Area deserves better than this generic vision

On the one hand the location is London's greatest opportunity. On the other, the Opportunity Area Planning Framework is sober and modest, offering sensible ideas like a linear park, and better buses. Its most striking feature is the cluster of towers near Vauxhall.

There isn't yet the conviction that this zone will really change. As the endless failure to get anything built at Battersea Power Station shows, it is tough to make things happen in Nine Elms, largely because of the lousy transport links.

If Boris was really serious about changing things he would pay for a Tube link, except he lacks the funds.

There's also little sense of what this great new quarter could actually feel like, the only images offered being generic collages. Yet it is possible to draw and plan in much greater detail. Such planning is not usually the British way. Here it's left to developers to colour in the outlines created in planning frameworks, resulting in standard developers' architecture.

But this site, the last place left where London could create an exceptional waterfront, is too important to go that way. Just this once, the planners should invest in showing us what a great place Nine Elms could be.