The Government Planning Inspectors recently released their report on the Draft London Plan. They rejected the Mayor’s call for 65,000 new homes a year, describing City Hall’s targets for development on small sites in particular as requiring a “massive” uplift in delivery, which is “highly unlikely to occur based on the available evidence”. They recommend that the Mayor revises his 10-year housebuilding completions target down from 649,350 new homes to 522,850, with the small sites 10-year target reduced from 245,730 new homes a year to 119,250. Enfield’s small site target would go from 10,740 to 4,240.
While this reduced target [if accepted by both the Mayor and the Council] is potentially good news, the Inspectors also recommended that a full London-wide review of the Green Belt should be undertaken, with a view to the next London Plan, due in 2024/25. That would be a slippery slope and one we hope can be avoided.
With that in mind, Enfield RoadWatch plans to contact all the Enfield candidates in the upcoming December 12 General Election and ask them straightforward questions regarding their commitment to protecting the Green Belt. We will post their responses as soon as we get them. We hope to see Green Belt protection and environmental protection in general feature large in the party manifestos.
We will update this once we know how the Mayor plans to respond to the Inspectors’ report and whether any action is needed.