Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 160
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Nearly 73,000 new homes were added to the housing stock through change of use permitted development rights between 2015/16 and 2019/20. Of these, 64,798 (89%) were created through office to residential conversions. This permitted development right was introduced as a temporary measure but made permanent from April 2016. While this has provided new homes, often in areas of most housing need, it has proved controversial. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported in 2018 that the quality of office to residential schemes ranged from high to extremely poor, with permitted development rights schemes being “significantly worse” than those which had been through the full planning process. 240 Councillor Dr Ed Turner, Deputy Leader of Oxford City Council and Member of the Economy, Environment Housing Board at the Local Government Association, pointed to the overall housing targets being a key driver for change of use conversions: “you can quietly extend permitted development rights, nobody really notices and you fulfil some of those objectives. That is not good for building the right sort of housing that we need.” 241 The Royal Institute of British Architects raised the concern that conversions from office to residential use under permitted development rights enable developers to avoid contributions to local infrastructure through Section 106 charges. The Local Government Association calculated that contributions for around 13,500 affordable homes have been missed through permitted development rights. 242
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".