As next month's elections to Enfield Council draw nearer, groups opposed to proposals to create a “new town” on a large tract of the borough's Green Belt are calling on voters to write to the prime minister and to bear the new town project in mind at the ballot box.
Shoppers in Enfield Town last Saturday signed around a thousand copies of a letter to the prime minister calling on him to block the “Crews Hill & Chase Park New Town” (Photo: Kaya Emin/The Enfield Society)
Local groups who oppose proposals to build 21,000 homes on Green Belt land in the north of the borough say that around a thousand emails and letters to Sir Keir Starmer were signed by visitors to the Enfield RoadWatch Action Group stall in Enfield Town last Saturday. A similar number of signatures were gathered the previous weekend at events in Crews Hill, one of the areas threatened by residential development.
The claim is made in a press release issued today by Action for Enfield's Future, a coalition of local societies and groups which includes Enfield RoadWatch. The letter to the prime minister claims that both the leader of Enfield Council and an environmental assessment published by the government are misrepresenting the character of the land which has been earmarked for “Crews Hill & Chase Park New Town”. It is, they say, neither just "car parks, garages and golf courses” nor "a combination of relatively flat urban land and arable fields with the A1005 (Enfield Ridgeway) intersecting through the centre".
Action for Enfield's Future acknowledge the need to provide new homes, but say that there are alternative locations that would avoid the negative effects of the loss of Green Belt land with regard to climate, food security, flooding and heat stress.
On their website, Enfield RoadWatch have urged concerned voters, in the run-up to next month's council elections, to “disregard party affiliation” and vote tactically, and to help people do so, they provide summaries of each local party's policies with regard to the Green Belt and links to their full manifestos
The full text of the Action for Enfield's Future press release is published below.
This week thousands and thousands of Enfield residents reject the proposal to build Crews Hill and Chase Park New Town in a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister
Text of a press release issued by Action for Enfield's Future on 29th April 2026
On April 18, thousands of people flocked to Crews Hill in Enfield, the site of a proposed 21,000 home new town, to oppose Crews Hill and Chase Park New Town. Organised by Enfield RoadWatch as part of the National Day of Action for Nature, Parks and Green Spaces, the all-day event highlighted what would be lost if the new town proceeds.
Volunteers collected, face to face, 1000+ signed letters to the Prime Minister from residents across Enfield and the wider region asking him to "urge Enfield Council to get a grip of the housing crisis" and to "withdraw this reckless, irreversible proposal" to build on land that is neither "car parks, garages and golf courses” ,as described by the leader of Enfield Council, nor "a combination of relatively flat urban land and arable fields with the A1005 (Enfield Ridgeway) intersecting through the centre", as described in the government's formal Strategic Environmental Assessment (p296).
The letter objects strongly to the government's proposal to build the 21,000 home New Town across designated Green Belt countryside, described in the letter as"800+ Ha of rolling countryside: farms, woodland, valleys and vales spanned by an imposing Ridgeway", and calls out the lack of transparency and evidence in the process. Asking, "Prime Minister, is this a precedent or a risky experiment?", the letter recognizes the need to "provide homes for people who desperately need them" and points to plausible alternatives as well as the impact of removing green space around London on climate, food security, flooding and temperature. All these arguments are expanded in a new report from Better Homes Enfield -'No Evidence, No New Town'.
The prime minister has already received nearly a thousand emails sent via the Enfield RoadWatch website,and approximately 1,000 more letters have been collected by volunteers and at a face to face event at Enfield Town on Saturday 25th April. It is not too late to participate. Signings will stop at 5pm May 8th.
Enfield RoadWatch estimates that in addition to digital responses, 2500 will be delivered to 10 Downing Street on 14th May (the rest to a proxy address).
Overwhelmed by the response, Enfield RoadWatch has taken the unusual step, for a politically neutral organisation, of commenting on the forthcoming elections.
Under "Why Crews Hill and Enfield’s Countryside Need Your Vote! Please think before you vote", they explore the complexities of the multi-party system, publish all the party manifestos and urge "tactical voting". Which they say means:
"Disregarding party affiliation and choosing the candidate who:
a) you trust to represent your interests, and
b) whose policies align with your priorities — even if they are not your usual party of choice."
A government consultation on the national New Towns programme is running until May 19. Enfield RoadWatch will post information and guidance about submitting a response in the near future.
Read more
Enfield groups tell prime minister: “New towns are for Placemaking, you should not be Placebreaking” (Palmers Green Community 22 April 2026)
More than 1,000 people sign letter urging Starmer to withdraw backing for ‘reckless’ new town (Enfield Dispatch 22 April 2026)
