A developer wants up to 400 homes on the vacant Brimsdown Sports Ground. The draft Local Plan allocates 225, and the inspector has kept the sports pitch rule.

A developer intends to apply for up to 400 homes on the former Brimsdown Sports Ground. That is nearly double the 225 homes the council’s own draft Local Plan earmarks for the site. The intention is set out in an Environmental Impact Assessment screening request lodged with the council on 11 August. (Enfield Council planning register, 26/03396/SO)

The request was prepared by consultants Iceni Projects for Arish Living Limited, the applicant named on the register. It is not the planning application itself. It is the step that comes first, asking the council to confirm that a full Environmental Statement is not needed.

What is proposed

The 8.11 hectare site off Goldsdown Road was the Brimsdown Sports Club and Social Club. The screening report describes it as vacant, with protective fencing in place to keep the public out.

The report sets out the scheme the applicant intends to submit:

  • up to 400 homes, in a mix of family houses and blocks of flats
  • houses up to 2.5 storeys, arranged around the edges of the site
  • blocks of flats up to 5 storeys, placed in the centre
  • up to 600 square metres of commercial floorspace
  • a publicly accessible park in the middle, with play space and a perimeter jogging track
  • a new woodland area beside the open space
  • vehicle and pedestrian access off the Osborne Road and Goldsdown Road junction, off Carterhatch Road and off Vista Avenue

The public footpath that crosses the site from north to south would be kept. The report says it would be widened, better lit and overlooked by the new homes. Construction would start in 2027 across five phases and finish in 2032, though the report calls that provisional.

The site clears the EIA thresholds, and the developer says that is not the point

A scheme of this size automatically counts as Schedule 2 development under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017. It exceeds two of the three triggers for an urban development project: more than 150 dwellings, and a site of more than 5 hectares.

Clearing a threshold does not mean an Environmental Statement is required. The council must decide whether the scheme is likely to have significant effects on the environment. Iceni argues it is not, and that any effects would be local, temporary, or controllable through planning conditions and construction management plans.

The report also records constraints a resident would want to know about. The site is a historic landfill, known as Brimsdown Playing Fields. It sits in Flood Zone 1 but inside a Critical Drainage Area, which the report defines as an area with known flooding problems. The whole borough is an Air Quality Management Area. Public transport access is rated PTAL 1b and 2, described in the report as relatively poor, despite Brimsdown station being about 263 metres away.

The council wanted 300 homes. The inspector said no to the rest

The site is allocated in Enfield’s draft Local Plan as SA URB.01, for “renewed community uses” plus enabling uses such as housing, with an indicative capacity of 225 homes.

That allocation has been argued over throughout the plan’s examination. In a note to the examination published as document E9.1, the council proposed two changes:

  • increase the number of dwellings from 225 to 300
  • delete infrastructure requirement (h), which requires a new sports pitch to be provided on the site, and replace it with a financial contribution towards better or equivalent pitches elsewhere in the borough

The council’s stated reasoning was that a good pitch, with changing rooms and floodlighting, would not sit well alongside housing, and that the existing pitches are among “the plethora of disused playing pitches within the Borough” and of low quality. (E9.1, Stage 3 actions note)

The note also confirms who owns the land. Enfield Council does, and its property service was carrying out feasibility work with the aim of putting the site on the market later in 2026.

Inspector Steven Lee rejected most of that. His post-hearing advice of 15 June 2026 says the capacity figure should be updated to reflect the most recent and accurate position. On the rest, he wrote: “There is no justification for any of the other modifications suggested by the Council in document E9.1.”

He went on to say the allocation, including provision of open space, is sound in principle, and that any loss of open space would have to be considered in the normal way. Because the council has not determined that losing existing open space would be consistent with national policy, he said, the allocation should not assume or even imply that it is acceptable. He also noted that the council changing its mind as landowner does not make the submitted policy unsound. (IN14, post-hearing advice)

Bar chart comparing 225 homes in the draft Local Plan allocation, 300 homes proposed by the council at examination, and up to 400 homes in the developer's screening request for Brimsdown Sports Ground
Graphic by Enfield Today
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The council replied to the inspector on 29 June, confirming it is preparing the schedule of main modifications and expects to consult the public on them later in 2026. (Council response to IN14)

What it means for you

If you live near the site, nothing is decided. A screening opinion only settles whether an Environmental Statement must accompany the eventual application. The register records a determination deadline of 31 August 2026 and says this will be a delegated decision, taken by officers rather than a committee.

If you want a say, the moment that matters is the planning application itself, which the report says will be a detailed, or full, application rather than an outline one. That will carry a formal neighbour consultation. The second moment is the Local Plan main modifications consultation the council expects to run later in 2026, which is where the 225 figure, the pitch requirement and the open space wording can still be challenged.

If the pitch matters to you, note what the inspector actually said. The requirement to provide sports and open space at Brimsdown has not been removed from the draft plan, and he found no justification for removing it.

We track the borough’s larger schemes on our Enfield planning news page, and what homes here actually sell for on our Enfield house prices page.

Sources