New Permitted Development rights do not create worse quality homes

Reply to the comment left by terry sullivan at 28/07/2020 - 22:35
Spot on.

Reply to the comment left by Kathy Evans at 28/07/2020 - 14:26“Surely they still have to conform to min size etc. and be licenced if HMOs?"
Yes and this guy pushed to the last millimetre.
He even removed the sewage pipes which were internal to the building and fitted multiple sewage pipes to the outside!That allowed him to cram two more bedrooms into two thirds of the lounge.
The remaining third he added to the kitchen so these seven unconnected human beings are crammed into that. There is no lounge.
All completely legal and licensed.
The council building inspector apologised to some of the neighbours saying that although the council was totally opposed to this social disaster, there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it.
The landlord started out by saying that no more than five human beings would be crammed into the space.
But when the development went ahead he applied for and obtained a licence to cram six into it and promised that he would leave the smallest room as a storage area.
Ten months later he applied to get his license amended to allow him to cram a seventh human being into what was little more than a large cupboard but these days is defined as a minimum size bedroom. Council approval went straight through.
The building still has holes in the sides after many years.
Presumably there is no requirement to complete this detail.
Frankly nobody cares and it's hardly surprising in comparison with disaster that has already been allowed by adherence to blind process following devoid of judgement.

Housing standards have ben on the decline since they abandoned parker-morris. Private developers have been developing houses to maximise their profit for years with little regard as to how long these will last and the quality of life for people living in them. Yes there are some decent ones but they are few and far between.

If Rajan is going to attack a professional planner as having a vested interested, isn’t that rather a case of the pot calling the kettle black?! Of course he claims his interest in having the PD rights is about getting the economy moving and affordable housing (not the ease of making more profits or selling more courses eh?)

Planners make mistakes, but on the whole are absolutely necessary to try and ‘plan’ how development take place across cities, counties and the country as a whole.

I’m sure there have been some high quality developments done under PD rights and perhaps all of Rajan’s schemes fall under that category. But there have been some absolutely shocking ones. Have a read through this:

https://www.levittbernstein.co.uk/research-writing/why-the-government-should-end-pdr-for-office-to-residential-conversions/

Let’s not fall into the trap of letting ‘the market’ dictate everything. It’s possible to strike a balance where rules and regulations are for the benefit of society as a whole and you can still make a healthy profit at the same time!

I once extended and converted a badly laid out two bedroom flat into 2 x one bedroom flats. Each flat is approx 45m2 now. They are without a doubt as small as I think you can go for a couple to live comfortably in London. Yes, even with technology meaning you don’t have, books, a record player and CRT TV! I mean with a washing machine you only really need two complete outfits as well surely, so who needs a wardrobe?! And the miracle of sliding doors will save us from the pesky need to be able to actually swing open a door....

I note that the complete lack of judgement in my area has resulted in yet another social disaster.
A high end landlord wished to create a very high end HMO and purchased a property to do this.
Local planning objections from neighbours who see all tenants as second class citizens who should live somewhere else, have forced him to abandon his 10 tenant high end plan.
The result is that, having made a substantial investment, he is currently constructing another low end property under the PDR rules, which will cause the loss of three more parking spaces and will house nine tenants in a far smaller space.
The landlord had a more open, flexible and long term view which would have given him a very saleable property as a high end house, easy multiple flat conversion or high end HMO, one day.
But that was before the planning objections were raised.
So he had no choice but to proceed under permitted development rights.
The locals are now attempting to fight all future work under permitted development rights by introducing something called an "Article 4".
And so the empty headed fights continue to accelerate in frequency and ferocity.
Does anybody know anything about an "Article 4"?
I am trying to extract myself from this empty headed social collapse and I wonder how much time I have to do it.