Deregulation, Neoliberalism and the Planning System

Planning deregulation as solution to the housing crisis: The affordability, amenity and adequacy of Permitted Development in London

“…Figure 8 shows large PDR developments (33.7%) have delivered a greater proportion of units smaller than the NDSS minimum for a one-bedroom home compared to small PDR developments (14.1%), Here, we label homes smaller than 35 m 2 rather than 37 m 2 as below minimal size noting the over- and under-estimation evident in EPC certification (Nagarajah and Davis, 2019, suggest as many as one-in-four EPCs report floor space that varies by 10% or more from the ‘true’ habitable floor space). Whilst 34% of large and 14% of small PDR developments flouting the NDSS may seem like a high number, the values here are significantly lower than the 86.4% Clifford et al (2019) and 70% Ferm et al (2021) identified in their studies: however, it should be noted that some larger homes and flats may also be below the recommended NDSS for two, three or four-bedroomed properties, albeit the number of bedrooms is not indicated in the EPC/LDD, just the number of rooms per se.…”

“…As Clifford et al (2019: 1) acknowledge, the dominance of case-study, interview-based approaches does ‘not provide a comprehensive or systematic review of all the schemes typical in any particular area’, suggesting a need for more extensive overviews of the size, location and quality of residential conversions. The latter is clearly a highly subjective matter, but COVID-19 showed that inferior housing can impact dramatically on mental and physical health, with people living in smaller homes during lockdown reporting difficulty in combining working and leisure in cramped surroundings (Hubbard et al, 2021; Jacoby and Alonso, 2022).…”

“…Marsh et al (2022) note limited references to green space access in the literatures on PDR, but several studies suggest conversions have characteristically poor links to the natural environment and lack external, communal spaces: Clifford et al (2019) found only 50% of PDRs were within 250 m of green or open space. This relationship was explored by comparing number of PDRs in a ward with that ward’s proportion of accessible open space.…”