On 28 May 2026, Enfield’s new Conservative leader Alessandro Georgiou wrote to housing minister Matthew Pennycook to formally withdraw the borough from the government’s New Towns programme. The planned 21,000-home settlement at Crews Hill and Chase Park — one of the three highest-priority sites in the New Towns Taskforce’s programme, with spades in the ground expected before the end of this parliament — is effectively dead.
Georgiou’s letter is worth reading carefully. He does not say the housing isn’t needed. He says 77% of the Enfield electorate voted for parties that explicitly opposed the new town in their 2026 manifestos. Conservatives, Greens, Reform, Liberal Democrats, and Community Independents — all opposed. Only Labour supported it. Labour lost. And the talk at UKREiiF was that even the remaining Labour Group is pretty luke warm to it all.
He then offers the standard reassurance: the council will work constructively with government, focus on brownfield sites, and pursue town centre regeneration. It is the formulation every administration reaches for in these situations. It is also, as PropViews has documented across several pieces this month, a promise the current planning and viability framework cannot deliver.
New Towns are complicated and long term projects. They need local political consensus to succeed. In Enfield there appears to be none anymore. I recall receiving some sage advice when I was Wandsworth Chair of Planning from an ‘elder stateman’ when I was under significant pressure to refuse a particularly controversial but important housing scheme. His advice was not to face into something where the numbers just are not there, but seek a climb down but get something else in the bargain.
To my eye this New Town is dead. But there should be a bargain to be done for giving up this project and not forcing it through. Where is the talk of Meridian Water and what commitments can Enfield offer to accelerate development here. This is a huge brownfield opportunity which has rail access already in place. Only limited development has taken place. It seems strange it has gone missing and my advice to the London Mayor and the Housing Minister is seek a trade and accelerate numbers meaningfully at Meridan Water.
