Meet the panicked locals who could kill Labour’s plan for seven new towns

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“Golf clubs and green belt or council housing?” That was the question posed by the former Labour leader of Enfield Council, Ergin Erbil, in an Instagram video filmed at Crews Hill Golf Club in North London and posted on 1 May.

Just days later, on 7 May, Labour lost control of Enfield Council as well as 11 council seats, while the Greens and Conservatives gained 5 and 6 respectively, giving the Tories overall control.

Both the Tories and the Greens ran on a platform of opposing housebuilding on Enfield’s green belt and criticising the Labour government’s proposal to build one of its flagship “next generation new towns” here, and the local council’s support for said plan.

Coming up in this week’s newsletter:

• A special in-depth report from Crews Hill and Chase Park in Enfield, one of the proposed flagship locations for Labour’s new towns
• On the ground reporting, which explains how Labour’s planning reforms have impacted local communities, in their own words
• What next for Labour’s new towns agenda? Can it go ahead without winning the hearts and minds of local people?

This part of Enfield, where rolling green belt hills reveal a clear view of the Capital’s skyline, a local golf course sits next to a train station, which can transport passengers into the heart of the city in just 41 minutes, and a “golden mile of garden centres” occupies valuable land, is at the centre of a major planning debate which has dealt a serious blow to Labour’s major planning reforms and new towns plan.

Last Wednesday evening, May 27, Conservative councillor Alessandro Georgiou was elected leader of Enfield’s minority Tory administration.

Georgiou’s first act? Writing to the Housing and Planning Minister, Matthew Pennycook, to formally withdraw the council’s support for government proposals to develop land at Crews Hill and other parts of the borough’s green belt to create a flagship ‘new town’ in what both the government and City Hall have described as a ‘strategic location’ for growth.

Under Labour’s plans, subject to various consultations, Crews Hill could become a new town with 21,000 homes (40 per cent of which would need to be affordable) and new infrastructure, including roads, schools and doctors’ surgeries.

On Thursday, Georgiou sent a letter to the minister for housing and planning, Matthew Pennycook, formally informing him that the council no longer supported the proposals to develop land at Crews Hill and other parts of the borough’s green belt.

In the letter, Georgiou wrote that the Tories had “a clear mandate to protect Enfield’s green belt’ and said the council’s strategy had changed and that it would not focus on regenerating Enfield town centre, but would instead focus on building homes on brownfield sites.

In the hours running up to Georgiou’s formal election as leader, The i Paper visited Crews Hill and spoke to residents, business owners and campaigners.

As things stand, it is unclear exactly where the boundaries of the proposed new town would fall and which local businesses would be impacted. However, as per Erbil’s social media posts, the previous Labour council administration had made it clear that both the gold club and local garden centres were being eyed up for development.

Under changes brought in by Pennycook in the Planning and Infrastructure Act, this could have been achieved through beefed-up Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) rules. Other changes overseen by Pennycook include reclassifying low-value green belt land as “grey belt” so that it can be brought forward for new housing and infrastructure. 

In various interviews with me, Pennycook has made it clear that CPO and grey belt are crucial, in his view, to getting new homes for young people who are locked out of homeownership built as well as delivering new social housing.

Nonetheless, Crews Hill locals and Enfield residents have not responded well to either Erbil’s tone on social media or to what they perceived as the government’s “lack of communication”.

At Thompson’s on Cattlegate Road’s “golden mile” of garden centres, renowned across London and the Home Counties for their garden supplies, 36-year-old Clare Thompson, Director of this family-run business which employs 70 people, was upset.

“Unfortunately, the local council hasn’t been the most transparent,” she says. “Nothing is set in stone with these proposals [for a new town] here, but we want to keep building our business, and the uncertainty means we can’t do that.”

The fourth generation of Thompsons to work for the family’s eponymous business, Clare says, is worried about the future. She accepts that more homes are needed in London, but feels hurt and confused about what she perceives as thriving local businesses being targeted by the former council leader.

“[If this goes ahead] and they build where our garden centres are, it will cause so much havoc – lose people’s jobs, lose people’s legacies…we promote a greener London. There’s no need to get rid of it.”

Clare wonders why there has been no conversation about relocating businesses? I ask whether she could envision a future where her businesses, and the others on this strip, might be part of a new town? She does, but says that is not a conversation that has been had.

The flower and shrub-lined aisles of Thompsons are bustling, even though it’s the middle of the day on a Wednesday.

One shopper, a local man named Mark, who used to work at the Natural History Museum in town, stops me. He wants to know whether we are in Crews Hill to discuss the new town proposals?

The 68-year-old pensioner says he has lived in the area for 40 years. And, while he is acutely aware of rising house prices and what they mean for his daughter and nieces, he doesn’t support the government’s proposals.

“I’ve noticed that there are two government policies that seem to be cancelling each other out here,” Mark says. “One is that they’re trying to build businesses and encourage growth. This place is really thriving and always has been. The other is to build towns and houses, and if they wipe out these successful businesses to build houses, it’s going to be a disaster. So, two things are in contradiction to each other.”

In theory, Mark adds that he supports new housing as long as it is “carefully thought through”.

As we leave Thompson’s, another local, who wishes to remain anonymous, whispers that they heard Ergin calling the garden centres “derelict” and decided to vote Green for “the first time” in their life because they were so shocked.

Labour is banking on its new towns agenda to deliver its near-impossible-to-achieve target of building 1.5 million new homes, as well as driving economic growth. Britain’s economic watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), forecast 0.2 per cent to be added to GDP by 2029/30 because of Pennycook’s planning reforms – worth around £6.8bn in today’s prices.

In Crews Hill, though, the rubber of government rhetoric has hit the bumpy road of reality.

Literally because Cattlegate Road is narrow and, being one of the only main roads in Crews Hill as well as a tributary to the M25 motorway, it regularly becomes totally jammed. Local people constantly express their concern about how it would support new homes and seem unaware that Labour have pledged for their new towns to take an “infrastructure first” approach, which means it would likely be widened or replaced.

And, ideologically because here Labour’s bullish approach to development, which is often described as YIMBYism (Yes In My Back Yard) and has seen Housing Secretary Steve Reed chanting “Build Baby Build” in an echo of the Trump slogan “Drill Baby Drill” while wearing a red baseball cap (once at an event where he stood alongside Erbil, who was sporting a matching hat), has clashed with local people.

Next door to Thompsons, at Three Counties Garden Buildings, another family-run business, owner Emma Breeze, who took over the business from her father after he founded it in 1988, is close to tears.

“We didn’t even know Crews Hill was being considered [for a new town] until it was announced on television,” she says, welling up. “Ever since, I’ve been googling and trying to work out where we could move to…I can’t find anywhere.”

Emma says she is “devastated”.

“This whole thing has put everybody in limbo. We employ six staff…we were planning to make investments in the business, and they’re on hold…I’ve been a bit apathetic about politics in recent years, but I voted Conservative in the local elections. I wanted them to win because I desperately need my family business to survive.”

Does Emma consider herself to be a NIMBY? Someone who just says ‘Not In My Backyard’ to new housing? It’s not a term she’s familiar with. “I’m just trying to save my livelihood and my employees’ jobs,” she says, still tearful.

House prices vary across the London Borough of Enfield, but by every measure, they are expensive. According to the ONS, a detached costs on average £1,210,000, a semi £702,000, a terraced home £492,000 and a flat £293,00.

The average wage in this area is £43,000, meaning that even if a flat is more than 6 times the average income, it is the upper limit of what most mortgage lenders will allow someone to borrow.

And, while it is not the worst-affected London borough, there are nearly 7,000 people on Enfield’s social housing waiting list, with the wait for a family-sized home estimated to be more than 5 years. 3,000 people in the area are also currently homeless and living in expensive (and sometimes unsuitable) temporary accommodation.

Matt Burn, local planning expert and spokesperson for Better Homes Enfield, meets us to express his disappointment about how the new town discussion at Crews Hill had played out.

“There is lots of brownfield land and, even some green belt land here that I’ve identified to the council, which you could build on without having to build on these garden centres, which employ around 1,000 people in AI-proof jobs or the local golf course, which is a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC),” Burn explains. “I’ve been researching it, I’ve been asking the council for information. There is a way to have the best of both.”

Burn, who, until recently, was a lifelong Labour supporter, also raises the issue of Labour’s rhetoric and cites it as a reason for putting his vote elsewhere in the local elections, though he declines to say who he did vote for.

“When I saw the housing secretary bouncing around saying ‘build baby build’, I thought it came across as idiotic,” Burn says. “It’s exactly what we don’t need. Housing, as so many people recognise, is a really complicated issue. Solving it is going to take some serious consideration and proper analysis, and prancing around on stage with a red cap on is not what we require.”

Matt describes the way the council’s previous Labour administration handled communication about these changes as “authoritarian.”

“The way they wouldn’t release information…it’s completely wrong. They have ruined the opportunity for a new town here through their own handling of it,” he says, seeming upset.

Matt also rejects the label of ‘NIMBY’.

“It’s reductive and ridiculous,” he says. “This isn’t my backyard…I’ve proposed sites for development which are literally on my doorstep. This is about thoughtful planning and consultation…I just don’t have any time for this YIMBY/NIMBY debate.”

To that end, Matt shows me a document he has compiled, which flags 10 green belt sites in the area which he thinks could accommodate thousands of new homes without uprooting local businesses or closing the golf club. He says he sent it to the council but received no response. This could be due to ongoing legal consultation processes.

Opposition to new towns is nothing new. After the Second World War, Clement Atlee’s Labour government pledged a wave of new development, which resulted in places like Stevenage, Basildon and Corby being built.

In 1946, when Lewis Silkin, Atlee’s Minister of Town and Country, visited the first site for their proposed new towns – Stevenage – local people in what was then a village made their discontent clear by putting up an enormous sign at the railway station which read “SILKINGRAD”.

Silkin responded to his hostile welcoming committee, “It’s no good you jeering, it’s going to be done.”

Matt and I have arrived at Crews Hill Golf Club, which Erbil described in his Instagram video as having “20 members”.

We meet the manager, David Spring, who says the figure is close to 200 and gestures around – it is a sunny day in half term and the club is running schemes for young people. Most of them are young men who are playing and learning together.

Erbil’s video, combined with rumours which have filled the void left by a lack of information about the government’s exact plans (to be formally announced later this year), has caused more distress here.

“This is not only a golf course,” Spring says. “We are a community hub. We host a lot of events for residents, local associations, and council groups in our function facilities.”

Spring adds that there is a special event on for half term with 100 junior golfers playing as we visit.

“It’s the sort of thing that we want to promote as a club, it’s for the future of sport and golf, as well as for the members who have been here for a lot longer,” he says, adding how important that is at a time when young people are spending too much time online.

Golf clubs have a reputation for being exclusive and expensive. A junior membership at Crews Hill is around £17 a month, with a junior day rate costing £20.

Behind the bar, 17-year-old Jack, who lives nearby, is taking orders. It’s day 4 of his first-ever part-time job. What does he, as a young person who may never be able to buy a house in his home area, think of the new town?

“It will be a real shame if it happens to be honest,” he says, “new houses are going up in Enfield, and they will need a community”.

New developments in the area include a major regeneration scheme called Meridian Water, a £6 billion, 20-year council-led regeneration programme in Upper Edmonton, in the south-east of the borough, which will build 10,000 homes next to the Lee Valley Regional Park. Plus, major developments nearby from volume housebuilders Bellway and Berkley.

In the eyes of former Enfield Labour councillor turned local environment campaigner, Vicki Pite, the ambiguity surrounding exactly what will and will not be included if a new town is built at Crews Hill has fuelled opposition.

Pite takes me to Botany Bay Farm Shop, which is situated on 76 acres of working farmland, less than 5 minutes from the golf club and station on a public walkway which overlooks London.

“Green land like this has a cooling effect on London,” she says as we look out across the horizon. “I believe we need it if temperatures keep rising.”

However, Pite also accepts that Crews Hill could accommodate some new housing and infrastructure if “careful thought was given to it”.

“The Labour group that has run the council here in recent years has not understood the important role of scrutiny…they’ve squandered a majority that was built up with hard work over many years because of that,” she adds.

Both Matt and Vicki regret that it has come to this. Neither of them thinks this planning battle should have been presented as a choice between green spaces, the gold course, local businesses and housing. They hope their community can have both.

As the day draws to a close, the sun continues to beat down. Inner London, where housing affordability and construction crises rage, glimmers in the heat as the temperature turns up on local feeling in Crews Hill about being talked about, rather than communicated with, about major plans to change this community.

In reality, the government’s perceived aloofness may be a symptom of the fact that complex legal consultations must occur before any new town locations are confirmed. A public consultation on the proposed New Towns Programme and its environmental implications opened on Monday, 23 March and closed on Tuesday, 19 May. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is currently analysing the feedback received and will publish a response “in due course”. They will also have to conduct environmental assessments.

During my visit to Crews Hill, I asked residents whether they were aware of these processes and consultations. They all say “no”. Recent polling, conducted exclusively for me here at The i Paper by Ipsos, revealed that most people in Britain think Labour is “doing a bad job” and housing and that there is low awareness about Labour’s housing policies among the general public.

There has clearly been a communication failure between Westminster, Enfield Council and Crews Hill.

Placemaking and local stakeholder engagement are meant to be a major part of Labour’s new towns programme. However, if Crews Hill is chosen and local opposition persists, from both residents, business owners and the council, it is possible that a development corporation (an independent public delivery body) could be set up and that land could be compulsorily purchased to build a new town here.

Multiple factors will now decide what happens at Crews Hill.

This could become a test case for Labour’s new planning rules, which include ‘grey belt’, greater compulsory purchase (CPO) powers, a reduced number of statutory consultees and presumptive approval for new homes which are near train stations. A development corporation with the power to CPO land could also be set up here to see the new town over the line.

And it will certainly be a test of public opinion as the government attempts to bring forward an ambitious building programme of major new settlements in locations across England.

When asked whether he regretted his social media posts about Crews Hill Golf Club following heavy losses for his party in the local elections, Councillor Ergin Erbil said he had “nothing further to add” beyond what he had said “publicly”.

Erbil, who was seen on stage with Housing Secretary Steve Reed wearing a ‘Build Baby Build’ hat at Labour conference, also said: “I understand why businesses and residents in Crews Hill raised concerns, and those concerns should always be listened to. But I would also encourage journalists, campaigners and politicians to speak not only to those who can afford to play golf on a weekday afternoon in Crews Hill, but also to the families living in temporary accommodation, the residents facing homelessness, the young people priced out of their own community, and those living in housing that is simply not fit for purpose.”

“Since being re-elected, I have already received a large amount of housing casework. People are asking for help getting onto the housing register, struggling to afford a home locally, or living with serious disrepair in what can only be described as slum housing. These are the people whose voices are too often missing from this debate.”

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) spokesperson said: “Our landmark national new towns programme will restore the dream of homeownership for people across the country.”

“We recently consulted with local people on the proposals and will respond in due course.”

When asked to respond to allegations from local people that Housing Secretary Steve Reed had never been to Crews Hill, MHCLG did not respond.

City Hall was approached for comment, but did not respond.

Housing crisis watch

London’s housing crisis is intensifying. And that’s saying something, because it was already bad! New data from the property agent JLL suggests that thousands of new-build homes (mostly flats) in the Capital are sitting there unsold.

By their calculations, the number could be as high as 22,000 (although I am trying to verify that). There could be many reasons for new build flats not selling, but key reasons are likely a) that people can’t afford to buy them, and b), as I’ve reported, housing associations aren’t buying new build stock from developers because they don’t think it’s good enough.

I’ll do some digging…watch this space.

What I’ve been reading

As ever, Sarah O’Connor’s column in the FT is a must-read. In the latest edition, she looks at how Spain’s unemployment rate (previously very high) has converged with Finland’s (previously very low) at around 10 per cent. Sarah goes through the reasons for this, but I was particularly interested to read that migration is a major factor in both Spain’s unemployment fall and Finland’s rise, because that’s something we’ve been looking at in this newsletter recently. Do have a read.