It is a year since the government’s New Towns Taskforce began figuring out where such settlements should be built, and six months have passed since it was announced that more than 100 sites had been submitted for consideration, including several from London.
In London planning circles there is an expectation that the decisions of the taskforce will be revealed soon, perhaps some time this month. Which parts of the capital will be named? I’ve been in touch with several well-connected sources. Two places have been mentioned by them all.
- One of them is Thamesmead, where a big regeneration programme is already underway.
- The other is in Enfield, specifically a place at its northern edge called Crews Hill.
If these are confirmed as London’s recommended New Town locations, they will excite interest of different kinds. Thamesmead would probably produce the least surprise or opposition – maybe none at all, given that the area is already undergoing a major transformation – and make irresistible the case for government approval for extending the Docklands Light Railway from Gallions Reach in Newham to a new station at Beckton Riverside, and then south of the river to Thamesmead itself.
On a recent site visit with the developer, Peabody, I was shown the very spot (big white sign in blurry photo below) where a Thamesmead DLR station would go, right next to an unexceptional drive-to shopping centre served by a large car park a mere spit from the Thames.
The government said its New Towns, which can take the form of “urban extensions” of existing areas, will each provide a minimum of 10,000 homes. Transport for London has long made the case that 25,000 to 30,000 homes could be built along the route of the DLR extension as a whole.
There was annoyance and disappointment in the capital when Rachel Reeves didn’t back the extension in her spending review in June, preferring to make a performance of funding projects in the north of England instead, seemingly in the hope of appeasing voters attracted by Reform UK.
However, transport secretary Heidi Alexander soon after noted that “substantial work” had been done on the DLR scheme and pledged to “continue to work closely with the Greater London Authority and TfL” so that a “full business case and funding plan” could be finalised by the autumn of this year. A further TfL consultation was launched within days. Autumn has arrived. The stars have long looked very aligned.
By contrast, If Crews Hill in Enfield is indeed lined up to be the site for a London New Town, if will add a further dimension to the intense and already long-running local debate about housebuilding on Green Belt land in the borough.
Writing for On London, James Cracknell, editor of Enfield Dispatch, has documented the latest stages in that debate as they have been unfolding during the examination in public (EiP) of Labour-run Enfield Council’s new Local Plan, its master planning blueprint.
It is almost seven years since James reported that at an early stage in the plan’s evolution, Sir Sadiq Khan, when asked about Enfield’s intentions, confirmed his opposition to any building on the Green Belt within Greater London.
That had been the Mayor’s consistent stance on Green Belt land, and it remained so until after the Labour national government was elected. But even though his top planning officer told the EiP in January that Khan had concluded that building on the Green Belt was now necessary – a change of policy Khan himself confirmed in May – there was, as James wrote, a large caveat:
Even with the U-turn, the Enfield Local Plan was proposing homes on Green Belt sites that City Hall deemed “unsustainable”, thanks to their lack of existing public transport links. For that reason, the Mayor would still be objecting to them.
I went to Crews Hill this morning, arriving at its little railway station, courtesy of Great Northern, at about 8:30 and taking a short walk down the road to photograph some of its string of garden centres, once described as “Britain’s horticultural mile”. There is also a residential community of about 550 people, a large pub and a nearby golf course.
Crews Hill is right at the northern edge of Enfield and, therefore, of Greater London. The next stop on the line to Stevenage, a flagship post-war New Town, is Cuffley, a village in Hertfordshire. A sign within the station directs passengers to trains to London, perhaps suggesting that the area itself might not see itself as part of the capital.
Enfield Council’s plan is for the Crews Hill area to accommodate 5,500 homes – only about half the figure the government wants each of its New Towns to provide. The council envisages the redevelopment of many of those garden centre sites, the golf course (which it owns) and some adjacent farmland. Any New Town at Crews Hill would seemingly be more extensive, and public transport provision would need to be hugely increased.
If local arguments about Green Belt and housing need any further stimulation, a New Town designation for Crews Hill would provide it. The issue is already at the heart of Enfield’s political battleground, with the Conservatives firmly opposing Green Belt development and hoping this will help them secure control of the council in May’s borough elections.
How confident should we be that Thamesmead and Crews Hill are indeed to be named London New Town locations? As confident as my sources, I suggest. None wishes to be identified – in one case, our interaction amusingly parodied a famous scene in All The President’s Men – but all were very clear in their convictions that those are the two names in the taskforce’s frame.
If confirmation is to come, it might be delayed by the resignation from the government of Angela Rayner, who was the minister in charge of the New Towns programme. But it still might come pretty soon.
Dave Hill will be chairing a London Society discussion event about Enfield, housing and the Green Belt on 15 September, with James Cracknell bringing his local expertise to the panel. Buy tickets here.