Please help save historic Enfield Chase. Deadline 20 May 2024

Enfield Council continues to push for the release of Green Belt land despite widespread availability of brownfield sites in the borough.

The battle to save sites like Enfield Chase and Crews Hill has been a long one. CPRE London worked with local groups Enfield RoadWatch and The Enfield Society some years ago to identify brownfield sites in the borough which can accommodate new development. Since then the Local Plan Review has been delayed but it is now in the final (‘Regulation 19’) consultation stage and, sadly, the borough continues to pursue environmentally damaging and highly controversial plans to release Green Belt for housing development despite widescale availability of brownfield sites.

• You can object to the plans until Monday 20 May 2024. Follow The Enfield Society’s guide.
• Read more from small but weighty local group Enfield RoadWatch
• Given the strategic importance of the Green Belt to London as a whole, CPRE London believes it is important that all Londoners add their objections (see London’s Green Belt: our climate safety belt).

Among other concerns, Enfield groups point to the very large amounts of brownfield space in the borough; and the failure of the council to bring forward the major development at Meridian Water. Why, they ask, should Green Belt be released when these sites have not be built on yet?

The sites which would be built over are wholly unsuitable for development. Enfield Chase is a beautiful and historic landscape. Crews Hill is a grouping of plant nurseries: horticulture is a permitted use in the Green Belt. It’s a popular destination for Londoners and supplies much of north London with garden and horticulture goods. Supporting these businesses to grow and access the London market would be a much more appropriate proposal than environmentally damaging development which would also destroy productive land.

Yes, Enfield does need houses but development in Crews Hill and Enfield Chase would inevitably be low-density, non-affordable and car-dependent – in other words, it wouldn’t help much to meet the housing targets and would add to pollution. As an alternative, there are plenty of brownfield sites to meet the need, closer to public transport and where development would also improve deprived areas.

The greenfield sites proposed for development will have to have new infrastructure like roads, gas mains, electricity cabling, water and sewage pipes. They will have no buses, nearby schools, doctors surgeries or even shops – unless these are built or funded. The cost of new infrastructure will mean there is nothing left for affordable housing. New residents will have to own cars, a financial and environmental burden. These problems are common with greenfield ‘urban fringe’ developments.

Please support Enfield residents, raise your objections and stress that affordable homes need to be built on the available brownfield sites in the borough.