The Mayor of London appears to be on a collision course with Enfield Council following the authority’s decision to withdraw the Crews Hill and Chase Park site from the government’s New Towns Programme. The site, located in the green belt, is earmarked for up to 21,000 homes which its proponents argue could make a meaningful contribution to addressing London’s acute housing shortage.

The stand-off lays bare a familiar tension within the capital’s planning system: the mayor’s strategic ambition to accelerate housing delivery versus the pivotal role of London boroughs, which retain control over local plan-making and most development management decisions. This faultline of strategic ambition versus local delivery runs through the English planning system more broadly. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the housing crisis, delivery at the local level remains vulnerable to political change, viability constraints and local opposition.