A few days ago, the Government announced that a 21,000 home New Town will be built on 884 hectares of Enfield’s Green Belt, taking in Crews Hill, Vicarage Farm and all the land in between. You can find more details about this disastrous proposal on our front page. We are devising our strategies to push back and have written to the Enfield MPs asking them to stand up for their constituents on this matter. Bambos Charalambous, MP for Wood Green and Southgate, and Feryal Clark, MP for Enfield North, are the most involved, but Kate Osamor, MP for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill should also be contacted. MPs will generally only accept correspondence from their constituents, and you need to include your address. If you are not sure who your MP is, you can check here
bambos.charalambous.mp@parliament.uk, feryal.clark.mp@parliament.uk, kate.osamor.mp@parliament.uk
It’s always best to write something in your own words but, for guidance, here is what we have said on behalf of Enfield RoadWatch’s supporters:
Dear [MP]
On behalf of many of your constituents in [name of constituency], we are writing to you about the recent announcement that a large area of Enfield’s Green Belt will be replaced by a 21,000 home New Town. We have been involved in the Local Plan process throughout and are aware that the council wants to build on Crews Hill and Vicarage Farm [Chase Park], but this expanded proposal, which the council obviously promoted secretly to the New Towns Taskforce in parallel with the Local Plan process, came as a total shock.
We acknowledge that there is a housing crisis and that many thousands of homes, particularly affordable homes, need to be built at pace. However, building on the Green Belt will not provide the needed homes in the foreseeable future and will destroy one of the borough’s most valued assets. There are alternative and quicker approaches to meeting the housing deficit – especially with Government investment – focusing on brownfield sites and urban regeneration, which would also bring benefits to existing residents in deprived areas. In the words of a previous LBE Labour administration, the goals of a planning strategy should be ‘ to continue to protect and enhance those parts of Enfield which offer a good quality of life and secondly to take a proactive approach to focusing change in areas of the Borough where regeneration and the revitalisation of communities is needed.‘
As you are probably aware, the various consultations during the ongoing Local Plan process drew many thousands of objections to the proposed Green Belt developments. This was in part because the council has not taken full advantage of the borough’s brownfield opportunities, which are better placed for amenities and public transport. Green Belt would therefore be destroyed unnecessarily. We will not know the result of the Local Plan Examination until early next year but the process continues for now.
In the New Towns Taskforce report, much of the information about the area in question is erroneous or exaggerated and forms a shaky foundation for removing about a third of the borough’s Green Belt [about 10% of Enfield’s total land area] for this mega-development. And we question why the council did not suggest Meridian Water as a New Town location, given that Government investment could bring this to completion much more quickly.
We urge you, please, to speak up for your constituents and not just toe the party line about this very important matter. Many of your colleagues, including Lisa Nandy, Pat McFadden and Peter Kyle have in the past fought Green Belt developments in their own constituencies, while Tim Roca, the Labour MP for Macclesfield, is actively campaigning against plans to build a new town around the village of Adlington in his constituency. Therefore, it would not be unprecedented for you do the same.
We are happy to provide any information you require to make your arguments against this site allocation, which would devastate the west side of the borough.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards
[Include your name and your address to show you are a constituent]