Affordable housing remains a challenge despite the rise in home construction.
The Local Government Association (LGA) and related stakeholders have raised concerns about the impact of Permitted Development Rights (PDR) on affordable housing and infrastructure in the UK.
Impact on Affordable Housing:
The use of PDR enables faster delivery of new homes by allowing certain developments, such as converting offices or commercial buildings to residential, without full planning permission. However, a key criticism is that PDR schemes often do not require affordable housing contributions, which can reduce the supply of truly affordable homes within developments and place extra pressure on existing public services.
Labour and some councils have cautioned against unchecked PDR use. They favour reforms that could include mandatory affordable housing requirements or giving local authorities more power to manage impacts through mechanisms like Article 4 Directions, which remove or restrict PDR locally. Flexibilities on funding, such as easing the use of Right to Buy receipts for replacement affordable housing, have helped councils and Registered Providers speed up affordable home building, sometimes facilitated indirectly by PDR enabling small brownfield sites' development.
Impact on Infrastructure:
Since PDR developments avoid full planning permission, there can be less scope for local authorities to negotiate infrastructure contributions, such as for roads, schools, healthcare. This can strain existing infrastructure and services if many PDR homes are delivered without accompanying upgrades. The LGA has expressed concern that the cumulative effect of PDR housing delivery may outpace local infrastructure capacity, unless managed carefully.
In summary, while PDR helps accelerate housing delivery and makes use of underused buildings, the LGA stresses that the lack of affordable housing provision and limited infrastructure funding under PDR pose challenges for sustainable community development in the UK. There is industry and political movement toward reforms seeking to balance fast delivery with quality, affordability, and infrastructure support.
Experts within the LGA's research suggest that the actual figure of office-to-residential conversions will be higher than the reported number due to data not being publicly available at a national level until 2015. The amount of housing for affordable or social rent in England has fallen from around 20% in 2000 to 16% in 2023, according to data from The House of Commons Library.
The LGA is calling on the government to revoke unfettered permitted development rights to address these concerns and ensure sustainable community development in the UK.
- Local government, working in collaboration with other stakeholders, has suggested injecting mandatory affordable housing requirements into the finance of business projects utilizing Permitted Development Rights (PDR), aiming to alleviate the pressure on the supply of genuinely affordable homes in the UK.
- In the territory of personal-finance, the use of Right to Buy receipts for replacement affordable housing funding has been a helpful flexibility in enabling councils and Registered Providers to speed up affordable home building, indirectly facilitated by PDR-enabled small brownfield sites' development.
