Town halls attack ‘offices into homes’ plan

Town planners today branded a government proposal to turn offices into homes a “blunderbuss” policy which would fail to ease the housing crisis.

Planning experts told the London Assembly there would be “huge unintended consequences” of the changes in job losses as well as on local communities.

Boris Johnson has called for central London to be exempt from the changes, while 29 of the capital’s 32 local authorities have applied for an exemption.

John Lett, chief planner at the Greater London Authority, estimated that without exemptions, four million square metres of office space would be at risk in central London. Michael Bach, a former government planning expert, told the planning committee it was “the worst designed policy proposal” he had ever seen. He added that it was “unnecessary”, “heavy handed” and a “blunderbuss” of a proposal.

Richard Pestell, of the Royal Town Planning Institute, claimed it was “far too blunt a tool” to ease the crisis and would have “unintended consequences”.

Mr Pestell, of Peter Brett Associates, later added: “If you have a huge office block at the end of your road there will be no controls over the owner turning it into flats. There will be no assessment made of whether your community can accommodate this growth, whether it’s schools or transport or parking.

“It’s a hugely blunt instrument with potential consequences not only for communities but also for the economy of London. We could potentially lose a lot of viable employment stock to housing simply because housing is more lucrative.”

The Communities Department is considering exemptions for boroughs like Richmond-upon-Thames, where housing is expensive and the council wants to protect what little office space it has in the borough.

Business groups also oppose the plans. Sue Terpilowski, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said many small firms would not survive if rising values were allowed to push up rents and business rates.

Nicky Gavron, chairwoman of the planning committee, said: “There are better ways of getting new housing supply than at the expense of small businesses and much needed jobs.”