Clifford, B; Ferm, JA; Livingstone, N; Canelas, P; (2018) Delivering the housing England needs? Exploring the implications of the deregulation of planning control governing the change of use from office to residential. Presented at: Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) Annual Congress 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Slideshow AESOP presentation 120718 - Clifford et al FINAL.ppt Download (3MB)

Abstract

In England, it has been possible since 2013 to convert an office building into residential use without requiring planning permission. At the time, the Conservative-led coalition government promised this would deliver more homes, help regenerate town centres, and have no adverse impacts, at a time when there was a desperate housing need. This paper summarises our recent research investigating the implications of this deregulatory ‘permitted development’ approach. Drawing on case studies from five different local authorities across England (the London Boroughs of Camden and Croydon, Leeds, Leicester and Reading), we discuss the way that this permitted development has led to variable quality, facilitating some extremely poor conversions with design issues and low residential amenity (for example falling below minimum residential space standards, rooms with no natural light or ventilation, no access to private or shared outdoor space, and in unsuitable locations with incompatible neighbouring buildings and land-uses). There has also been an adverse impact on local authorities in terms of lost opportunity to deliver affordable housing and lost income to provide the social, physical and green infrastructure to support the new housing delivered. Comparison case studies from Glasgow and Rotterdam question the need for this deregulation in the first place, as opposed to other softer governance approaches. Our conclusions are that the planning system has an important role in maintaining standards for housing development, and that the ‘permitted development’ approach in England (driven by neoliberal political ideology) is having a range of negative consequences threatening the creation of sustainable communities.

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