- TP Editorial Team
Permitted Development Changes Confirmed
The Government has confirmed it is making a number of changes to Permitted Development (PD) rights, introducing a new change of use, and making minor amendments to the existing PD rights. These come into force on 25th May 2019.
Highlights include:
• A completely new PD right to change from either Class A1 (shops), Class A2 (financial and professional services), A5 (hot food takeaways), betting office, pay day loan shop or launderette to Class B1(a) (offices). The new PD right will not apply where the change is more than 500sq.m, or for certain other premises such as those in conservation areas, listed buildings (or curtilage listed buildings), scheduled monuments, or AONB. As for many other changes of use, the PD is subject to a prior approval notification to the local council.
• Hot food takeaways (A5 use) are now added to the list of uses which may now change to create dwellinghouses (the list already includes retail, financial and professional uses, betting office, pay day loan shop and launderette). The same limitations to the PD right will apply to changes from takeaways as for the other uses; only up to 150sq.m is allowed; it will not apply to buildings in conservation areas, listed buildings, scheduled monuments or AONB etc and there is still a need to apply through the prior approval process to the local council. The council will be able to consider matters such as whether it is desirable to allow a change to a dwellinghouse, having regard to whether there will still be adequate provision of the type of services lost by the proposed change of use.
• The permitted ‘Class Q’ (change of use from agricultural buildings to dwellinghouse) has been clarified to close a potential significant loophole in the regulations. It is now confirmed the change to create any dwellinghouse may not exceed 465 sq.m.
The new regulations will also:
• make permanent a temporary PD right for home extensions on detached houses of up to 8 metres, or by 6 metres for other dwellings, which was due to expire on 30th May.
• allow the temporary conversion of shops and other high street premises to a wider range of community uses, including to medical or health services, museums or public halls. The temporary conversion period is now increased from 2 to 3 years.
• increase the permitted height of electric vehicle charging points (if within the curtilage of a dwelling or block of flats, up to 1.6 metres or elsewhere up to 2.3 metres).
• remove PD rights for public call boxes and changes to the advertisement regulations to remove the previous right to display adverts on the glazed parts of telephone kiosks.
As for all Government regulations, the devil is in the detail and it is still important to understand how the PD may apply and what notifications you first may need to send to the council. If you would like to discuss how these changes may affect your plans, please contact us.