The London Society is proud to host a dedicated space for like-minded organisations who share our ambition to make London a better place to live, work and thrive. We are honoured to partner with former colleagues of LPAC (London Planning and Advisory Committee), led in its later years by the late Nicky Gavron — a tireless advocate for strategic planning and sustainable development in the capital. By linking together the expertise and resources of civic groups, campaigners, charities and thought leaders, we aim to create a single, trusted hub where knowledge and ideas can be easily accessed by anyone who cares about London’s future.
We believe there are many more organisations who would benefit from being connected in this way — from local community networks to professional bodies and research groups. By partnering with The London Society, your organisation can be part of a collective voice that informs debate, shares practical solutions and promotes what good looks like across our city. If you think your work aligns with our mission and values, get in touch. Together, we can build a portal that not only connects people and ideas but also inspires real change.
Following the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986 and before the creation of the Greater London Authority in 2000, London was without its own form of government for the first time since 1889. However, the London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC), a statutory committee of politicians representing all 32 London boroughs (and the City), held the flame for a future London government and helped ensure a smooth transition to a new form of municipal authority – an elected Mayor for London.  Â
Tasked with providing strategic planning advice to Government, LPAC’s aim was to create a new way of seeing the city and a new way of organising it. It wanted to make strategic planning more than just about land use and pressed Government to take a more holistic approach; to join the dots, linking transport investment to housing developments to workplace opportunities. Through its research it sought to get a better grasp on how the forces of globalisation were changing the economic base and the demographic make-up of London, and to help direct resources into both the strategic and local investments that would make the city a better place to live and work.
Nicky Gavron, who was to be a future Deputy Mayor of London, was its Labour lead member from 1989 and Chair from 1994. Nicky long felt that LPAC’s role in the establishment of London as the pre-eminent global city of the first part of the 21st century was under appreciated and that its story needed recovering. Through the use of Nicky’s extensive archive material, housed at the London Archive, and interviews with key individuals working in London governance at the time, this website sets out to tell that story and to reflect on its achievements and legacy.
Between 1997 and 2021, Nicky Gavron delivered close to a thousand speeches — to community groups, international conferences, Labour party gatherings, and audiences of every kind in between. Each was crafted with purpose: to celebrate, to persuade, to inspire and to drive change. Together they form a remarkable record of one woman’s six-decade fight for London’s environment, communities and future.
Following Nicky’s death in 2024, her archive found a permanent home at the London Archive. Rewilding the Imaginationbrings a curated selection of those speeches back to life through performance. Young actors from Jacksons Lane — the Highgate arts centre Nicky co-founded in the 1970s, and where her own activism began — breathe new energy into her words, passing her vision and ideas to a new generation. The project closes a circle, returning her voice to the place it first found an audience, and ensuring that her ideas on climate, transport, housing and civic life continue to speak to the city she helped to shape.
