Concilio's Managing Director, Nick Dines, attended the Enfield Local Plan hearings to engage with the key debates shaping the future of housing in the borough. Continue reading to hear Nick’s key takeaways.

As an Enfield resident for 24 years, a former Councillor here and someone who does a lot of work in the Borough I couldn’t miss the opportunity to attend a day at the Enfield Local Plan hearings - my first ever time attending one. I thought the day spent on the Green Belt would be interesting and it certainly proved to be the case! It was fascinating to hear the arguments from the Council and housebuilders were for its release and the residents associations and Conservative Councillors against.

First though some background on my position and what the draft Local Plan is proposing.

I did not make myself popular with many of my colleagues on the Council by saying that I supported Green Belt release when I was a representative of Chase Ward between 2014 and 2018. I was in my early-mid 30’s then and I lost count of the number of people I knew leaving the Borough.

I don’t believe that majority wanted to leave the area they had grown up in and their parents were, but there simply are not enough family sized homes in the Borough, and certainly not affordable ones. And by affordable I mean ones that two people earning professional sums in their mid-30’s could afford to buy (and that doesn’t even begin to cover the need for social rent family homes).

I thought then and still do that if we want homes as well as flats then broadly speaking the only places in the Borough that they can be built is on the Green Belt. In Enfield this includes all of the garden centre sites in Crews Hill, which I have said for a long-time are suitable for development if the existing Station can at some point be upgraded. Other sites are more emotive, but there are a number that are essentially urban extensions and theoretically could be built out relatively quickly.

With respect to the current situation in Enfield:

• The Local Plan is seeking to allow for the delivery of 34,710 homes by 2041

• This is 1,246 new homes a year, meeting the Standard Method used by the Government

• Over the last fives years there has been an under delivery of 1,471 homes on existing targets

• The Local Plan is aiming to deliver 28,539 homes on brownfield sites

• The rest is proposed on the Green Belt, with 5.500 in homes at Crews Hill and 3,600 at Chase Park

To further add to the mix, the GLA/TfL late in the day reiterated its previous opposition to the Crews Hill and Chase Park sites due to the lack of sustainable infrastructure…but proposed up to 12,000 homes on green belt between Oakwood and Cockfosters! The new NPPF and the Green Belt review means that the Mayor has softened his stance on its release but is calling for far higher densities on green belt than the Council or land promoters say is achievable.

Given this background, I was fascinated by the debate today, which was focussed on these issues:

• Whether all reasonable options for meeting the identified need for housing and employment development on land that is not in the Green Belt have been fully examined

• Whether removing land from the Green Belt as proposed in the Plan is necessary to ensure that the identified need for housing and employment development can be met in a way that promotes sustainable patterns of development.

The format saw the Inspector give a summary of these and then ask the Council’s Barrister to respond to certain points or make general comments around these topics. After a bit of back and forth it was then the turn of the site promoters and the House Builders Federation to make points broadly in support, followed by a number of amenity societies, Conservative Councillors and TfL who were opposed.

Amongst the key takeaways from me:

• The Council believes it has exhausted all brownfield options and that there are simply not enough sites to deliver the number of homes needed in Enfield. But even if there was enough land, green belt release will still need to be considered to meet the need for 3 bed + family homes. The residents association reps and the Conservative’s disagreed, with some highlighting sites the Council has discounted as being suitable and therefore more sites are available, negating the need for Green Belt release. The Barrister and Council team responded by saying Colosseum Retail Park has consent for 1,600 homes but the developer let it lapse, saying this showed that a number of sites put forward by the residents associations were not deliverable. With respect to Meridian Water, the Council said the plan is for 10,000 homes, with 6,671 during the Plan period. Others disagreed, saying higher densities could be achieved.

• How much weight should be given to the new NPPF was an interesting discussion as the Local Plan is being judged against the previous NPPF, which was far less favourable to Green Belt release. The transitional arrangements for the new NPPF make it clear that it is the old NPPF being used but that some weight must be given to the new NPPF. As you can imagine the pro and anti-green belt release speakers differed on this but one point that struck me was that planning apps in, say, five years, will surely see the new NPPF being taken into account. How does that work with a Local Plan approved in 2025 but is referring to NPPF policies from a previous Government? As a lay person that told me that significant weight should be given the new NPPF BUT I am very much a lay person so don’t take that as a sound interpretation!

• The issue of PTAL… who knew it could be so interesting? The green belt sites generally have poor PTAL ratings but the site promoters argued (in my eyes) quite convincingly that you can’t compare London PTAL to the rest of the country. For instance, a low PTAL site in London would be a 15 minute walk away from the Piccadilly Line, but in a neighbouring Hertfordshire borough, that distance from a Train Station would get a high PTAL rating.  The TfL point was one I found interesting. Their main point was that London is a congested City so therefore low density development is not the correct approach as it will mean a reliance on cars. They argued that high density is needed to ensure numbers are met as when there is low density with a parking need the build out rate is low.

• The discussion about family homes only being able to be built on greenbelt was interesting. Under the current Local Plan Enfield delivered only 325 three or four bed homes over the last three years. The Council and promoters argued this shows that this means (amongst other arguments) that there is exceptional need for green belt release to build the family homes. Even if you doubled the brownfield sites, family homes would still only be able to be delivered with green belt release. The opponents to the Plan argued that Enfield is taking on London’s burden of housing need, not just its own, and that the data used in the Plan does not back up the need claims.

So my conclusion?

I cannot comment on to whether the Inspector will ultimately find the Local Plan sound as there are a number of different sessions and Green Belt release is only one part of the Plan.

And I did hear some comments that made me think about issues. The TfL point about higher density was something I had not considered (and I don’t think anyone had as it was only announced recently) and the points made struck home. I do wonder however if family homes could be built to that high a density - claims were made today that three bed apartments are not used by families but more as rental plays, rented out by the room. My own experience in Enfield tells me there is some truth to this and that people would like the option to get a larger house in Enfield than is currently affordable or achievable. But I also agree that car dependent sites aren’t a great option. But also that a 15 minute walk to a Tube Station in London is deserving of a low PTAL rating: that is the time it take me to walk to Palmers Green Station and I hardly think I live in a low transport area.

The Inspector clearly has a difficult job assessing the Plan and I was impressed with how forensic and calm he is. Getting off the fence, my view is it is probably true that some brownfield sites in Enfield look like higher density could work BUT the experience at Colosseum Retail Park is more the reality of housing delivery at the moment. Building Safety Act, second staircase, construction costs, labour shortages…all of these mean just because a site gets allocated or even achieves planning permission does not mean it will be built out.

Therefore there does need to be some green belt release if Enfield is to meet the housing delivery targets it has to meet. I can’t see all the sites being released but I would hope with Homes England funding Crews Hill Station can be improved and I do not accept that a 15 minute walk to a Tube Station should preclude the sites proposed on the Enfield Road should be thrown out.

What will happen at the end of this process? I have no idea, but every day that goes by likely sees another family leave Enfield to move to Hertfordshire or beyond. I was fortunate to buy at the time I did - I could not afford to live in the house I live now if I was ten years younger. London needs not just affordable homes but for-sale homes that mean families like mine  can live and raise their children here.

We need homes in Enfield and I still remain convinced that there needs to be Green Belt release to deliver them. Credit to Enfield Council for being the first London Borough to push for this… Let’s see what happens next.