St Anne’s Catholic High School for Girls appears to have changed its mind about which of its two sites it wishes to sell for housing, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

St Anne’s Catholic High School for Girls in Palmers Green (credit Google)

A Palmers Green secondary school site looks set to be earmarked for housing.

St Anne’s Catholic High School for Girls, in Oakthorpe Road, has been identified as a “potentially developable” residential site in Enfield Council’s Local Plan, with 236 homes proposed.

St Anne’s currently has two split sites, in Enfield Town and Palmers Green, with the former hosting pupils in the first three years of secondary school and the latter hosting years ten, eleven and the sixth form.

Earlier drafts of the Local Plan included the Enfield Town campus as a site for housing, but a fresh update from the council ahead of the plan’s upcoming public inquiry has seen the housing site switched with the Palmers Green campus instead.

The council’s Enfield Local Plan proposes a total target of 35,710 homes being built across the borough by 2041. It was submitted for examination over summer and is now being assessed by the government’s Planning Inspectorate ahead of the public inquiry.

A council document published on 30th September, in response to the inspectorate’s preliminary questions, confirmed the school was “to be allocated for housing delivery”.

The document says: “Following the close of the consultation the promoter [St Anne’s] has indicated they wish for this school [Enfield Town] to be retained for educational use and for their other school located in Palmers Green to be allocated for housing delivery instead. A statement of common ground will set the formal position out.”

The time scale for delivery of the 236 homes is between six to ten years.

A site map indicates the Palmers Green campus school buildings and playing field would be allocated for housing development, meaning it will either downsize or relocate its senior site in Enfield Town.

St Anne’s Catholic High School for Girls was approached for comment but did not respond.

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