The councillor in charge of a £2.5bn housing development as accused opponents of “economic illiteracy” after criticism of his methods.

Cllr Alan Sitkin, cabinet member for economic regeneration at Enfield Council, spoke at a meeting last night where the developer for the Meridian Water housing project was selected.

The council came in for criticism earlier this week after it emerged landowners were threatening to sell land earmarked for Meridian Water to a third party if their financial demands were not met.

Enfield Conservatives leader Terry Neville accused the Labour cabinet of “incompetence”, and said a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) should have been used to guarantee the land went to the council.

He said last week: “We have been warning the council for years that they need to compulsorily purchase this land to avoid exactly this situation arising. They arrogantly ignored us and the taxpayer of Enfield is now going to have to foot the bill.

“The cabinet member in charge of Meridian Water, though it is never clear who that actually is given the lack of leadership shown, should apologise to the people of Enfield for this mess."

However in a fiery speech Cllr Sitkin said their arguments were flawed.

He said: “I am always flabbergasted by the economic illiteracy of the Tory minority. The idea that there is only one buyer in an economy – if one of my students told me that, they would flunk.

“The council was never going to be the only buyer, yet the Conservatives say that would be normal, which is dangerous when we are in the middle of negotiations, it sends out the wrong message to those we are dealing with.

“I would ask the Conservatives to go back to high school, and I am sorry for our press that they were passed such substandard information.”

Cllr Sitkin said they have already acquired enough land to build 10 years’ worth of housing supply, but were still seeking more in order to build the 8,000 homes in the Meridian Water plan.

He said: “Our work on Meridian Water is ongoing and will continue for months to come. There is no worry or urgency to get more land, but we are moving in that direction.

“This council always purchases land at the right price for the people of Enfield, and we have succeeded at this so far.

“There have been many ill-informed statements on CPOs, that the council is being held to ransom, which are not true. CPOs do not mean we pay less, we still pay the market value, what we are doing allows us to negotiate and make sure the numbers stack up.”

The developer selected last night cannot yet be named as the defeated bidders have the right of appeal, although a council source said it is expected they will be revealed on Monday.