Liberal Democrats promise to axe office-to-homes PD rights

A planning expert has said that the decision to axe a policy that the Liberal Democrats helped to introduce only two years ago demonstrates the difficulty of balancing the environmental and economic aspects of the government's national planning policy.

The government introduced a temporary permitted development (PD) right in May 2013 allowing developers to convert offices to homes in most parts of England without having to apply to local councils for full planning permission.

In its technical consultation on planning last year, the government said it was considering making the PD right permanent. However, it faced strong opposition to the proposal, particularly from councils in London and members of the London Assembly, and mayor of London Boris Johnson wrote to the government in September to make "a vigorous case for the retention of business space in London".

While communities secretary Eric Pickles said last month that the government would "further consider the case for extending the office to residential reforms", an extension was not included in the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Order 2015, which was laid before parliament before its dissolution ahead of the general election and introduced a raft of new PD rights.

Planning expert Ben Arrowsmith of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "The original PD right allowing conversion of offices to residential was brought in by the coalition government, of which the Liberal Democrats were a member, with a view to helping provide more new homes on brownfield land. The fact that the government proposed extending the right to beyond 2016 and then such proposal failed to make it on to the statute books is illustrative of the collective unease at the impact of loss of office space."

"The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was a vociferous opponent of the extension of this right," said Arrowsmith. "London boroughs, in particular, the City of Westminster and the City of London have keenly felt the reduced office space in what are key economic centres for the country. The Liberal Democrats are clearly taking on board the views of, primarily, London boroughs in pledging to axe the PD right."

"What this issue illustrates quite neatly is the tension between the social/environmental and economic tenets of the National Planning Policy Framework: one would look towards retaining the PD right to re-use buildings thereby helping prevent a loss of green belt and the other would require the axing of the PD right to aid economic sustainability."

The Liberal Democrat Party is the minority party in the existing coalition government in the UK and it may hold the balance of power again following the general election on 7 May. Its manifesto also included pledges to deliver 300,000 new homes a year, to build at least 10 new garden cities, to require councils to plan with neighbouring authorities for 15 years of housing need, and to introduce a community right of appeal where planning permissions contradict local planning policy.