A former hamlet in north London could become one of three new towns with at least 10,000 homes, the Housing Secretary will pledge at Labour’s annual conference.
Steve Reed is expected to tell party members in Liverpool the Government will “do whatever it takes to get Britain building”.
Construction in Crews Hill, Enfield, might begin before the next election.
The area has grown into a small village-size community bordering the M25 on the northern outskirts of London and is 12 miles from Charing Cross.
Despite having a railway station, it currently has a very small population of only around 566 people and is in the Green Belt.
But Enfield Council’s Local Plan identifies Crews Hill as an area “unique” in its capacity to “accommodate a high proportion of new family housing” for future growth.
Currently, it is known for its many garden centres and plant nurseries and “underutilised” train station, the survey says.
A local authority report in March last year states: “The creation of a significantly expanded neighbourhood at Crews Hill provides the opportunity to deliver a significant number of affordable family homes to meet identified need and will also enable delivery of facilities and related infrastructure to support both existing and new communities here.”
Work on a total of 12 new towns will be taken forward, Reed is to announce, as recommended by a report from the New Towns Taskforce published on Sunday morning.
But the priority for construction in the current Parliament will likely be Tempsford in Bedfordshire, Leeds South Bank, and Crews Hill, described by Labour as “most promising sites”.
A new riverside settlement in Thamesmead, Greenwich, is also mooted.
Each of the dozen new towns will have at least 10,000 homes, and could collectively result in 300,000 houses being built across England.
Reed is expected to welcome a recommendation by the New Towns Taskforce that at least 40% of these new homes should be affordable.
In its manifesto, Labour pledged to begin work on 1.5 million new homes over the course of the Parliament, to expand homeownership to more Britons.
In his speech, Reed is expected to say: “We will fight for hard working people, locked out of a secure home for too long by the Conservative government of blockers.
“This Labour Government won’t sit back and let this happen. I will do whatever it takes to get Britain building. We’ve got to ‘build baby build’.”
In a nod to the new towns programme established by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government, Reed will add: “This party built new towns after the war to meet our promise of homes fit for heroes.
“Now, with the worst economic inheritance since that war, we will once again build cutting-edge communities to provide homes fit for families of all shapes and sizes.
“I am launching the next generation of new towns taking the lessons from the post-war Labour government housing boom… mobilising the full power of the state to build a new generation of new towns and restore the dream of home ownership to thousands of families across the country.”
Ahead of the speech, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “For so many families, homeownership is a distant dream.
I will leave no stone unturned to put the key to home ownership in your hand.#BuildBabyBuild🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/l4FO74ob4c
— Steve Reed (@SteveReedMP) September 22, 2025
“My Labour Government will sweep aside the blockers to get homes built, building the next generation of new towns.”
Among the steps Labour plans to take to speed up housing development is a “New Towns Unit”, aimed at pumping both private and public cash into transport links, GP surgeries, schools and open green spaces in its new settlements.
The Unit will work with leading architects to ensure the new towns have their own unique character and identity, intended to reflect their local area.
Ministers also plan to model the construction and planning effort behind each town on the regeneration of Stratford, east London, before and after the 2012 Olympic games.
The Olympic park, and the surrounding housing, was overseen by a development corporation, a body with sweeping powers which allowed it to compulsorily purchase land and grant planning permission.
While some of the new towns Labour plans to build will be standalone settlements, others will be expansions of existing towns, or new areas within cities.
Environmental assessments need to be carried out before planning and building work for each location can begin in earnest.
Just last week, Reed laid out what he described as a “building acceleration package” in light of the slow growth in housebuilding figures.
Some 80,400 applications were received in the period between April and June 2025, down five per cent from the previous year.
Planning authorities across the nation decided 80,800 applications, down one per cent from the same period the previous year.
Reed described the numbers as “unacceptable”.
