
14.02.2024
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Yesterday, the Government announced it would be pushing planners in England’s 20 largest cities and towns to pursue a presumption in favour of housing development on brownfield land. Following the move by Government to remove the requirement for Council’s in England to meet their objectively assessed needs when faced with difficult choices, such as release of Green Belt land, there is now a push to make best use of land in urban areas, especially brownfield land.
Stop me, if you think you’ve heard this all before?!
The presumption in favour of sustainable development, a key thread running through the NPPF since its introduction in 2012, hasn’t sought to differentiate between greenfield and brownfield land, with encouragement always provided to redevelopment of brownfield land in the first instance. However, this does somewhat ignore commercial realities where the cost of redevelopment of brownfield land is sometimes prohibitively expensive when compared to other sites. It will be interesting, therefore, to understand how this ‘new’ push by Government to unlock brownfield land will work in practice, however, more on that in another article.
As well as the above, the Government has also released an update to Permitted Development Rights in relation to the change of use of commercial, business and service uses to dwellinghouses contained within Class MA. Previously Class MA changes of use required the building changing use to have been vacant for a period of 3 months prior to application. In addition, the permitted development right only allowed for a maximum of 1,500sqm of floorspace to change use. Both of these requirements have now been removed. This significantly expands the range of commercial buildings which might be available for conversion. This change is due to come into effect on 5th March 2024.
It will be interesting to understand whether this will truly unlock more housing, however, the removal of these two requirements certainly provides more flexibility to developers/landowners. However, the regulations still have many requirements and pit falls which will need to be carefully considered. DHA are actively engaged in a number of these projects and would be delighted to provide advice and assistance to anyone considering applying for prior approval for the change of use of a building (currently in Class E use) to dwellinghouses.
Alongside the above changes, the Government have also released a further consultation on changes to permitted development rights in addition to those they consulted on last year (my article on those can be found here https://www.dhaplanning.co.uk/knowledge/getting-to-grips-with-housing-delivery-or-more-hot-air) and on which we await the results. However, the consultation launched yesterday proposes further changes to the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO), with responses due by 9 April 2024. There are a number of changes proposed as summarised here:
DHA will continue to monitor the progress of these consultations and will provide updates once further steps and/or changes are announced by the Government.
Please contact Matt Garvey for further information.
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