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Council admits it won’t be able to meet London Plan housing target for Enfield

Day two of the Enfield Local Plan examination saw the council’s allocation of 33,280 homes across the borough come under scrutiny, reports James Cracknell

The view from the press desk at today's Enfield Local Plan public examination

Enfield Council says it probably won’t be able to meet its London Plan housing targets for the rest of this decade – an admission described by a government planning inspector today as a “bombshell”.

Day two of the Enfield Local Plan’s public examination centred around housing targets and whether the council can justify the 33,280 homes it has set out to build by 2041 – which includes several thousand on de-designated Green Belt land.

But the Enfield Civic Centre debate on Thursday (23rd) took a sudden turn when Lachlan Anderson-Frank, the council’s principal planner, was forced to acknowledge that only 9,250 homes out of its London Plan allocation of 12,460 – which are supposed to be built by 2029 – were now likely to be delivered.

Steven Lee, the government-appointed inspector presiding over this month’s hearings examining the Enfield Local Plan, responded to Anderson-Frank’s admission and said: “That’s quite a significant reduction in terms of what you’re expecting to be able to deliver […] One of many bombshells that are being dropped.”

He added: “I have got to come to a view on the shortfall issue at some point […] I will need to see what the implications are. The basis of it is that the plan isn’t sound because it’s not actually deliverable, so there needs to be a change [to the housing numbers].”

Anderson-Frank went on to highlight Colosseum Retail Park as one of the prime examples of why the council was struggling to meet its targets. The Southbury site previously had permission for 1,600 homes, but this permission lapsed last year after the developer failed to begin construction of the scheme within the three-year time limit.

“The scheme is a major site allocation which lapsed, to our great regret,” said Anderson-Frank. “It does undermine the land supply in the Local Plan, so it was felt that, for full transparency, we would remark upon that. We are working with the site promoter on a revised masterplan for the site.”

He added that recent changes to fire safety rules brought in last year, requiring new tall buildings over 18 metres to be built with second staircases, were another factor in delays to big schemes across Enfield.

Proposals for the Colosseum Retail Park redevelopment
Plans for Colosseum Retail Park will not now be delivered

Matt Burn, representing campaign group Better Homes Enfield, agreed the council’s admission was “a bit of a bombshell” and said he felt there was “a lack of clarity” around which sites would be contributing to the council’s annual target.

He went on the accuse the council of underestimating how many homes could be built on small sites in the borough “by around nearly 2,000 homes” and of “under-optimising” brownfield sites in general.

“Where boroughs are seeking to allocate Green Belt land they must first look to industrial land […] we recognise Enfield has done that with Meridian Water and its hinterlands but to us there are very obvious other sites where the council should have deployed the same methodology before looking at Green Belt.”

Burn mentioned one site in particular in Brimsdown which “was up for delivering 4,000 homes and increased employment capacity” but was not included in the Enfield Local Plan.

Regarding small sites, Anderson-Frank said the council had not originally gone with the London Plan’s suggested target of 353 homes per annum but that they “could now show that over the past five years we have delivered that 353 […] and we now think it is deliverable”.

In the years beyond 2029, the council has calculated that it will need to build 1,735 homes annually, despite repeatedly missing its current 1,246 target as set out in the London Plan.

Discussing the council’s higher annual housing target beyond 2029, James Stevens from the Home Builders Federation said it was in a “very difficult position” because of the “lack of clarity” on how local authorities should evaluate their targets beyond the period of the London Plan.

“In honesty,” he said, “we have muddled through this process and it has only reached heightened attention here with Enfield, of course, because of the implications of the Green Belt release”.

Stevens said that London’s inability to meet its current targets and the recent confirmation of higher targets coming in future and a review of Green Belt sites meant that “the council has taken the right approach by triangulating those factors”.

Yesterday (Wednesday 22nd) the Greater London Authority told the Local Plan examination that 88,000 homes per year would be needed in future.

Stevens added: “We have a severe housing crisis and severe under-delivery in London – I don’t think it is acceptable when these [Green Belt sites] are suitable and deliverable, and I think it is in the public interest for Enfield to allocate them.”

Burn responded by suggesting that the council had “not come to the table with an open mind and being willing to change course” on its Green Belt allocations, while Conservative councillor Edward Smith claimed the council appeared “desperate to achieve much higher targets” than were necessary.

But these comments drew a stern response from barrister Matthew Reed KC, representing the local authority, who said he “obviously rejected” the suggestion the council might be “acting for a purpose outside” of the desire to meet local housing capacity.

The debate around housing targets ended with Lakis Pavlou from Hadley Wood Neighbourhood Planning Forum asking why the village was still being forced to accept 160 homes on a Green Belt site when “we know we are going to meet this 160 through windfall developments [on brownfield land] way before the end of the Local Plan period”.

He continued: “If this allocation stays we are going to have an issue because if they don’t have the services or infrastructure, we are going to get way overloaded.

“We are an isolated area, poorly accessible and car dependent – there comes a point when we are over-delivering and we just can’t cope.”

Anderson-Frank briefly responded to say that any additional homes provided in Hadley Wood would help the borough reach its overall target.

Separately, at the start of today’s hearing, inspector Lee addressed an issue that had come up yesterday around the council’s public engagement and problems with missing representations and faulty databases. He said that, ordinarily, the issue was significant enough to have caused a delay in the whole examination process, but because there was going to be a lengthy break after the first stage of hearings anyway, on this occasion he was happy to allow an end-of-March deadline for the database to be rectified by the council.

The hearings continue from 9.30am tomorrow (Friday 24th) with a discussion around sustainability appraisals and habitat regulations.

Each day of the Enfield Local Plan public examination is available to watch live on YouTube:
Visit
 youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmKJVbTyn5ib5N9vSIlZbKgNxlz40ia1X


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