Artist's impression of how Enfield Town market square might look
Enfield Council's scheme for Enfield Town was one of the successful bids for Liveable Neighbourhood funding from the Mayor of London and Transport for London (TfL).
The list of successful bids by boroughs was published on the TfL website on 5th February. The money is being provided "to reduce car use and turn local areas into safer, greener and healthier places for Londoners to live" and is part of a £2.3bn overall investment to create Healthy Streets across the capital, with the aim of increasing the proportion of people walking, cycling and taking public transport to 80% by 2041, and cut the damaging impact of air pollution in the capital.
According to TfL's managing director for surface transport, Liveable Neighbourhoods are intended "to help to boost health, reduce road danger, clean up some of the capital's pollution hot spots and revitalise local communities by making streets places where people want to spend time with their friends, families and neighbours."
The TfL press release includes a brief outline of the Enfield Town scheme:
"Investment in Enfield Town Centre will focus on Church Street, reducing traffic dominance by narrowing the carriageway, connecting Market Square and the shopping centre and making it safer to walk to the train station. Junctions will be redesigned to be safer for pedestrians and cyclists and segregated cycle tracks built on Cecil Road, connecting with existing routes built as part of Enfield's mini-Holland programme. Little Park Gardens and Town Park will be revitalised and new 20mph speed limits will reduce danger while sustainable drainage on roads will help to reduce flood risk in the area."
Leader Nesil Caliskan says that Enfield Council wants "to rejuvenate and regenerate Enfield Town Centre by building on our Enfield Town Master Plan to turn it into a bustling and thriving market town and to create a vibrant, evening economy, thereby making Enfield the destination of choice for people both inside and outside the borough."
The campaigning group Better Streets for Enfield, which strongly supports the Mayor's Healthy Streets approach, has welcomed the news and is challenging the council to be bold:
"Better Streets for Enfield congratulates Enfield Council on its success in bidding for Liveable Neighbourhood funding from Transport for London.
"We believe that transforming Enfield Town into a genuinely Liveable Neighbourhood will help reverse the downturn in the shopping centres and, most of all, in Church Street, where the noise, fumes and danger from fast traffic have become a deterrent to shoppers.
"There is growing evidence that people arriving on foot, by public transport and on bikes - and a low-traffic environment - are the real key to successful town centres. So, while we welcome the ideas in the bid that we've seen so far, we believe that the best design would take cars off Church Street altogether. This would create a stress-free place for shoppers and give easy access by bike to shops, cafes and restaurants. With this in mind, we'll be doing our best during the consultation phase to work with the council and the public towards the boldest possible vision for Enfield Town, to make it into the healthy and vibrant centre that we all wish for."