Our London Plan submission: from community leaders the system failed
This week we submitted our formal response to the Mayor's Draft London Plan 2026, the plan that will shape how London changes for the next decade.
We did not write it alone. Since PLUSHSE16 was evicted, we have had numerous conversations with our community: on the street, at our Displaced Society talks and events, in barbershops and kitchens, and online. People told us what they lost when PLUSH closed, and what they fear losing next. This submission carries those voices. We wrote it as community leaders who were failed by the very system that was supposed to protect us.
How the system failed us
For 22 years, PLUSHSE16 was five Black-owned businesses on Rotherhithe New Road: a barbershop, a hair studio, a Caribbean takeaway, a youth music studio and a car wash. It was a meeting place, a first job, a mentor and a safety net.
A developer first made contact about our site in 2018. That is when the pressure and the stress began. Southwark's own planning policy, P33, said a business relocation strategy "must" be provided. It was never delivered. In January 2024, around twenty bailiffs removed us. The site is now being demolished for a tower with 27% affordable homes.
We did not displace ourselves. The policy sounded right on paper and failed in practice. Nobody with power had a duty to act before we were gone.
What our community told us
The same messages came back to us again and again, and they shaped the seven changes in our submission:
Relocation must come before eviction, not after it. A promise made once you are on the street is not protection.
Our value is never counted. What a barbershop or a Caribbean kitchen gives a neighbourhood does not appear on any spreadsheet, so it is treated as worth nothing. London needs a real social value policy.
"Affordable" is not affordable. A discount on rents that have already doubled still prices us out.
The chains set the rent. When national chains move in, rents rise for the whole street, and local people lose the chance to start something of their own.
Our culture is culture. Barbering, food, music and faith spaces deserve the same protection as galleries and venues.
Equality cannot be an afterthought. Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 requires the Mayor to have due regard to equality before decisions are made, not after the harm is done.
We are not listened to. "Engagement" too often means a leaflet or a survey that never reaches us. Our voices need to be recorded as official evidence, answered, and properly funded, so that engagement is never a tick-box.
Why Black and Brown communities must be heard
In April 2025, the London Assembly's Planning and Regeneration Committee found that when community businesses are forced to close or relocate, the consequences "all too often have a disproportionate impact on low-income, marginalised and minority communities".
That is our lived reality. The spaces most at risk are the ones that hold Black and Brown London together: barbershops, salons, Caribbean and African food spots, market stalls, youth studios and faith spaces. Yet the people who run and rely on these places are rarely the people writing, or responding to, plans like this one. When we are not in the room, our silence gets recorded as consent.
The consultation closes this week, but the work does not.
Planning Inspectors will examine the Plan in public in 2027, and we have asked to speak. After that, every borough will rewrite its local plan to match. Each of those moments is a chance for our communities to be heard, and we intend to carry your voices into every one of them.
Read our submission
Our full response sets out what happened to us, what our community told us, and the exact changes we are asking the Mayor and the Inspectors to make.
Stay with us
If you have lost a shop, a salon, a youth space, a market pitch or a home to redevelopment, or watched it happen to someone you know, we want to hear from you. Your story is evidence, and we will take it with us to the Examination in Public. If we have missed anything feel free to let us know.
Get in touch through our contact page.
Join our mailing list at plushse16.com.
Share this post with your barber, your church or mosque, your tenants' association and your group chat.
Peace. Love. Unity. Strength. Harmony.
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