New towns will again be a lasting Labour legacy, just as in the eras of Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson. Those monuments to optimism, created in the mid-20th century by pulling down slums and building better, will be joined by seven more in an attempt to ease the housing crisis. Enfield has been the exemplar, its proposed 21,000-home new town enthusiastically backed by its previous Labour council, which was struggling with 3,000 families expensively dumped into miserable temporary accommodation, and, I’m told, 7,000 on the waiting list.
But in May’s elections, the great anti-Labour storm brought in a regime resisting the new town in every way it can. A minority Conservative group, propped up by the Greens (yes, Tory-backing Greens), informed the government that it was “withdrawing”. Both parties had run on an anti-new town campaign.
Enfield council’s Tory leader, Alessandro Georgiou, gave me this quote, but no interview: “We were elected on a clear mandate to protect Enfield’s green belt, and we have honoured that commitment by formally withdrawing from the new town process.” But there is no “process”, as it was never in a council’s power to block a new town. Major infrastructure of national importance can’t, won’t and shouldn’t be stopped by local nimbys. Extending the grid, new power generation, waste recycling, transport by rail, air or ports, reservoirs and water treatment would never happen without planning from above.
Building a new town falls under the regional control of the mayor, who has oversight of the interests of a far wider population. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, is faced with a desperate housing shortage. He has the say-so here, and strongly supports new town plans for Enfield and Thamesmead.
But pleading the interests of unhoused people rather than the voters in their patch will get councillors unseated, which is why they’re always brandishing alternative plans for building elsewhere, not here. Enfield is the perfect borough for a new town, with excellent rail connections. Opponents protest that it is green belt land, but that’s not how much of it feels.
Step out at Crews Hill station and all around is a cluster of glasshouses and garden centres, an unplanned sprawl. There is some charm in its haphazardness, but it is exactly what the government calls “grey belt” – technically green belt, but concreted over, one way or another. Chase Park, the other part of the plan, is described in government plans as “low-quality agricultural land”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
