You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Labour pledges to scrap office conversion rules
A future Labour government would scrap rules allowing developers to convert offices into housing without planning permission, the shadow housing secretary has said.
John Healey vowed to end so-called “permitted development” that allows developers to avoid the ordinary planning process if they are converting offices into housing.
This means, for example, that they are not bound by Section 106 obligations to build a certain percentage of affordable homes or by quality guidelines.
Mr Healey said: “Conservative permitted development rules have created a get-out clause for developers to dodge affordable homes requirements and build slum housing.
“To fix the housing crisis, we need more genuinely affordable, high-quality homes. This Conservative housing free-for-all gives developers a free hand to build what they want but ignore what local communities need.”
Research by the Local Government Association estimated that over 10,000 affordable homes have been lost as a result of these rules in the past three years.
READ MORE
It also found that around nine out of 10 councils were concerned about the quality and appropriateness of housing built under these rules, and six out of 10 were concerned about safety.
The rules were brought in by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2013 in order to boost housebuilding numbers and, according to government figures, 42,000 homes have been built as a result in the three years from 2015.
Labour, however, said that these included some homes that are just a few feet wide in converted office blocks.
Research from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has found that permitted development “has allowed extremely poor-quality housing to be developed”, with only 30% of homes built under the rules meeting minimum space standards.
Nick Raynsford, a former housing minister under the New Labour government, proposed the scrapping of this system in November last year in his review of the planning system.
The government, though, is proposing to expand permitted development rights.
In this year’s Spring Statement, chancellor Philip Hammond announced that developers would now be able to bypass the planning process if they are extending buildings upwards or converting takeaway restaurants into housing.
This was announced despite a variety of organisations, including the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Local Government Association, writing to housing minister Kit Malthouse in January urging him to reconsider this plan.
