Thousands of homes should be built on part of the park and its golf course, the transport authority has claimed

Transport for London (TfL) has urged Enfield Council to consider allocating thousands of extra homes on the Green Belt at Trent Park – just days before a public inquiry into the Local Plan is due to begin.
The sudden intervention by TfL prompted a question to Sadiq Khan at Mayor’s Question Time last week, with London Assembly member Alessandro Georgiou – also a councillor and leader of the Conservative opposition group in Enfield – asking why the transport authority was apparently “going rogue” by suggesting Trent Park be built on.
In response, Khan said he was “unaware of the scheme” and said he would need to look into it, while reminding the London Assembly of the protections to the Green Belt included in City Hall’s own London Plan document.
It comes as the government’s Planning Inspectorate is preparing to host a five-day public hearing at Enfield Civic Centre to examine the Enfield Local Plan, starting this Wednesday (22nd) at 9.30am.
The Local Plan is a document seven years in the making which, if approved by inspector Steven Lee following the hearings, would allow the council to de-designate 436 hectares of Metropolitan Green Belt in the borough and allocate several thousand homes to be built by developers there.
TfL is ultimately controlled by Khan, who has repeatedly pledged to avoid building new homes on the capital’s Green Belt unless there are “exceptional circumstances” – with the Greater London Authority being among the principle objectors to the draft Enfield Local Plan for that reason.
However, as part of the final written submissions ahead of the public inquiry, written by a range of interested parties such as landowners and residents’ groups among others, TfL claims that the potential of the Green Belt in the borough to provide new housing is being underestimated.
“We would like to work positively [with the council] with a view to a significant development focussed on Chase Park to deliver between 10,000 and 12,000 homes and necessary infrastructure,” TfL states in its submission. “Release of Green Belt sites as set out in the draft Local Plan would represent a significant opportunity loss and under-optimisation.”
With the council currently earmarking a total of 3,700 homes to ‘Chase Park’ – which is the name it has given to the Green Belt site currently known as Vicarage Farm, to the east of Trent Park – the suggestion that up to 12,000 homes could be built there represents a trebling of the allocation in the Enfield Local Plan.
To achieve this, TfL is suggesting the Chase Park development be extended to include land currently within Trent Park itself, including the open land directly opposite Oakwood Station, plus part of Trent Park Golf Course. It says this would be mitigated by an eastward expansion of Trent Park into Vicarage Farm, even claiming the park would be larger as a result.

TfL’s claim is that building more homes closer to Oakwood Station, as well as Cockfosters, would avoid creating the “low-density and car dependent development” currently proposed for Vicarage Farm and other Green Belt sites around Crews Hill.
Cllr Georgiou said: “TfL is seeking to not only destroy our Green Belt but is now completely determined to destroy our parks.”
There is no suggestion that Enfield Council has endorsed this alternative TfL proposal, which appears as part of a general critique of the civic centre’s current plans. TfL also does not own the land it is proposing would be built on.
TfL was approached by the Dispatch for further clarification, but declined to comment.
Dozens of other written submissions have been published in the last few days on the council’s website, ahead of this week’s public inquiry.
They include a letter from Western Enfield Residents Association which states that the current Chase Park proposal “would obliterate the agricultural landscape” and that if the development proceeds “the unique appeal and environmental value of this semi-rural corner of the borough will be lost forever”.
The Enfield Society highlights what it claims is an “inherent conflict” given that “Enfield Council happens to be the major landowner” of the Green Belt land proposed for de-designation.
The council has previously stated it could make up to £800million from land receipts if de-designation goes ahead.
The Enfield Society states: “The pattern of behaviour displayed by the council suggests that first consideration was given to releasing land in the council’s ownership at Crews Hill Golf Course and then other sites in the council’s ownership, and then retrospectively justifying those Green Belt releases by inflating the ‘need’ for housing and employment land.”
The council’s own written submission to the Planning Inspectorate repeats its claim – which is likely to be closely scrutinised this week – that brownfield development sites across Enfield borough cannot provide all of the 33,280 homes included in the Local Plan period up to 2041, let alone the much higher suggested housing target of 60,764 homes over 22 years included in the government’s newly updated National Planning Policy Framework.
The council states: “While it will be for the next London Plan to set the overall requirement for London and to distribute the requirement amongst the boroughs, the evidence of pressing housing need both within London generally and in Enfield […] highlights both the inevitable direction of travel and the necessity to significantly boost affordable and family housing in Enfield now.
“The next London Plan is likely to take a considerable period of time to produce and the council considers that it must plan positively now to proactively address current and future needs.”
A further written submission, from Ikea, claims that the council’s approach to development at its Meridian Water housing zone in Edmonton “fails to properly account for the true capacity of the site in terms of housing delivery, which is significantly under-estimated”.
This week’s public inquiry will assess whether the draft Enfield Local Plan “has been prepared in accordance with legal and procedural requirements and if it is sound”.
Such plans will be found to be sound if they are “positively prepared” to “meet the area’s objectively assessed needs”; are “justified” and “based on proportionate evidence”; are “effective” and “deliverable over the plan period”; and finally are “consistent” with national policy.
Update (21st January):
A TfL spokesperson said: “We are committed to helping London fulfil its housing targets in a sustainable manner. As part of the Local Plan process, TfL and the GLA have responded to proposals put forward by Enfield for release of Green Belt.
“We are concerned that these proposals may not deliver the sustainable development necessary, as they are in locations that are not well served by public transport. In this context, TfL has commissioned some high-level exploratory work to consider opportunities to make the best use of any Green Belt release here in locations closer to existing transport infrastructure. TfL does not have any proposals for development here.”
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