Sadiq Khan and London business group push back against Enfield’s new town withdrawal
Mayor of London & a major business lobby have both criticised the Council’s decision to pull out of the government’s new towns programme
Enfield Council’s new Conservative administration has drawn criticism from the Mayor of London and a prominent business group after formally writing to the government to withdraw from the Crews Hill new town programme.
Council leader Alessandro Georgiou wrote to housing minister Matthew Pennycook at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on Thursday, confirming the council would no longer support plans to build up to 21,000 homes on Green Belt land in the borough’s north-west.
A spokesperson for Mayor Sadiq Khan said City Hall would continue working with Enfield councillors to develop plans for the site, describing Crews Hill as a significant opportunity to deliver new homes, improve access to green spaces, and address London’s housing shortage. The statement indicated that extensive community consultation remains part of the plan.
John Dickie, chief executive of BusinessLDN - which represents major developers and financial institutions across the capital - went further, calling on the Greater London Authority to intervene directly. He argued that a single borough should not be able to block a project of such importance to London, and that the GLA should step in to keep the new town on track.
One option still under consideration for delivering the development is a mayoral development corporation, a model used for the London 2012 Olympics, which would effectively remove planning powers from the council.
The previous Labour administration at Enfield had backed the scheme as a response to the borough’s housing pressures.
The Conservatives campaigned on a pledge to protect the Green Belt, a position also shared by the Greens and Reform UK.
Not everyone has sided against the council.
Roger Mortlock, chief executive of countryside campaign group CPRE, backed Enfield’s stance, arguing that Green Belt land is the wrong location for new towns regardless of housing need.
He called on the government to honour a brownfield-first approach and pointed to Enfield’s own Meridian Water regeneration site as a more appropriate model for delivering genuinely affordable homes without building on the urban fringe.
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