Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of legislation that exempts the conversion of buildings to nursery use from requiring planning permission on the adequacy of the locations of nurseries.

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 groups together uses which have similar land use impacts into classes, allowing flexibility to change between uses within each class without the need for an application for planning permission.

Since 2020, children’s nurseries are in the broad Class E ‘Commercial Business and Service’ class allowing a wide range of uses commonly found on high streets to move to use as a nursery without the need for a planning application, bringing new uses to the high street and providing additional nursery places including near to where people work.