An independent planning inspector is due next year to hear the arguments for and against building nearly 10,000 homes on Green Belt land, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Green Belt land at Vicarage Farm in Enfield and (inset) council leader Ergin Erbil

Enfield Council’s controversial allocation of thousands of homes on Green Belt land is necessary in order to meet “housing needs”, civic centre bosses have said ahead of a looming public inquiry.

The council’s draft Local Plan was submitted to the government in August for independent examination by the Planning Inspectorate, and the assigned inspector issued preliminary questions over the plan in September.

The Enfield Local Plan includes an allocation of 9,651 new homes on land currently designated as Green Belt, out of a total of 34,710 to be built across the borough by 2041.

The civic centre argued that the “demands of a rising population and a rising need for housing” meant it had to consider Green Belt land as an “option”.

Speaking at a housing and regeneration scrutiny panel on Monday (21st) Brett Leahy, the council’s strategic director of planning and growth, admitted the Green Belt was going to be “quite a big debating point” during the upcoming public examination of the draft Local Plan.

Public examination is the final step of the process before the plan is adopted and is now set to take place in “early 2025”.

Brett said: “From a Local Plan point of view, a large portion is brownfield, and we don’t want to lose sight of that, but the other portion is Green Belt. You need that diversity.

“The second thing we need to recognise is that not only are we not delivering the homes we are being set to deliver by a substantial margin, we’re not delivering the number of family homes.

“When you look at brownfield [developments] they tend to be one to two bedroom units.

“Very rarely or a very small percentage of them are three to four so, by going for Green Belt, you are able to facilitate greater family homes.”

Despite this, Brett claimed the draft Local Plan was still “brownfield first”.

Environmental groups and local residents have raised significant concerns over the proposed release of Green Belt land for development, particularly in areas such as Crews Hill and Vicarage Farm, dubbed ‘Chase Park’ in the plan.

Brett also claimed that City Hall’s own London Plan, which prioritises development of brownfield land, hadn’t “delivered” the homes the capital needs since being adopted in 2021.

He said: “The London Plan currently is based around brownfield and brownfield only and it hasn’t delivered.

“It’s substantially below the required target and it will come out of date in 2026 because it’s failed to deliver at the pace it said it would.”

Council leader Ergin Erbil reiterated the problem with using the current London Plan as a guide for Enfield’s Local Plan, which needed to be “up to date” in order “ to tackle modern challenges”.

He said: “We need family-sized houses and we need to work with speed, we have serious inequality in the borough.

“We have car parks designated as Green Belt land while my residents of Edmonton Green ward are expected to live in overcrowded environments, so where is the equality there?

“This is why it’s so important that we’re protected by a modern Local Plan and not with one that expires in 2026.”

He acknowledged the concern and worries of residents and groups who wanted the council to completely focus on brownfield land but said that wasn’t a “reality”.

Cllr Erbil said: “I completely appreciate that we shouldn’t be building on ancient woodland, which we are not, but I do want to emphasise that Green Belt in this plan doesn’t mean our parks or woodlands.

“It means garden centres, car parks, and fields that are currently inaccessible to residents, and of course golf courses.”

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