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Michael Gove’s push to convert shops and offices into thousands of new homes in England risks a surge in poor quality housing, industry experts and campaign groups have warned.
The housing secretary is pushing for legislation to expand permitted development rights (PDR) that would allow commercial buildings to become residential properties without planning permission, regardless of their size, from March.
But experts warned that loosening the rules risked a return to vast buildings being swiftly divided up into poor quality homes, a problem that led to policy changes after prime minister David Cameron’s government attempted to liberalise PDR.
“It feels like we didn’t learn the lesson. It was the bigger buildings that were lower quality in many cases,” said Ben Clifford, a professor at University College London, who led two major studies of housing created through PDR.
In a 2020 study commissioned by the government, Clifford found that just 22 per cent of PDR housing units created between 2015 and 2018 met the normal standard for the size of units. He also found examples of apartments built with no windows.
In 2021, ministers introduced limits on converting larger buildings and tighter rules about the minimum size of units and access to natural light.
Housing and industry groups called on the government — which is under pressure to tackle the chronic undersupply of housing ahead of the next election — to ensure the new bid to liberalise the policy included “quality controls”.
Melanie Leech, chief executive of the British Property Federation, said it was “paramount that there is effective ‘quality control’ in place to make sure that we do not end up with poor quality homes in our town centres”.
Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said it was “essential that regulatory safeguards are in place to ensure the safety, quality, accessibility, and connectivity of these converted properties”.
Experts also warned that a boom in PDR could lead to less affordable housing, because these developments are exempt from including affordable homes and making contributions to local infrastructure.
About 100,000 homes have been created through permitted development since the rules were first liberalised by Cameron’s government in 2013, according to analysis of government data by estate agency Savills.
The number of new homes has fallen in recent years, totalling just over 9,000 last year, as a result of tighter standards and the supply of easily converted buildings being used up. The government said on Tuesday it hoped expanding the policy would result in “thousands of quality new homes by 2030”.
Justin Young, chief executive of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said he backed the principle of adapting unused buildings.
Record-high office vacancy after Covid-19 and the number of bricks-and-mortar shops pushed out of business by ecommerce means there are more buildings in need of repurposing.
“There will be a big pipeline of interest. However, you cannot ignore either quality of build or local residential amenity,” Young said.
Housing experts said that, even with current standards on home size and access to natural light, the conversion of commercial buildings far from shops, schools and transport links into residential accommodation could still cause serious quality problems. Ventilation and outdoor access are also key issues.
In the past, converted commercial properties have often been rented back to local government as temporary accommodation for homeless people.
Polly Neate, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said Gove’s proposed changes risked “creating more poor-quality housing with squalid conditions” and that “the safety standards in homes like these aren’t up to scratch”.
Local authorities, which are contending with straitened finances across England, have some power to block permitted development conversion in certain areas. That could limit the impact of the new policy.
Matthew Pennycook, Labour’s shadow housing secretary, said the changes amounted to “knee jerk planning deregulation” and would “do little if anything to boost supply, but it will add to the quantum of poor-quality [and] slum housing that post-2013 . . . expansion has created”.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was contacted for comment.
