Forum topic: Examination in public of Enfield Local Plan begins

Day one of the hearing, potentially the beginning of the end of Enfield’s plan’s seven-year quest, was memorable for you-tube watchers to see subtitles occasionally appearing on screen BEFORE the speaker projected the words. AI breaking yet new frontiers I assumed. Occasionally however the same AI dropped a few howlers and mangled what the human ear picked up, so still some work to do for the tech bros.

Much of the day was legal and compliance related. The consultation process took quite a hammering with much time spent trying to untangle why so many representations had failed to make it into the council’s process / system; whether such responders had the opportunity to take part in the hearing; and if all information was then available to all parties to help in their case. A monumental Horlicks was outlined over a couple of hours, with the council indicating they had now outsourced the task to a professional outfit. The implication for the inspector was whether this compromised the whole process, essentially whether he would wind the hearings up early doors, either putting in a sizeable delay for things to be sorted (months) or I imagine asking the council to start the process again and get it right this time. (My first waste plan attendance ended up in such a position before lunch on Day 1 before returning afresh several years later.) Several times the Inspector referred to this possible course of action. Something he needed to go away and ponder.
Councils have a duty to cooperate with nearby councils as well as statutory bodies and that element formed the second major strand of today. The questioning suggested all was not necessarily well there either. Technical stuff and the outcome will need to wait on the Inspector’s deliberations and considerations. Further evidence may be needed, and the council ended the today’s session by saying they had “homework”.

There was a flavour of some meat later in the day as the session looked at compliance with the London Plan. A GLA representative emphasised the point made in earlier submissions that the proposed large-scale housing expansion into the green belt was not in compliance with the London Plan. (Earlier, TfL had outlined how the two main housing sites being suggested were not bus friendly, nor was there the capital to put on high frequency bus services, meaning travel would default to cars and that was not where the London Plan stood.)

The recent change of government and its focus on much housebuilding was however changing things. A new NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) was indicating 88,000+ new homes required in London each year for ten years – an awful lot in the decade of this plan. The GLA indicated Enfield were overegging our borough’s needs; that the move as planned into the green belt was premature (brownfield first); and anyway, the housing density being proposed was too generous – pack more homes in. Instead, the suggestion was to wait for the Mayor to determine a borough by borough allocation of the London target across the capital, and consider together with his updated view on green belt use (the Mayor accepting some, somewhere, will now be required given the scale of the government’s housing target).

Housing is tomorrow and green belt next Wednesday when more detailed oratory will presumably be available, but it was already clear that the proposed green belt take is not going to be an easy ask for the council, relying it seems on “exceptional circumstances”, to get this part over the line as Sound planning.

Everyone thought the plan was too long, badly laid out, hard to follow etc, going as far as the Inspector saying he needed to get reading glasses for the first time when trying to read it.

Possibly not the greatest day for the council, although I thought the legal rep they had fronting their case – name missed as I tuned in post the kick off – seemed to play a smooth blinder despite the hand he was given.

Fortunately, I’m somewhere else tomorrow.