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The use classes order stops here - All change, please!
SUMMARY
Following announcements in the Budget, the latest consultation from the DCLG relates to the proposal to allow the use of offices, factories or warehouses to change to residential use without the need for planning permission. It is part of a major shake-up in the Use Classes Order (UCO) and the Permitted Development (PD) rights linked to changes of use, both of which are seen by the government as obstructions to economic growth.
Justification
The country needs more housing land and its scarcity raises land costs which, we are told, deters development. The government’s answer is to encourage the change of use of redundant buildings in commercial use (B1, B2 and B8) to housing (C3) use, with planning permission only required for material changes to the exterior or for identified works of mitigation, allowing, therefore, that the principle of the change of use would be beyond dispute.
In addition, the proposals consider the possibility of an extension to existing PD rights, which permit a single dwelling ”over the shop”, so as to allow more than one new unit.
Lastly, the possibility is suggested that town centre properties, vacant for some time, may be occupied for other uses on a temporary basis without the need for a change of use.
Comment
The UCO has changed little since 1987, when we lost some of the more exotic retail (catsmeat or tripe shops) or industrial (blood-boiling or maggot-breeding) uses. New uses have come in, such as the subdivision of the restaurant class into A3, A4 and A5, and the housing classes have been chopped and changed to try and fit in HMOs and student houses. Overall, though, the UCO is pretty much as it ever was and the permitted development rights to change within and between classes have barely changed at all. You can still go down the A and B classes without making a planning application, but not up, and no-one still has any real concept of whether a change of use is material or not (only material changes amount to development). It is therefore fair to say that the Use Classes Order and Part Three of the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO) schedule (dealing with changes of use as permitted development) do need a bloody good going over if the government wishes to free up the use of property and make the system work in favour of those who seek to make full use of underused or vacant buildings. But is this it?
It’s all a bit piecemeal, and the RTPI think it will result in a system that is “difficult to understand and to enforce” – nothing new there then (it’s why planning consultants are so necessary and worthwhile). To a degree this view is understandable, because there will surely need to be so many codicils and exemptions, to protect land and buildings actually needed for commercial use or unsuited to housing use, that the system will be more complicated rather than less.
It must surely be the case that industrial buildings are where they are because they are not suitable for residential use; maybe they are in areas more prone to flooding, have poor public transport access or are simply surrounded by like uses which make bad neighbours for housing. The buildings themselves are unlikely to be of a type which lend themselves to conversion, and, if you have to make an application to put in the windows and doors, where is the saving in time and effort?
More likely contenders must be offices. They will generally be in town centres, have plenty of natural light, car parking and even scope for amenity space (on the roof?). Many redundant offices have been converted, with the usual proviso that they must have been empty for a given period and marketed unsuccessfully, and getting rid of such constraints may bring older office buildings into new residential use. This in turn might be extended to C1 uses (hotels), C2 uses (residential institutions), C4 uses (HMOs) or halls of residence and hostels. Maybe the government’s intention is already to throw the whole C Use Class into the pot. Many older industrial buildings, mills, factories and warehouses, do make for exclusive conversions, but is planning is actually an obstacle in such cases? Probably not, compared perhaps to listed building consent. Modern industrial buildings are unlikely to be suitable for conversion, due to their construction and their location.
There is a very fine distinction between the need to maintain a supply of land and buildings for employment uses and the need to increase the supply of land for housing, when both are essential. Maybe the Use Classes Order and the GPDO are the wrong tools to use in maintaining that delicate balance. One might question the degree to which this thinking is “joined-up”, to the extent that it might fit in with the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and with the need for affordable housing, both of which might be side-stepped if large commercial buildings can be converted to flats without a planning application and without a s106 Agreement.
This follows a similar line to other bright ideas coming out of the Budget, not least the “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, which sounds positive but so far appears to be faltering due to a lack of any meaningful definition of sustainable development.
On the minor points, more flats over shops must be a good thing and more flexible use of vacant shops is all to the good, though it places a big burden on Oxfam and their like to fill them all.
Conclusions
It’s one thing to recognise a problem and quite another to create the right tools to tackle that problem. The government is right to seek the best use of redundant land and buildings to address the shortage of housing land, and, in the case of offices, maybe they are heading in the right direction in making their conversion easier. Whether yet another bout of nibbling around the edges of the Use Classes Order is the right tool for the job must be open to question, and there remain a lot of questions. To use the same tool in the context of modern industrial buildings probably comes from the Harry Enfield school of planning – “Nice, but dim!.”
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