Ahead of the local election on May 7^th, the Mayor of London has this week called for people to “… vote on the track record of their local councils, rather than using it as a referendum on the imperfections of a Labour government.” ^[1]

Fair enough. So that is what we have done. We looked at Enfield Council’s housing record since Labour took overall control in 2010.

This is not our data. It is the GLA’s own housing data, with Enfield measured in the same way as every other London borough.

Our analysis, summarised below, shows that Enfield Council’s track record for housing delivery since 2010 has been very poor and among the worst in London on multiple measures.

One of London’s worst records for housing delivery

Enfield is the second worst performing borough in London for meeting housing targets.
According to the GLA’s Planning London Datahub, between 2010/11 and 2025/26, Enfield met just 54.3% of its housing target, despite being set a lower target than most other London boroughs. ^[2]
This means Enfield is more than 6,700 homes short of where it should be.
See Table 1 in Appendix for more information.

More social rent homes lost than built

Enfield, like the rest of London, desperately needs new social rent homes. But since 2010/11, the borough has gone backwards, with more social rent homes demolished than built.
On this measure, Enfield ranks 29^th out of 32 London boroughs.
Enfield’s performance lags far behind its neighbours. Haringey delivered 965 additional social rent homes, Barnet 755 and Waltham Forest 520, compared to Enfield’s net loss of 295 homes.
See Table 2 in Appendix for more information.

Affordable housing delivery has fallen badly short

Between 2010/11 and 2025/26, Enfield should have delivered around 4,900 additional affordable homes, yet only around 1,557 were built.
Enfield’s 1,557 affordable homes is well below the London borough average of 4,735 over the same period. It also leaves Enfield far behind nearby boroughs such as Haringey, which delivered 5,037, Barnet 4,391 and Waltham Forest 5,159.
See Table 3 in Appendix for more information.

A poor record of holding housing developers to account

In Enfield, developers have too often been allowed to build well below affordable housing policy requirements. As a result, only a maximum of 19% of new homes delivered since 2010/11 could be classified as affordable, far below the London Plan’s 50% strategic target. ^[3]
Other London boroughs have generally done better. Across London as a whole, 29% of new homes delivered over the same period were classified as affordable, 10 percentage points higher than in Enfield.
See Table 4 in the Appendix for more information.

Too many poor-quality homes

One of the worst types of new housing built in Enfield since 2010 has been office to flat conversions through permitted development rights, or PDR. This route allows developers to convert office buildings into flats without complying with normal planning policies. The result is often poor-quality housing.
The Deputy Mayor for Housing in London has described such homes as the “slums of the future.” ^[4] The negative impact of PDR has also been the subject of numerous documentaries, academic investigations, and press articles. ^[5]
Most other London boroughs took steps years ago to limit this kind of development. Enfield did not. ^[6]As a result, 877 of the new homes delivered in Enfield since 2010/11 have been PDR conversions.

Why this matters in real life

These failures have real-world consequences.

More than 3,000 Enfield households are currently living in temporary accommodation, a form of housing that has been linked to poor health outcomes. Had the Council built more social rent homes over the past 15 years, fewer families would be stuck in temporary accommodation.

The same applies to affordable housing. Many first-time buyers in Enfield are struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder, and they would be in a better position if the Council had done more to secure genuinely affordable homes.

What’s gone wrong?

In short, talk is cheap. There’s been an enormous gap between what Enfield’s Labour politicians have said about housing delivery and what has actually been built under their watch.

Too often, the pattern has been the same: big announcements followed by weak delivery.

Take the Council’s flagship development at Meridian Water. In 2010, the plan was to deliver 5,000 homes there by 2026.^[7] As things stand, only around 300 have been built, with a further 274 due this year. In other words, roughly 90% of the homes once promised have not been delivered.

Meridian Water is not a one-off. There are multiple council-led schemes in Enfield which have also underperformed.

Yes, there have been challenges. Construction costs have risen and sales of new flats have been weak. But those pressures have not just affected Enfield. Other boroughs have faced the same problems and have done much better.

Enfield Council has also been asleep at the wheel. Anyone reading its housing reports or attending its scrutiny meetings could easily come away thinking that performance is broadly on track. But the GLA’s own data shows that it is not. Serious scrutiny of underperformance has been weak, and if the council does not even recognise what is going wrong, it is unlikely to be able to put it right.

Taken together, these figures make a strong case that Enfield has one of the worst housing records in London overall. Other poor performers at least have something to point to, whether that is more homes built overall, more affordable homes delivered, or a better record on social rent. Enfield stands out because it has performed so badly across so many of the measures that matter most.

The Mayor of London has asked people to vote on the track record of their local councils. On housing, his colleagues in Enfield Labour may not thank him for that challenge.