New Permitted Development Rights (PDRs) came into force on 1st August allowing change of use of the new Class E to C3 residential. The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has commissioned a report on what the impacts of this could be.
The findings
Under the new PD Rights, almost all shops, cafés, restaurants, gyms, nurseries and day centres (Use Class E) can be converted into homes (Use Class C3) without having to apply for full planning permission. Looking across four local authority areas in different contexts, the TCPA’s report found that 80.3% of shops and other commercial uses could be lost to residential conversion. These included: 89% for Barnet; 77% in Leicester and Crawley; 75% in Huntingdonshire.
What is notable is just how many could be converted under the old PDR, and presumably have not been. This does indicate that take-up may not been as high as the report suggests. However, across the four areas, approximately one third more properties will now be eligible and take-up could accelerate post-Covid.
Short-term opportunity…
This will potentially create the opportunity to bring vacant buildings back into use, particularly as a result of the longer-term impacts of Covid on town centres, due to changes in working and shopping patterns. Many centres already had high vacancy rates and some consolidation could improve the overall health of centres. It will also undoubtedly help deliver more housing, which remains a critical issue.
…Long-term cost?
However, it also raises the threat of the further hollowing out of town centres, as the critical mass of facilities and services are lost, further undermining the vitality and viability of centres. Given centres are generally a bellwether for the health of a community, this makes claims of ‘reinvigorating’ towns, ‘levelling up’ ‘left-behind’ places potentially ring hollow.
It is part of a wider trend of the Government introducing changes the planning system itself by stealth, so that even if the ambitions of the Planning White Paper are pared back, it is likely it may have ultimately achieved many of its aims.
It also raises several other issues, including:
- The issue of the quality of homes that will be delivered through Permitted Development Rights, which until now have generally been poor
- The spectre of increasing numbers of shops and offices being provided in unsustainable out-of-town locations accessible only by car, and
- The undermining of local democracy and the over-centralisation of planning powers.
Arguably, while the Government is on the one hand promoting the idea of a more visionary and design-literate planning system and promoting ambitious climate targets, the mechanisms for achieving those ends are simultaneously being stripped away.
There will undoubtedly be opportunities for developers created by the new flexibilities to convert commercial, business and service uses to residential and in some cases this is welcomed. But we need also to be mindful of the broader, long-term impacts of these changes, particularly on efforts to regenerate town centres and by extension the health of the wider community. In so doing there is a significant risk of ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’ and consigning the much vaunted ‘levelling up’ agenda to the dustbin.
- Mike Fox, Planning Director