The QMUL Mile End Campus Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) is a masterplan document which provides guidance to inform the future growth and development of the Queen Mary University London (QMUL) Mile End Campus.

It is the aim of the SPD to ensure that future development on this campus is considered in the context of a site-wide masterplan in order to enhance the quality of the estate while strengthening the public realm; providing appropriate building mass and height; improving pedestrian and cycle connectivity; enhancing the setting of heritage assets; integrating the campus more successfully with its surroundings; and creating a more welcoming campus environment. The SPD also considers how the growth of the campus can maximise community benefits, biodiversity opportunities and environmental sustainability.

Taking into account the above, the SPD includes a series of site-specific development principles for five key development areas. Each development area is supported by illustrative massing sketches, or ‘case studies’ to give an indication of how development might look.

The SPD supports the vision, objective and policies of the Tower Hamlets Local Plan 2031. This includes the vision for the Local Plan’s ‘Central Area’, and the objective to ‘support the expansion of Queen Mary University of London and associated uses, while ensuring good integration with surrounding areas’.

The document will provide material weight in planning decisions; and will therefore help the council to evaluate individual planning applications on the campus to assess whether they are in line with the coherent growth strategy set out within the SPD. The SPD will therefore provide more certainty within the development management process as individual sites come forward.

In total, the SPD masterplan creates the total addition of c. 60,000 sqm of non-residential floorspace and the net reduction of c. 175 student bedrooms.

The QMUL Mile End Campus SPD has been through an extensive preparation process. This includes evidence-base gathering and early masterplanning carried out during July-September 2020, such as mapping; site visits; initial consultation with stakeholders; public realm analysis; and transport evidence.

Preparation of a draft document was carried out between September 2020 and February 2021. Public consultation was then carried out during February-March 2021. A wide range of community groups, residents, landowners, university staff and other stakeholders engaged with the SPD and made formal responses as part of the consultation process.

It is now necessary to adopt the QMUL Mile End Campus SPD to further enable clear and robust guidance to inform and be implemented in development proposals a comprehensive campus-wide masterplan and vision, which will ensure that existing character is respected and enhanced; and the new developments are of the highest quality in accordance with corporate and Council objectives and the Development Plan (Local Plan and London Plan).