This government is condemning a new generation to slum housing

Developers no longer require planning permission, but simply a light-touch process of ‘prior approval’, which strictly limits the considerations local authorities can apply to the decision – any requirements on health and well-being or climate mitigation, for example.

Government insiders regard this policy as extremely clever, because it removes the need for a proper national plan for housing growth – which would require political bravery. Instead, tens of thousands of new homes can be produced in an entirely unplanned way with minimal, if any, requirements to ensure they support people’s health and well-being.  

The results of this ‘permitted development’ have been an unmitigated disaster. Converting industrial and commercial buildings into accommodation for some of our most vulnerable people must surely be one of the most immoral and shameful planning policies ever conceived. We are already seeing the consequences.

“That conscious effort to create poor housing standards is perhaps the most shocking part of the expansion of permitted development”

While the government is uninterested in any moral arguments about basic living conditions for people, it should reflect that some of the most infamous of these permitted development rights conversions, including Terminus House in Harlow, will eventually require major public investment to bring them up to an acceptable standard for human habitation.

And of course, there are the gargantuan costs to the NHS of a conscious policy to provide substandard housing. The Building Research Establishment estimates that if we continue on this track, poor housing will cost us over £135.5bn in the next 30 years.

That conscious effort to create poor housing standards is perhaps the most shocking part of the expansion of permitted development. The unpopular high-rise social homes of the 1960s were at least motivated by the intent to create better housing conditions for people. This expansion of permitted development consciously ignores a large weight of evidence presented to the government about its negative consequences.

It is true that, as a result of the outrage about the conditions created by permitted development, the government introduced a requirement for a national space standard and for natural light. Unfortunately, this isn’t a requirement for a window: a glimpse of reflected light will do.  

The TCPA supports the conversion of buildings to homes where it’s done to the right standard in the right place, with the facilities that make life worth living.

But rather than learn the lessons of the human cost of permitted development, the secretary of state has instead announced a significant expansion of it, including the conversion of hostels and hotels and a major relaxation on the limitations on the size of buildings that can be converted.

“Converting industrial and commercial buildings into accommodation for some of our most vulnerable people must surely be one of the most immoral and shameful planning policies ever conceived”

Other hard-fought safeguards for national parks and conservation areas will go. We believe, although it’s not clear from the consultation, that space standards will remain, but the new policy comes without a single safeguard for the wider health and well-being of residents or for the provision of basic services.

If up to 10 housing units can be converted from a single farm building without planning permission, how will the new residents get anywhere without a total reliance on car travel? 

The answer to the housing question was always self-evident: build new, net-zero communities. Instead, Michael Gove’s commitment to the expansion of permitted development will condemn a new generation to slum housing conditions.

The future of your village, town or city centre will now be determined by Whitehall, not local decision-makers.  

The secretary of state could easily support amendments to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill which secure national housing standards. If he really believes that the quality of our homes determines our health, happiness, prosperity and productivity, then he must finally show some moral leadership and back the standards this nation so desperately needs.   

Hugh Ellis, director of policy, Town and Country Planning Association