By Vivienne Russell
8 April 2011
Ministers plan to remove planning rules on converting empty office space into housing.
Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles today launched a consultation on scrapping the planning approval requirement for changing the use of a property from commercial to residential.
Office vacancy rates are at an average of 9% across England, and highest in London and the East Midlands. But only 2.8% of the 129,000 new homes built last year came from office conversions. The Department for Communities and Local Government estimates that if all the long-term office space currently available was converted, it could create 250,000 new homes.
Pickles said his objective was to slash through the bureaucracy that can make such conversions difficult to secure.
‘By unshackling developers from a legacy of bureaucratic planning, we can help them turn thousands of vacant commercial properties into enough homes to jump start housing supply and help get the economy back on track,’ he said.
‘Councils already have powers to give greater local planning discretion and they should use them more to promote growth.’
The government is also urging councils to make greater use of the powers they already have to relax planning constraints locally so they can target specific local issues.
The Royal Town Planning Institute said it would be responding to the consultation fully in due course. But a spokesman told Public Finance that the institute had initial concerns about whether former office sites were in locations where people would want to live as well as the possibility of depriving start-up businesses of quickly available premises.
The consultation closes on June 30.
