Residents and councillors complain the revised plans have not been communicated widely enough by Enfield Council

Revised plans submitted by Places for London and Barratt London for the car parks at Cockfosters Station

The developers behind plans for hundreds of new homes next to Cockfosters Station have applied to make a raft of changes to the controversial scheme – including 22 extra flats.

Proposed changes to the Transport for London (TfL) plans have partly been prompted by new building safety legislation brought in since the scheme originally won planning approval from Enfield Council in early 2022, with two staircases now required in all tall buildings.

As well as the additional staircases, the total number of homes is proposed to rise from 351 to 373, accommodated by one extra storey on each of the four tower blocks.

Places for London – TfL’s property development arm – has now entered into a partnership with Barratt London to help deliver the scheme, with other proposed changes including additional play areas, but reduced commercial space.

Although the two tallest blocks are now proposed to be 15 storeys rather than previously-approved 14, the developers insist that these changes “have been accommodated within the overall maximum height of each building”.

The developers also state that the approved affordable housing commitment of 40% “by habitable room” will remain the same, thanks to a greater proportion of family-sized homes. When measured by affordable units, however, the numbers show there will be a decrease from 37.6% to 34.5%.

The affordable homes will also now be split between intermediate (79 units) and social rent (50). No social rent homes were proposed in the original planning application.

A fresh planning application outlining the amendments was submitted to the council last month. Residents and councillors have since complained, however, that the statutory public consultation was not long enough and that not enough people were notified of it.

Alessandro Georgiou, a Cockfosters councillor who is also leader of the opposition Conservative group, told the Dispatch: “Enfield Council’s planning department have run a shoddy consultation which was too short and has gone out of its way to not fully consult neighbouring roads and people that objected last time.

“I am disgusted and have told them as such.”

Colin Bull, chair of Cockfosters Local Area Residents Association (Clara), also wrote a complaint to the council, which said: “We are writing to raise serious and fundamental concerns about the conduct of the public consultation […] and to formally object on grounds relating to procedural fairness, transparency, and community engagement.”

Colin claims the consultation was “conducted with undue haste”, that the list of 692 homes written to was “inadequate, arbitrary and opaque”, and that the application “should not be handled as a variation” of existing plans because the changes proposed are “significant”.

Enfield Council has been asked by the Dispatch to address these concerns but has not yet provided a comment.

A pre-application consultation conducted by the developers themselves was sent out to far more people – with a four-page A5 flyer distributed to 4,997 addresses across the local area back in September.

In a planning statement the developers state: “This engagement ensured that both political representatives and the community were informed of the proposals, had an opportunity to comment prior to submission, and could participate in the continuing planning process.”

The original plans drew nearly 3,000 objections from local people.

Many of the complaints arose from the loss of 323 existing parking spaces for tube passengers, with only 47 public spaces set to remain, in addition to a pick-up and drop-off area. The amended plans do not propose any alterations to public parking, but do propose some additional disabled spaces for residents of the new blocks.

The Places for London and Barratt London plans can be viewed via the council’s planning portal using reference number 25/03547/VAR.

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