Recommendation 18

We queried why student accommodation and converted offices count, in the Department’s statistics, as new housing when student accommodation is not necessarily a permanent home, and many office conversions are tiny, lack proper insulation, and could not be said to constitute a home. The Department countered that student accommodation relieved pressure on housing more widely, so it was justifiable to include as new housing. It acknowledged that some office conversions had been of poor quality, and explained it had introduced standards for the amount of natural light converted office space was required to provide and was working to introduce standards for the amount of space for converted office space.49