Joyce Avenue and Snell’s Park Estates

The masterplan’s character evolved through the detailed design of a first phase of 575 homes within the detailed element of the Hybrid Planning Application. Five urban blocks deliver a wide range of typologies, from terraced housing to courtyard blocks with gallery access to more traditional apartment blocks, including a 26-storey tower.

These blocks also contain a huge variety of housing types to better meet the diverse needs of local people, including 1, 2, and 3-bedroom apartments and maisonettes and a terrace of 3-story, 5-bedroom townhouses designed by Studio Gil with Architecture Doing Place.

Almost a third of these homes are for families, and more than 90% of homes are Affordable. This delivers improved accommodation for the residents of the existing estate and launches a new generation of Council housing.

Although the regeneration increases the housing density quite significantly, the architectural language nonetheless takes cues from existing local buildings, with materials and decorative features inspired by the Victorian and mid-century heritage of existing buildings across the wider neighbourhood. The varied building forms are designed within a consistent mid-rise scale, with a hierarchy of building heights relative to context. Whilst brick is the predominant material throughout, a richer mix of colours and detailing with accent materials help ensure variety and define the position of each building within the masterplan.

Wherever possible, homes have front doors accessed from new streets, squares, and parks to improve natural surveillance and reduce previous problems of antisocial behaviour. Upper-level apartment balconies are placed to maximise overlooking new parks and open spaces, giving every home a view of the many retained mature trees.

A detailed Design Code will determine an appropriate balance of consistency and variety across the whole masterplan, defining massing and form but leaving varied materiality and detailing to future architects.

Our design process for the Joyce and Snell’s Park Estate evolved through hundreds of plans, diagrams, models, visuals, schedules, and calculations. While we use increasingly sophisticated modelling tools to develop designs, ensure regulatory compliance, and coordinate with other disciplines, there is still huge value in using pen and paper to explore ideas and move the team toward a shared vision.

Here are a few examples of how manual drafting allows us to explore masterplan concepts.

We start with a vision for the place, expressed through street-level views and aerial diagrams. The street views show the spaces we want to create, the trees we aim to preserve, and the character we want to maintain. They raise important questions: where will people gather, how will businesses integrate with housing, and how will open and play spaces coexist? These views, while sketchy, convey a sense of belonging. However, they are limited—they don’t capture the full design or the constraints.

Aerial diagrams, on the other hand, show the scale of open spaces, streets, and the number of homes required. Although no one experiences the place from this angle, these sketches help organise and build relationships between spaces. For example, this can be seen in the connections between the garden squares and Fore Street at Joyce and Snell’s.

This process sets the foundation for building design. As spaces change, buildings must adapt, reflecting changes in regulations and quality standards. We explore how these changes affect future residents—what it will feel like to walk, stand, or live in these spaces.

Despite advancing design tools for us, it is always about the people who will live there.

The regeneration of Joyce and Snell’s Park Estates is a testament to thoughtful urban planning developed over six years of collaborative design and community engagement with Enfield Council. The masterplan reimagines the area as a vibrant, connected neighbourhood that balances the demands of sustainable growth with the needs of its diverse urban community.

Guided by an understanding of housing demand, the plan integrates innovative housing typologies within a layout designed to address longstanding crime and antisocial behaviour issues. Bounded by the railway line to the west and Fore Street to the east, the estate capitalizes on its location adjacent to a bustling high street. Fore Street, a vital artery with high occupancy rates, retains its distinctive character through carefully limited building heights. Along its edge, new structures blend seamlessly with the surroundings, offering ground-level commercial and civic spaces. Adaptable shopfronts and awning-covered spaces ensure the street remains a dynamic hub for local businesses.

A key milestone in the transformation is relocating Fore Street Library to a contemporary, purpose-built facility. This new space enhances its role as a cultural anchor, offering expanded community services and creating a hub for learning and engagement.

To the south, taller buildings, including the striking 26-story Block D, form a bold gateway to Enfield. Block D serves as both a landmark and a practical orientation point, clad in red brick, marking key routes through the area.

The masterplan emphasizes accessibility and active travel, with pedestrian-friendly streets designed to TfL’s ‘Healthy Streets’ standards. A new crossing over the North Circular (A406) improves connectivity to Silver Street Station and Pymmes Park, while an east-west route links Fore Street to the railway and North Middlesex Hospital. This integrated network redefines the estate as a vibrant, inclusive, and future-ready community.

The landscape masterplan for Joyce and Snell’s Park Estate aims to establish a more symbiotic relationship between new homes and more natural green spaces. Connecting Pymmes Park and Silver Street Station in the north to Tottenham in the south, the masterplan establishes a beautiful green spine to create a nature-rich heart for the whole community, offering residents a picturesque retreat from the hustle and bustle of nearby Fore Street.

Anchoring the park are two dynamic play spaces providing unique experiences for children and families. To the south, a play area surrounded by flowering meadows and open lawns invites leisure and exploration. In the north, a woodland-themed play space integrates seamlessly with existing trees, offering a contrasting yet complementary natural adventure. These areas are connected by meadows and biodiverse swales, forming an ecological spine that weaves through the new neighbourhood, fostering both beauty and biodiversity.

At the park’s heart lies a central square, a welcoming civic space that reimagines community interaction. This square also serves as a grand entrance to St John and St James Primary School, emphasising connection and accessibility. Adjacent to the school, an all-weather pitch, community garden, nursery, and community centre create a multi-functional hub where education, recreation, and community life converge.

Previously, the estate’s green areas were fragmented and dominated by short, mown grass with little ecological or social value. The new design introduces diverse, climate-resilient plantings that invite nature back into the estate. Mature trees have been preserved, while 800 new trees are being planted to enhance canopy cover and provide welcome summer shade.

Together, these interventions create a rich, sustainable environment where wildlife thrives and people flourish. The reimagined landscape isn’t just a backdrop—it’s a living, breathing part of the community, designed to nurture connections, resilience, and joy for generations to come.

In providing advice and strategic planning direction to the Council throughout the determination period, we were agile and responsive to the constantly changing legislative framework and the vacuum between outdated and emerging, but unadopted, local planning policy. Once agreed upon with the LPA, we coordinated rapid amendments to the application to minimise disruption to the programme and ensure vital grant funding conditions were met.

Our masterplan for the Joyce and Snell’s Park Estate adopts a holistic strategy for delivering more sustainable outcomes, achieving exceptional performance standards that benefit both residents and the environment. From the outset, the project has focused on significantly reducing carbon emissions, targeting an ambitious 87% reduction in the first phase and aiming for net-zero carbon across later phases. Central to this effort is the estate’s connection to Energetik, a cutting-edge low-carbon energy network. Using waste-to-heat technology, Energetik provides efficient, sustainable heating and hot water, reducing reliance on traditional fossil fuels.

Rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels enhance the estate’s energy efficiency, converting sunlight into renewable energy to reduce carbon and save money. The use of high-quality, energy-efficient building materials ensures that homes meet and exceed the highest environmental standards, including BREEAM Communities certification. These measures demonstrate a commitment to a greener future while improving residents’ quality of life.

The masterplan integrates an ecological spine—a continuous green corridor that connects areas of soft landscaping and swales designed to manage water runoff. This feature reduces flood risks and creates a haven for biodiversity. Green roofs, permeable surfaces, and sustainable urban drainage systems work in tandem to enhance stormwater management and foster ecological health. By prioritizing walking and cycling and minimizing car use, the estate encourages greener modes of transport, contributing to improved air quality and healthier lifestyles.

Beyond environmental sustainability, the redevelopment emphasizes social value for Upper Edmonton. A centrepiece of this vision is Angel’s Yard—a purpose-built hub featuring 35 light industrial workshops. Supported by the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund, this space empowers local entrepreneurs aged 19-30 with tools, training, and a start-up program to commercialize their business ideas. Together, these initiatives ensure the estate becomes a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive community for generations to come.

HTA Planning played a critical role in determining the planning strategy and advising on complex policy compliance matters. We began by mapping out options for successful delivery, resulting in the ‘hybrid’ planning approach to best align with the Council’s vision of self-delivering better homes within a safer neighbourhood through a self-delivery vehicle. This dovetailed with the site masterplanning process and formed the blueprint for pre-application engagement, shaped by extensive consultation with the local community.

A process of ongoing planning review of masterplan testing and options, alongside consistent planning appraisal and advice to the Council, enabled the design to positively address key policy issues, including housing need, tenure and mix, tall buildings, open space and design quality. A considered response to the sensitive heritage and townscape context posed by the Fore Street Conservation Area and other nearby heritage assets, including adjacent Victorian terraces and the modernist characteristics of the existing estate buildings, was a priority. This required us to carefully negotiate with the LPA to demonstrate that the scale and design of the development would significantly improve their setting.

Working closely with the design team, we developed an optimal approach to phasing to reassure the LPA that the initial phases of development could adequately identify and mitigate harm to heritage assets through a legible building hierarchy. Subsequently, this guided a robust design framework for buildings in later phases through the Design Code and Parameter Plans.

In providing advice and strategic planning direction to the Council throughout the determination period, we were agile and responsive to the constantly changing legislative framework and the vacuum between outdated and emerging, but unadopted, local planning policy. Once agreed upon with the LPA, we coordinated rapid amendments to the application to minimise disruption to the programme and ensure vital grant funding conditions were met.

The project has evolved through a programme of extensive community engagement to ensure the project reflects the needs and aspirations of residents. We first met the community in 2017, holding workshops and walkabouts to identify key issues on the estate, such as antisocial behavior, underused spaces, and poor security.

From this, we explored a number of ‘approaches’ to the future of the area, including ‘do nothing’, infill, partial development, and wholesale demolition and rebuild. A 2019 survey of all residents confirmed an overwhelming preference for comprehensive redevelopment, giving the council a clear mandate to pursue this approach.

Key community stakeholders involved included residents, tenant groups, and cultural associations. Specific groups such as the Somali Community Association, the Muslim Cultural Society, and the St John & St James Church of England Primary School were involved in various phases of the consultation. Businesses along Fore Street were also engaged to ensure the redevelopment would meet their requirements. During the process, translators and translated materials were provided to overcome language barriers, reflecting the diversity of the local community.

The project team gathered valuable feedback through a combination of exhibitions, door-knocking campaigns, virtual meetings, and surveys. Concerns around safety, housing need, and the provision of green space featured strongly in the conversations. This led to adjustments to building access, new parks and green space, better lighting, and improved passive surveillance. The inclusion of private outdoor space also evolved from resident feedback.

The masterplan and every aspect of the design proposals were developed and refined through a further programme of engagement, culminating in a formal ballot in 2021. Based on a turnout of 85%, a full 78% of residents voted in favour of the proposals being delivered through a hybrid planning application.