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TCPA launches campaign against office-to-resi development
The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has announced a new campaign calling on the government to reverse its policy to allow more developers to bypass the planning system.
Under permitted development rights, commercial and office buildings can be converted into housing without needing planning permission.
In his Autumn Budget statement last month, chancellor Philip Hammond announced that the freedoms would be extended to include non-residential buildings demolished and then rebuilt as homes.
Permitted development rules were significantly expanded under former communities secretary Eric Pickles in 2013 with the intention of boosting housebuilding – and around 100,000 homes have been delivered this way over the past five years.
However, critics of the policy say it allows developers to build homes well below space standards, remote from infrastructure or with insufficient natural light, as well as dodging affordable housing obligations.
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Dr Hugh Ellis, interim chief executive of the TCPA, said: “Permitted development is one of the biggest housing mistakes in post-war history and the legacy will blight a whole generation of people who are condemned to live in tiny cramped conditions without any basic care for their health and well-being.”
“This policy must be stopped before we deliver 21st century slums.”
Listen to a podcast interviewing Nick Raynsford about the planning system:
The TCPA – which was formerly led by National Housing Federation chief executive Kate Henderson – is calling for better data on the effects of permitted development rights and tougher national design rules for housing.
Nick Raynsford, president of the TCPA and a former housing minister under Tony Blair, last week published a review of the planning system that recommended ministers “urgently” restrict permitted development.
