My Lords, my name is to Amendment 44 and I would certainly have been happy to add it to Amendment 14 as well, which I support. I first declare my interest as yet another vice-president of the Local Government Association. An interest in many ways more relevant to this debate which I no longer have to declare is that until May 2014, I was for 40 years the local councillor for a town centre ward in a south-west London borough. We debated the effect of permitted development rights, particularly the conversion of offices to residential development, during the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill less than a year ago. In Committee and on Report, we had some spirited debates led by the even more spirited noble Lord, Lord True. I think that he was speaking more in his capacity as leader of Richmond Council, another south-west London borough. Sadly, both debates were very late at night and inevitably therefore curtailed.
I will not repeat all that I said a year ago but this issue has had, and continues to have, a devastating effect on the town centre ward that I used to represent. It has particularly affected the town centre. I cited nine months ago the figures I had had from my local authority, showing that in the 18 months between the coming into effect of the prior approval permissions and being able to obtain an Article 4 direction to cover that area, the town centre lost 28% of its office space. This was just in that 18-month period. Many people assumed that those were vacant offices but they were not. Sixty-two per cent of those offices were then currently occupied and the businesses occupying them were, politely or impolitely, asked to leave. Employment was directly lost from the town centre, with an inevitable effect on its economy—not just the work that goes on in the offices, but all the commerce that is brought by the people working in them. Some businesses were able to move elsewhere; others, sadly, have gone out of business, with a consequent loss of jobs.
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In connection with the Bill, I have inquired what has happened since then, and it is fair to say that the Article 4 direction that covers the town centre has had some effect in slowing down, but not stopping, that process, although more offices are being lost from the town centre. Now all the offices in the district centres, where there is no Article 4 direction, are also going. It is becoming increasingly difficult for those needing small office premises, in particular, to find them. That is causing significant problems to the local economy. Already, the local authority sees that it will not meet the projected long-term demand for offices in the area.
We come to the question of offices against homes. I have heard the Housing Minister—who, incidentally, is an MP in the next borough, and I suspect would be saying different things were he still a Croydon councillor —say that the need for more homes overrides all the permitted development right problems. I understand why a Housing Minister, charged with an ambitious target—which we all accept and wish him every success with—might say that, but it is not good enough for us as legislators. We want not just more homes but more of the right sort of homes in the right places, meeting the demand with the highest possible quality of design and sustainability.
That is not what is happening in any of those respects under the PDR office-to-homes conversions in town and district centres. The designs are poor and the housing provision is not at all what is needed in the area. It is largely providing one-bedroom or studio accommodation as pied-à-terres, with no contribution to the local community—certainly none to the local economy, or indeed the council.
More importantly, particularly in London, it is making absolutely no contribution to affordable housing. In my view, that is the biggest effect in London—not just in my borough but right across London and, I am sure, in other parts of the country. It is making no contribution to affordable housing. It may just help with the number count, but not with the actual demand for the homes that people need in places where they need them—where their children can go to good schools and where they can obtain good employment.
This is having a very serious effect. I know it is not the case in all parts of the country—our debate on the then Housing and Planning Bill was replied to by the former leader of Trafford Council in Greater Manchester, and she said that the conversion from office to residential was having a beneficial effect in that part of the world. That is good and I welcome it, but surely we should recognise that different places have different requirements. We used to call it localism, but I think that that is no longer the buzzword. Is it not common sense that local authorities should have the power to determine what is necessary in their area? If conversion of redundant offices to residential use is desirable—I would say, with sufficient safeguards to ensure that it is the right sort of residential development, which ought to apply everywhere—it must be a good thing, but in outer London, generally in London and in other cities, it is having a devastating effect and really should not be allowed to continue. That is why I am happy to support either or both of these amendments.