Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an assessment of the effect of permitted development rights for converting offices to homes on office rental prices; and if he will make a statement.
On the 30 May 2013 a new permitted development right was introduced that grants planning permission for the change of use from offices (B1(a) use class) to residential (C3 use class). This right ends on 30 May 2016.
We issued a Written Ministerial Statement on 25 March 2015, HCWS488, which noted that further consideration would be given to extending the office to residential permitted development right, and this remains the case.