Office to Residential Permitted Development Rights extension

Good news that the Housing and Planning Minister, Brandon Lewis, has announced the extension of the PDR relating to converting office buildings into residential.

This will help those developers who have effectively had projects on hold as the previous scheme needed developments to be completed and occupied by May 2016. Whilst that may have been achievable in their eyes the ability to obtain finance was becoming increasingly tight as lenders were worried about over-runs and were insisting projects were completed by the year-end.

Whilst all the detail is not yet out it would appear that those projects that have already had approval will now have three years to be completed, therefore unlocking finance.

The new scheme has also been extended to allow for demolition of the office building and rebuild into residential, also with some light industrial and retail for the new homes.

This might have been a way of countering the lobbying that this scheme was taking away working space for small businesses and would therefore damage the local economy