments in the south-eastern City Cluster. Assessments of important views, cumulative height and massing, daylight, wind and the public realm remain relevant to individual applications. The report is not consent for a tower at Broadgate or anywhere else.
Our guide to World Heritage Sites and planning in England explains why development near internationally important heritage can require analysis well beyond the red line of a site. The protected setting of the Tower therefore remains a serious development-management issue.
Housing target of 1,706 homes gets stronger monitoring
City Plan 2040 carries a housing requirement of 1,706 net additional dwellings between 2025/26 and 2039/40. The delivery trajectory anticipates 146 homes a year from 2025/26 to 2028/29 and 102 annually thereafter. That smaller total reflects the unusually limited residential land supply and the Square Mile’s main employment function.
The revisions add delivery tables, strengthen monitoring and explain the relationship to London Plan housing policy. They also clarify the minimum 35% affordable housing threshold approach in the relevant circumstances. The inspectors considered opportunities in and near existing residential areas more suitable than a broad programme of housing allocations across the business district.
These are planned requirements, not evidence that permissions for 1,706 dwellings have been issued. Developers should test the detailed emerging housing policies against the adopted London Plan and City policy applicable when their own application is determined.
What weight should planners give the inspectors’ findings?
The final report makes City Plan 2040 much more certain than an untested consultation draft, but the legal stage still matters. The adopted City of London Local Plan 2015 and other applicable development-plan policies remain relevant until the new plan is formally adopted. A soundness finding does not itself replace them.
Our Local Plan examination guide explains how inspectors test soundness, recommend main modifications and report back to the planning authority. The separate guide to weight given to an emerging Local Plan is useful where an application is being decided between publication of the inspectors’ report and adoption.
In practice I would look for the exact recommended policy wording and revised policies map, not just the headline finding. The distinction is particularly important for developers calculating office floorspace or studying tall-building contours. Any unresolved site-specific heritage, amenity or infrastructure question will still need evidence on its merits.
Next step: a separate adoption decision
The City Corporation can now consider the inspectors’ recommendations and the modified document through its decision-making process. Its September statements indicated an ambition to adopt the plan before the end of 2026, but an anticipated timetable is not evidence that a vote has already occurred.
Land promoters should watch for the formal adoption notice, the final adopted policy wording and the definitive policies map. Community groups should pay particular attention to the way tall-building boundaries and heritage protections appear in the adopted documents.
The central result of City Plan 2040’s examination is therefore clear: the inspectors support a framework for substantial office growth, carefully located towers and more robust heritage safeguards, subject to changes. Its arrival as adopted development-plan policy depends on what the City Corporation does next.
Original documents
The principal source is the inspectors’ signed examination report dated 7th October 2026, published on 14th October. The City of London Corporation examination page records the publication date and earlier ministerial correspondence. We previously reported the distinct September step when the government lifted the intervention over tall-building policy.
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