Permitted Development - Failing the modern city

I was invited By Turley Planning Consultants to join a panel discussionat the London Property Summit on November 19 2014.

The debate discussed the use classes, and in particular the change from B1a, (office) to C3 (residential). This is a particularly hot topic in Westminster, planning policy encourages it. But more importantly it is the DCLG’s (Department for Communities and Local Government) revision to the permitted development policy that we focussed on.

Westminster’s position was stated by John Walker, and the DCLG was represented by Steve Quartermain the governments Chief planner. The discussion was chaired by Liz Peace of the BPF (British Property Federation), and Mike Lowndes of Turley and Faraz Baber of London First completed the panel.

It was a feisty debate, the subject is red hot, with the empty flats argument, loss of office space and the overheated residential market frequently discussed in the newspapers.

Bluntly, the Government’s Permitted Development (PD) policy is over simplistic and failing. It set out to solve the problem of providing much needed housing by allowing the conversion of redundant or underused office buildings in secondary locations to residential. In fact the result of this policy, some would say predictably, is that perfectly decent well used offices in prime locations are being emptied to provide upmarket residential accommodation. It is a nationwide policy that is totally inappropriate in Central London, where is Localism now?

There are other problems too. Local Authorities lose Business Rates, there is no need to provide any affordable housing, the mix of unit sizes is unregulated, there is no Section 106 contribution, the accommodation may be in unsuitable location, next to noisy premises for example and so on. Some would argue that the market will determine what is desired, but I feel that this is wrong, this is a policy that looks at land value not land use.

Architecturally there is also an important issue, in the wealthier London Boroughs it is hard to find examples of poor quality 50s and 60s buildings, in recent years they have mostly been redeveloped. It is relatively straightforward to redevelop an office building, but if an ugly office building is converted to flats and sold on long leases redevelopment is almost impossible. In other words the PD rules act to preserve poor quality architecture and townscape.

It is not difficult to imagine the moment this simplistic idea was thought up, like most big ideas it fails to understand the complexity and sophistication of the modern city. And as ever, when politicians try to control the property market it has backfired.

Ironically the Westminster office to residential policy is under review, by the time the policy change is implemented the market will have moved on, in fact it already has. The loss of so much office by conversion has created a shortfall, supply is low, demand is high and rents are rising rapidly. In the coming months some of those recently consented and not implemented residential schemes will be reappraised as offices.