4 Enfield's Spatial Strategy

The spatial strategy for the future development of the Borough is two fold, firstly, 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. These are two complementary strands which together will deliver the Council's place shaping priorities. The Council will work with its partners and use its powers to help create the conditions for growth and deliver new homes, jobs, good quality services and environments in places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. New developments will be expected to be of the highest quality, maximising sustainability principles and respecting the quality of the neighbourhoods in which they are located.

Planning for Prosperity

The Borough will plan for an increase in population from an estimated 285,100 in 2006 to approximately 309,500 by 2026. Over this period close to 11,000 new homes are planned to be built and the number of jobs will increase by a minimum of 6,000. This exceeds the current population projections for the Borough and the London Plan’s current requirement for new homes, however it is consistent with Enfield’s position in the London-Stansted-Cambridge-Peterborough growth corridor and the London Plan’s designation of the Upper Lee Valley as an Opportunity Area.

Housing growth will be concentrated in parts of the Borough where it can be most readily accommodated and where it can most effectively support the regeneration and revitalisation of Enfield’s communities. A sequential approach to the sustainable location of development will be followed, concentrating developments in town centres and on previously developed land in the south and east of the Borough. New homes will be planned through the intensification of land uses, the promotion of mixed uses and the managed release of surplus industrial land.

Emphasis will be on increasing the number and diversity of jobs within the Borough and strengthening the local economic base. Enfield's valuable reservoir of strategically important industrial land in the east of the Borough will be safeguarded and managed in accordance with the London Plan and its Supplementary Planning Guidance on Industrial Capacity (2008) to meet the needs of modern industry in an efficient and sustainable way. Here, areas of underused land will be brought back into productive use to support the creation of new communities and economic regeneration. Across the Borough, Locally Significant Industrial Sites will continue to provide an affordable and convenient resource for small businesses and new enterprises. Implementation of the Enfield Strategic Partnership's Skills and Employment Strategy (2008) will be supported to achieve a greater match between local skills and local employment opportunities.

Focusing change

Over the next 10 to 20 years, large scale growth and regeneration will be focused in four broad locations - Central Leeside and North East Enfield in the Upper Lee Valley, the area around the North Circular Road at New Southgate and the Borough's major town centre - Enfield Town. These priorities reflect the regional importance of these areas and the opportunities they offer to change and improve the quality of life for Enfield residents. Emphasis will be on new family homes and affordability for Enfield residents. Growth will be focused within these areas at Meridian Water, Ponders End, New Southgate and around Enfield Town station, facilitating improvements to the physical landscape, utilising existing transport and social infrastructure and delivering new infrastructure where necessary.

• Upper Lee Valley

Growth in the Upper Lee Valley will be in accordance with its London Plan's designation as an Area of Opportunity and will help deliver the aims of the North London Strategic Alliance’s vision as North London’s Waterside. Much of the existing employment land will continue to be protected as a strategic reservoir of sites to support business and provide jobs for Enfield residents and London as a whole. Approximately 4,000 new jobs are planned to be created in the Upper Lee Valley by 2026. New residential led mixed use development will be concentrated at Meridian Water in Central Leeside and in Ponders End in North East Enfield. Transformational change in these core areas will provide a catalyst for regeneration of the Upper Lee Valley, improving opportunities for existing communities nearby where deprivation levels are high, particularly in the Edmonton area and Northumberland Park in neighbouring Haringey.

Meridian Water, lying close to the border with London Boroughs of Haringey and Waltham Forest has the scope to accommodate up to 5,000 homes in a new urban eco community, exploring innovative options for sustainable transport and securing improvements to public transport, including the modernisation of the West Anglia Rail line. Here, development will be phased to ensure the new and existing communities are supported by good infrastructure including new schools, a community hub, health care and open space.

Within the context of the Ponders End Framework for Change, redevelopment opportunities within the established community at Ponders End provide scope for up to 1,000 new homes by 2020. A new all through Academy in the heart of the area is due to open in September 2012 providing additional school places in state of the art educational facilities. A coordinated approach will be taken to the renewal of the town centre and the public realm. A more effective use of land and the intensification of employment uses in Southern Brimsdown provide the potential for redevelopment for a mix of uses, including residential, to maximise the benefits of the waterfront location.

• North Circular area and New Southgate

Opportunities will be sought to improve the living conditions of residents, visitors and businesses in the area around the North Circular Road at New Southgate now that a safety and environmental improvement scheme for the road has been agreed. The area has the capacity to accommodate up to 2,000 new homes, largely on land no longer needed for the road improvements and through the renewal of the Ladderswood Estate and the New Southgate area. Redevelopment will provide the impetus for improvements to local connections, community facilities and open spaces. The development of the existing Broomfield and Bowes school buildings either side of the North Circular Road into an all age school will be pursued to improve the education facilities for local children. A high quality mixed use scheme at New Southgate will be promoted to create a new gateway to Enfield.

• Enfield's town centres

Enfield’s town centres will be the focus for new commercial, retail, leisure, office and related uses. Enfield Town is the Borough’s primary town centre and will continue to be the focus for large scale retail and leisure development. New retail led mixed use development will be promoted in the east of the town centre around Enfield Town Station, providing an opportunity to improve the public transport interchange and create a new urban environment complementing the Town’s historic core. This area has the capacity to accommodate up to 10,000sqm of new retail floor space and 500 new homes, new health and public sector services. The physical, social and economic regeneration of Edmonton Green and its surrounding neighbourhoods including Angel Edmonton will continue, building on the new and improved shopping, leisure facilities and housing completed to date and improving connections to the new community at Meridian Water and the Borough's other town centres.

Improving quality of life

Developments in Enfield will provide an opportunity to address the causes and impacts of climate change with an emphasis on sustainably designed and constructed buildings and prioritising opportunities for renewable energy schemes in the Upper Lee Valley. Parts of the Upper Lee Valley are at medium to high risk from flooding and comprehensive redevelopment of the core areas will provide opportunities to remediate contaminated land renew and enhance existing flood defences and rivers, thereby supporting the objectives of the Environment Agency’s Thames Catchment Flood Management Plan and meet objectives of the Water Framework Directive, River Basin Management Plan.

Sufficient waste management facilities will be retained and safeguarded to ensure Enfield plays its part alongside six other North London boroughs in dealing with north London's waste and developing the North London Joint Waste Plan. The Edmonton Eco Park is ideally located to continue to play a strategic role in waste management. New more sustainable waste movement and treatment processes will be supported on the site, including the future decommissioning of the incinerator.

Coordinated redevelopment in the Upper Lee Valley will provide opportunities to improve access to the currently underused and inaccessible Lee Valley Regional Park, improving links to green and open spaces and waterways for the nearby communities who are currently deficient in access. Priorities within the Lee Valley Regional Park Plan to improve local access and visitor attractions in the Park will inform more detailed area action plans for the east of the Borough.

Much of the Borough has a high quality built, historic and natural environment which will continue to be rigorously protected and enhanced. For large parts of the Borough change will be small scale and the distinctive characteristics of residential neighbourhoods will be protected. Development will be concentrated where good public transport provision ensures accessible locations. Character statements and management proposals have been prepared for each of the Borough’s conservation areas and these will guide development within them. Inequalities in access to open space and children's playspace that exist between different parts of the Borough, and which are particularly acute in the south and east of the Borough, will be addressed.

The Council will work with the Primary Care Trust and other health care providers to support the modernisation and development of health services to meet local needs. The development of neighbourhood health centres will be closely aligned with the implementation of the Council's place shaping priorities.

Implementation

Overall this strategy represents a proactive and demanding agenda to help shape the future of the Borough. The Council and its partners will work together to coordinate and deliver it through a place shaping approach and a shared understanding of priorities and range of solutions needed to improve the well being and quality of life of all Enfield’s communities, particularly those who are most disadvantaged. This will ensure that good social, utilities and transport infrastructure is provided, retained, improved or expanded where needed, taking account of cross borough opportunities.

Area action plans will be prepared for the key areas of change - Central Leeside, North East Enfield, the area around the North Circular Road and Enfield Town. These will provide more detailed planning policy frameworks, coordinate delivery and set the context for more detailed masterplans for core areas within them at Meridian Water, Ponders End, New Southgate, the area around Enfield Town station, and the Edmonton area. Future reviews of the LDF will provide opportunities to assess the need for area action plans for other parts of the Borough if the need arises.

The Council will bring forward a series of documents to provide detailed policy and supplementary guidance for implementation, including a Development Management Document, Planning Obligations and Community Infrastructure Levy, and the Enfield Design Guide.

The Council will work with partners to prepare and maintain an Infrastructure Delivery Plan to identify and plan for the delivery of the physical, social and green infrastructure required to facilitate the development set out in this strategy.

Arrangements for delivery of this strategy will be tailored to meet local circumstances. A single delivery framework guided by the Enfield Strategic Partnership will be established for the south east of the Borough covering the Central Leeside, Edmonton and Angel areas under the collective name of Enfield Leeside. A single implementation plan will have six themes, focusing on liveability and the coordination of physical change.

A holistic approach will be adopted to ensure that the delivery of new housing, education, community infrastructure, employment and transport improvements in an area are considered as a whole rather than being planned for and provided independently of each other. Delivery of social, economic, and physical change can only be achieved by building social and economic capital. The Council will work with a range of partners including the public, private and third sector to deliver the strategy, and will help to build the capacity amongst partners including the voluntary sector to deliver change.

CORE POLICY 1

STRATEGIC GROWTH AREAS

The Council will plan to focus future growth and development in the Borough in four specific areas, which offer the greatest opportunities for change to improve the quality of life for Enfield’s residents. These areas are:

• Central Leeside;
• North East Enfield;
• Enfield Town; and
• The area around the North Circular Road at New Southgate.

Improvements to the social and physical infrastructure will be prioritised in the strategic growth areas in order to ensure that planned growth and development will be sustainable. Area action plans will be prepared for each of these areas to provide a framework for development and the context for more detailed masterplans for place shaping priority areas within them, in accordance with Core Policies 37-45.