Agenda item

To receive a report of the Executive Director - Place on the Edmonton Leeside Area Action Plan.                              (Key Decision Reference Number:  4982)

(Report No: 164)

Council is asked to approve the formal adoption of the Edmonton Leeside Area Action Plan to form part of Enfield’s Local Plan.

Cabinet is to be asked to recommend this for Council approval at their meeting on 22 January 2020.  The Cabinet decision will be reported to the meeting on the green update sheet. 

Councillor Caliskan proposed and Councillor Ian Barnes seconded a report from the Executive Director Place recommending formal adoption of the Edmonton Leeside Area Action Plan (ELAAP).  (Report No:  164)

NOTED

1.            Cabinet recommended approval of the plan to Council at their meeting on 22 January 2020.

2.            This represents the final stage in the adoption of the Edmonton Leeside Area Action Plan and will help the Council realise its vision for Meridian Water. 

3.            It will help encourage major stakeholders, provide affordable housing and good public spaces to improve the quality of life for people living in the area.

4.            It includes promotion of high quality design, the low carbon network with 40% affordable housing.  Adoption of the plan gives planning weight to these issues. 

5.            The ELAAP covers a 12 year period, not the full 20 year Meridian Water project.

6.            Great progress has been made in providing employment through meanwhile uses.

7.            The action plan has been agreed and modifications made following comments from the planning inspectorate.

Councillor Edward Smith proposed and Councillor Joanne Laban seconded the following amendment to recommendation 2.1 in the report. 

“That Council agrees the significant modifications recommended in the Planning Inspector’s final report (Annex 1) needed to make the Edmonton Leeside Area Action Plan sound and legally compliant.”

1.            The Opposition wanted to make explicit the way the plan had had to be altered to meet the requirements of the planning inspectorate. 

2.            The response from the Leader that the action plan to be adopted already included the planning inspector’s amendments and that technically this was the plan. 

3.            The view that the plan would not meet the affordable housing needs of the community and that it was a glorified gentrification project.

4.            The revised plan had significantly less housing than the Labour Group had wanted, that the administration had been slow to act and that it was important to recognise the inspector’s work as in the amendment. 

Following the debate, the amendment was put to the vote and not agreed with the following result:

For: 13

Against: 38

Abstentions: 0

The debate continued: 

NOTED

1.            Assumptions that the original plan would have be ratified were unrealistic as the opposition were always clear that the GLA would not agree to release the strategic industrial land and that the sites the Council had put forward to replace this such as Deephams Sewage Works would not be accepted.  There was also no guarantee that Tesco and Ikea would give up their land for homes.  The number of homes proposed in the plan had now been halved.

2.            There was also concern that there had been no proper account of flooding taken or provision of flood mitigation schemes. 

3.            Ward Councillor Ergin Erbil said that this would provide much needed housing, attention and investment in this poor part of the borough and was welcomed by Edmonton ward councillors. 

4.            The opposition view that poor management was to blame for the failures and for the decrease in the number of affordable homes. 

Councillor Ergin Erbil proposed motion 13 (j) that the Council moves to the vote. 

This was seconded by Councillor Nesil Caliskan and approved after a vote with the following result: 

For:  37

Against:  15

Abstentions: 1

The recommendations in the report were then approved without a vote. 

AGREED

1.            To note the receipt of the Planning Inspector’s final report (Annex 1) that concludes the Edmonton Leeside Area Action Plan is sound and legally compliant subject to the main modifications being incorporated into the final plan.

2.                  To approve the formal adoption of the Edmonton Leeside Area Action Plan (Annex 2) to form part of Enfield’s Local Plan.