Office To Residential - The New Permitted Development Rights

The timetable

The Government finally announced on 24 January that regulations will be introduced in the spring of 2013 to amend Permitted development rights to allow a change from office to residential use without the need for planning permission.

"Finally" because the policy was first announced in the Chancellor's budget in March 2011. It was consulted upon in April 2011. In July 2012 the Government announced that it would not be implementing the measure. In a statement in September 2012 Eric Pickles announced his intention to revive the policy.

Local planning authorities have been given until 22 February to seek exemption where this can be justified on economic grounds. The draft regulations will be brought forward once local planning authority requests for exemptions have been considered, presumably coming into force in April?

The changes

For a limited period of 3 years a new PD right will allow the change of use from class B1(a) offices to class C3 residential without the need for planning permission. There will be a "tightly drawn" prior approval process which will cover significant impacts on transport and highways, development...