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.

Maybe my tastes are a little eccentric, but I listened to several hours of the first day of the examination in public with fascination.

Two things I'd like to draw attention to:

First, it's not out of the question that the Inspector might yet abandon the whole she-bang before it gets much further (it's scheduled to last for six days in all). This is because he will be "pondering" over allegations raised by the Enfield Society and others that the council failed to "engage" properly with all the interested parties, chief among them being, of course, the borough's residents. If he agrees that this was the case, then he might cancel remaining sessions and send the council back to the drawing board. I think probably not, but it's a possibility...

The second big issue has been reported on by James Cracknell on the Enfield Dispatch website under the headline Khan set to support new housing on London’s Green Belt for first time, inquiry hears .

Here's my (very rough) take on what I remember from the discussion - but my memory isn't too brilliant and I may have misunderstood some of what was said, so if this is something that interests you I recommend listening to the recording and drawing your own conclusions.

It's a major change of attitude by the Mayor with regard to building on the green belt. Previously Sadiq Khan was dead against this, despite a change of policy by his fellow Labour Party people at the top of the UK government. The main driver of Sadiq's change of mind seems to be the likelihood of the government demanding a big increase in housebuilding throughout London. However, it did seem to me that the total amount of housebuilding that will be demanded by the government is not yet decided, the situation is "incredibly fluid".

However, despite now supporting buildingon the green belt, the Mayor is not at all happy with the council's plans for new housing at "Chase Park" and Crews Hill. He wants new housing to be (a) near stations - Oakwood and Cockfosters - so much more to the west than the council is proposing, and (b) much denser than is proposed for Chase Park. Otherwise the developments will not be sustainable in terms of transport. As revealed in a document submitted by TfL, the Mayor want the first new housing to be built further west, within 15 minutes walk of either of the stations, including part of Trent Park (compensated by a new extension of Trent Park eastwards).

It sounds like the Mayor/TfL would support development of Chase Park further eastwards at a later stage and then only with much denser development, to allow sufficient local infrastructure and new bus services so that the new housing doesn't just generate large amounts of new car traffic. The council's expectations that TfL will lay on new bus services for Chase Park and Crews Hill (set out by them in one of the papers submitted to the enquiry) are clearly unrealistic at the proposed housing density.

If the council persists with its current plans for Chase Park, then the Mayor/TfL will completely drop their support for building on green belt. They think that building at the lower densities the council wants would squander the opportunities provided by this land.