ENFIELD Council have been told to finalise a deal for housing development land by next week – or lose it.

As part of a £2.5 billion project at Meridian Water, near Lea Valley Regional Park, Edmonton, the authority are in the process of buying up the land needed for the proposed 8,000 homes.

However, a council document seen by the Enfield Independent has said unless a deal is sorted by May 24, then the current owner of one area of the site will be able to sell it to another party.

It also states an offer from someone else has already been made for the land and the council believe an “emergency budget” needs to be approved to complete the deal.

Council bosses have insisted they are in control of the plans, adding they are moving quickly to finalise the plans.

However, it says they did not expect the vendor would want to do a deal so quickly, and so have brought forward the decision on setting a budget without the usual 28 day notice for discussions.

The document says: “The council’s agent is negotiating several land deals on the council’s behalf, and this deal has come forward a lot earlier than was originally expected, hence the reason for urgency.

“It is clear that the council needs to be able to move very quickly on this item and to have a chance of purchasing the land it is necessary that Cabinet agree a budget for the purchase on May 18.”

The Conservative group in Enfield has demanded the council explain its strategy for land purchasing at Meridian Water, calling it incompetent.

Cllr Terry Neville, leader of the Conservative group, said the council should issue a compulsory purchase order, meaning landowners have to sell to the authority and not drive the price up by attempting to sell to other people.

He said: “The only winner out of this is going to be land owner who has created a financial competition for the land he holds.

“The loser will be the taxpayers of Enfield who will watch as their Labour Councillors spend huge sums of money due to, I am afraid to say, incompetence.

“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."

Cllr Alan Sitkin, cabinet member for economic development, said he expected the project to be delivered on time and with no added costs, and accused Cllr Neville of deliberately trying to mislead the public.

He said: “If he is willing to enter into proper factual debate, that is fine, but he should not be making such stupid comments.

“Meridian Water, put simply, will provide us with the jobs, training and opportunities to life some of our most deprived communities out of poverty by providing good quality employment opportunities in the heart of their community.

“These plans have been praised by almost everyone, including Conservative members of the Greater London Authority, and by developers in the private sector.

“I work as a teacher in my full time job, and I expect my pupils would come up with more informed comment than Terry Neville has here.”

A developer - Barratts and Segro, Berkeley Homes or Pacific Century Premium Develop and Willmott Dixon - for the Meridian Water housing estate will be nominated at a council cabinet meeting on Wednesday.