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Morning Briefing: government ‘reviewing’ office-to-resi rules
The government is reviewing its permitted development right policy, which allows offices to be converted into homes without planning permission, the BBC reports, and other housing news
Communities secretary James Brokenshire said yesterday that he would be looking “at where the burden lies” regarding pressures involved when rehousing families from London.
It came after Robert Halfon, Conservative MP for Harlow, said that the policy “has not worked” and had “allowed landlords to build ghettos and allowed London councillors to socially cleanse their most vulnerable families to places like Harlow”.
The exchange came after a BBC investigation into an office-to-residential block in Harlow used as temporary accommodation for homeless people by London councils.
It comes as the Reading Chronicle reports that Reading Council estimates it has lost £6m and 515 affordable homes since permitted development rights were extended in 2013.
Meanwhile, a probe by Hackney Council into its £246m in housing contracts has uncovered widespread overcharging, poor jobs and a “dishonourable culture”, according to the Hackney Gazette.
Staying in London, developer Hill Partnerships has been appointed to build the first 227 homes in Notting Hill Genesis’ regeneration of the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark in a £70m deal, Construction Enquirer reports.
And Sutton Council has appointed homelessness charity St Mungo’s to provide support to around 200 people to keep them in their homes, per This is Local London.
In housing market news, Property Wire runs a story on research from estate agent Hamptons International that has found that the average time it takes for a first-time buyer to save for a deposit has fallen, but is still more than a decade.
Elsewhere, The Irish News reports that academics and aid groups in Northern Ireland have warned that the region faces a “welfare cliff edge” in a year’s time when mitigation measures end, causing “mass evictions on an unimaginable scale”.
And in Scotland, The Southern Reporter says that Scottish Borders Council’s purchase of a 109-acre country estate for 300 new homes looks set to cost £1.5m more than was previously admitted.
On social media
Will be my pleasure my friend #MoreBetterFaster t.co/0VzhgeBYaG
— Kit Malthouse MP - Housing Minister (@kitmalthouse)Will be my pleasure my friend #MoreBetterFaster https://t.co/0VzhgeBYaG
— Kit Malthouse MP - Housing Minister (@kitmalthouse) April 8, 2019
What’s on
- MPs will hold a general debate on housing in the House of Commons this afternoon
- A Westminster Hall debate starts at 9.30am on the devolution of welfare
