Enfield Council is positioning the New Town as the answer to Enfield’s affordable homes crisis, which is the result of many years of unmet targets.
Will the New Town really provide the promised affordable homes for local people?
The answer is – NO.
Were new homes to be built on the 884 hectares targeted for the New Town, only a small percentage are likely to be ‘affordable’ to rent or buy.
The government is stressing that very low levels of affordable housing in the designated new towns would not be acceptable. Yet, since the Taskforce report was published, it has already reined back on the stipulation that 40% of new homes on these sites must be affordable, with at least 20% to be social housing. Now those figures are only an ‘aspiration’.
‘Affordable’ is an ambiguous term but is generally accepted to mean that homes would go on sale at 80% of the local market value. At current house prices, a three bedroom house without a driveway in Enfield would be marketed at around £650,000 – is this really affordable for local families?
Even if 20% is social rent housing [traditional council home style tenancies] this would only provide 4,200 social rent homes out of the 21,000, which is lower than the 6,000 council homes that the Leader of Enfield Council says are needed.
Developers are reluctant to commit to affordable housing targets
Why? because building three or four bedrooms ‘sub market’ offer lower profit margins than market rate homes.
Even though the Council is a significant land owner, the land acquisition costs are likely to be higher than average for the sites under consideration. Not only will high land and construction costs make affordable housing difficult to deliver, but developers will have to contribute to the cost of new roads and bridges, schools, health, community centres and shops to ensure that they are creating communities not just soulless housing estates. This is a statutory requirement under Section 106 agreements/ Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which require developers to contribute to local infrastructure. This would be significantly higher than building new homes on ‘brownfield’ sites where some of this essential community infrastructure already exists.
What impact would a very large volume of new-build housing have on the local housing market?
The Telegraph (7.11.25) reported that, far from being the solution to London’s housing crisis, “new-build properties in the capital are increasingly unloved by buyers”.
Developers are reported to be abandoning building sites. Housing consultancy Molior have forecast that just 6% of the 176,000 new homes promised by Sir Sadiq Khan in the next two years are likely to be built.
How can this Crews Hill & Chase Park New Town, which would take many years to build, provide affordable housing for local people who need it NOW?