On Monday evening I attended ‘Enfield Council’s Regeneration Event for Businesses’. The event was intended to give local businesses an insight into planned renovation works and the possible resulting business opportunities.
The Council have big plans for the east of the borough or the ‘inverted L’ as it’s sometimes called (the area that stretches down the right hind side of the A10 and back across the borough in the south).
It was interesting stuff and there are some very ambitious plans.
The development with the most available information (and the Council’s flagship) is Meridian Water. This development will encompass an 85 hectare area in the south east of the borough including Angel Road Station and the area around Ikea and Tesco’s on the North Circular.
The plan is for this area to become a first class business centre and the sort of waterfront environment where people want to spend their leisure time or as one presenter put it to make Meridian Water ‘a destination’ where people come to to spend time not just because they live there.
As the evening went on I had visions of the restaurant’s, cafe’s and wine bars along St Katherine’s dock. Can Meridian Water really become that kind of destination??
There are 8,000 new homes of all sizes and ownership models planned and 3,000 new jobs.
Phase 1a to be delivered by early 2018 will include 300 new homes and an upgrade to Angel Road station, with access to the station on the other side of the North Circular. There will also be a ‘station square’ with retail outlet opportunities.
This new station will have a better train service (4 trains per hour) which would increase to 14 trains per hour by 2030 IF the proposed route of Cross Rail 2 is confirmed through Angel Road and up the Lee Valley.
Improvements to transportation links always have a positive impact on property prices, and while four trains an hour isn’t exactly fantastic it is better than the very strange service pattern in place at Angel Road today! And as I’ve blogged before, if Cross Rail 2 does get the go ahead to run along the Lee Valley then the local property prices will increase dramattically!
The Council representatives also discussed the required supporting infrastructure in terms of schools, doctors etc, integrating the existing communities with new ones and designing out crime. Also, encouragingly, there are plans for tender applications to be at least partly judged on the respondents willingness and ability to work with local businesses.
Can Meridian Water become the St Katherine’s Dock of North London? We’ll have to wait and see, but I for one will be watching the Council plans and progress quite closely.
At Belvoir Lettings Enfield we don’t sell property, we simply use our experience to advise people as to what might make a good buy to let property investment in the Enfield, Haringey and Barnet areas, and how to successfully let their property.
