GLA: government is ignoring our office-to-resi warnings
Central government is failing to listen to the Greater London Authority’s pleas for more control over commercial-to-residential development, according to a senior City Hall planning official.
Speaking at today’s Regeneration Committee at the London Assembly, Gerard Burgess, senior strategic planner at the GLA, said that the government’s permitted development rights policy was too focused on unit numbers and warned about the negative impact on town centres.
He said: “We have told [the Department for Communities and Local Government] that it is having a significant effect on town centres. It does seem that they are focused on unit numbers in relation to PDR.
Central government is failing to listen to the Greater London Authority’s pleas for more control over commercial-to-residential development, according to a senior City Hall planning official.
Speaking at today’s Regeneration Committee at the London Assembly, Gerard Burgess, senior strategic planner at the GLA, said that the government’s permitted development rights policy was too focused on unit numbers and warned about the negative impact on town centres.
He said: “We have told [the Department for Communities and Local Government] that it is having a significant effect on town centres. It does seem that they are focused on unit numbers in relation to PDR.
“We are also interested in numbers, but we also need quality and affordability. We have told DCLG that we want to intensify sites so that there is no loss of employment space, alongside the provision of new, high quality homes.
“PDR does not work for London, but it seems like they are not listening at DCLG.”
The impact of the PDR, introduced in 2013, will be stepped up in October when the government will introduce the same planning relaxation to conversions of light industrial space to residential.
A recent review of London office space produced by the GLA showed that nearly 40% of conversions currently taking place in London involve offices that were occupied before they were converted. Denise Beedell, development manager at the Federation of Small Businesses, said developers were exploiting the policy and losing active employment space, when the policy was designed to bring empty buildings back into use.
The London Assembly has a cross-party consensus in opposing the PDR policy; GLA officials are working with boroughs to introduce Article 4 directions, which allow them to override PDR in particular geographical areas.
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