Enfield council withdraws from government’s new towns programme

London authority’s new Tory-led administration delivers significant blow to Labour’s flagship housebuilding scheme

Enfield council in north London has withdrawn from the government’s new towns programme, in a significant blow to Labour’s flagship housebuilding scheme.

The move by the new minority Conservative-led administration could present one of the first tests of Rachel Reeves’s planning reforms, designed to curb the use of judicial reviews against new infrastructure.