Joanne Drew is Executive Director of Housing Regeneration at the London Borough of Enfield as well as Co-Chair of the London Housing Directors Group. In this viewpoint, she emphasises the importance of partnerships needed for London boroughs to build more homes and ultimately create vibrant neighbourhoods. 

 

 

Looking ahead, the role of Councils is unlikely to stop when schemes are completed. We plan for long-term stewardship—keeping places clean, green, and well-managed. We want our new communities to be places where residents thrive, and where the council continues to play an active role in enabling all residents to access new homes and to shape quality of life. 

London Boroughs are playing a pivotal role in addressing London’s housing needs, including through regeneration and development.  We focus on what existing communities need and involving them in the design and delivery of new homes and regeneration that will transform places, opportunities and life chances.   

At Enfield we are landowners and master developers—with projects like Meridian Water—we’re uniquely positioned to lead the creation of vibrant new places. We don’t just respond to the national housing crisis; we confront it head-on, driven by a strong local mandate and deep relationships with our residents. 

Our 3,500-home programme is built on a mixed economy delivery model. This allows us to intervene where necessary, particularly to secure family homes, accessible properties, and regeneration that benefits existing communities first. We’re open-minded about tenure, mix, and affordability—what matters most is the relevance and quality of what we deliver. Our approach is not about box-ticking; it’s about ensuring homes and neighbourhoods genuinely meet local needs. 

For partnerships to work in the Borough we are looking for the following three main things: 

Every borough will have guiding principles about working in partnership, with different approaches to delivery and risk sharing. 

In London, we need a strong development sector and are interested in the different business models being adopted and importantly the transparency of financial reporting regardless of company status. As we procure providers, we need to ensure that we are building in meaningful ways of assessing partnership financial strength, so this transparency is important. As clients including in our master developer roles, we need to ensure we hold firm to the vision for the schemes we are creating and that they can be delivered by the market – but equally that our schemes do not become products of the market at any given point in time. That is why close working, and creative strategic thinking underpins public housing schemes. 

Looking ahead, the role of Councils is unlikely to stop when schemes are completed. We plan for long-term stewardship—keeping places clean, green, and well-managed. We want our new communities to be places where residents thrive, and where the council continues to play an active role in enabling all residents to access new homes and to shape quality of life. 

In short, London Boroughs are not just building homes—we’re creating vibrant neighbourhoods, backed by a progressive council that listens, leads, and delivers.