Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 23
23
Not Addressed
Paragraph: 115
We are concerned by the Government’s confirmation that change of use from office to retail...
Recommendation
We are concerned by the Government’s confirmation that change of use from office to retail no longer requires a sequential test to protect main town centre uses, and we welcome the Secretary of State’s recent commitment to us to look again at this issue. We reiterate our recommendation from our report on Permitted Development Rights that the Government should consider amending the use class regime to prevent out-of-town commercial and business premises from being converted to retail without having first gone through the sequential test.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government did not address the recommendation to amend the use class regime for office-to-retail conversions, instead noting a decline in high street vacancy rates.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
115
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government · verbatim extract
Not Addressed
We are encouraged to see recent reports suggesting high streets vacancy rates are in decline. Local Data Company data has shown that vacancy rates fell for the first time since 2018 in the second half of 2021.
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