Tory minister takes a swipe at London Mayor as he moves to reduce planning restrictions and allow ‘some incredibly poor quality homes which should not have been built’
Developers’ mate: Michael Gove
Croydon and Sutton might just escape the worst excesses of Michael Gove’s desperate, eve-of-election “Developers’ Charter”, aimed at reducing planning controls for “permitted development” shop and office conversions and speeding up building on brown-field sites.
But the announcement might give Westfield cause for further pause as they work on their latest scheme that was expected to include thousands of flats in their long-delayed regeneration of Croydon town centre.
Tory housing minister Gove made the announcement this morning, in a barely disguised party political swipe at Labour’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Gove’s announcement comes after 14 years in government in which the housing crisis across the country has seen record levels of people forced to sleep on the streets, while promises to scrap “no-fault” evictions by private landlords have been broken repeatedly.
Croydon took the lead with PD – permitted development – under a previous Conservative-led council a decade ago. That was followed by a relentless drive on behalf of profit-hungry developers by former Labour planning chief, Paul Scott (who also favoured his architect chums). The end result is that the borough is currently ahead of its government-approved housing targets.
Home office: Windsor House on London Road, one office block converted to flats under permitted development. Used by Croydon Council for temporary accommodation, the flats there have been widely criticised
Croydon is one of only four London boroughs reckoned to be hitting their home-building targets in a review of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s London Plan which was published this morning.
The other London boroughs ahead of their housing targets are Sutton, Wandsworth and Brent.
By meeting or exceeding their house-building targets, Croydon and the other three boroughs are expected to be exempted from Gove’s “presumption” in favour of planning-lite development on brownfield sites.
Gove’s announcement will make it easier (and cheaper) for bigger developers to push through on their schemes.
Many housing developers, or the firms’ owners, have been generous donors to the Conservative Party in the past.
Gove’s bias towards big business is betrayed in today’s official Department for Levelling Up press release, which includes supportive comments from British Land (“another important step towards unlocking the potential of brownfield urban regeneration”), Barratts and Landsec. There’s not a single comment included in the government issued announcement from Shelter, Crisis or other agencies that deal with the homelessness caused by decades of Tory housing policies, going back to 1979…
“I agree with the conclusions of the review,” Gove wrote in a letter to Mayor Khan, “that an overarching presumption in favour of housebuilding on brownfield land is the most effective means of cutting through some of the complexity of the existing London Plan which may currently be serving to thwart housing delivery.”
Gove’s letter also suggests that he may remove the Mayor of London’s powers to review planning applications for larger housing schemes, another way of letting developers off the hook.
Some independent experts saw through Gove’s proposals as a blueprint for sub-standard buildings.
George Clarke, the TV architect, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, described some of the office and shop conversions that have been allowed under Tory PD as “beyond scandalous”.
Gove wants to roll-out the measures to make it easier for developers to get permission to build on derelict sites across England’s 20 biggest towns and cities.
But others in the industry accused the government of trying to deflect from the wider slump in building prompted by Gove’s previous decision to allow local authorities to avoid building targets.
On target: Croydon is one of only four London boroughs to have met housebuilding goals
Gove said: “Our new brownfield presumption will tackle underdelivery in our key towns and cities – where new homes are most needed to support jobs and drive growth.”
Under the proposals, councils would have to approve new development on brownfield land – land which was previously developed but has fallen into disuse – unless they can offer a good reason why they cannot.
The bar for refusing housing on brownfield sites will be made “much higher” for councils that fail to hit their targets.
Gove also said he would lay legislation in Parliament today to extend permitted development rights so that commercial buildings of any size can be converted into homes. Limits will be removed on the kinds of former commercial buildings that can be turned into flats, removing restrictions on how big the building can be before a developer has to apply for planning permission.
The consultation on the proposals runs until March 26.
Struggling to keep up: how Gove’s review has charted building performance in the capital
The review of Mayor Khan’s London Plan, led by Christopher Katkowski KC, calculated that a brownfield presumption in the capital could potentially result in between 4,000 and 11,500 additional homes per year.
By introducing this policy across England’s 20 most populous urban areas, Gove said his plans would “deliver thousands of new homes” without “concreting over the countryside”.
Gavin Smart, the chief executive of Chartered Institute of Housing, said both brownfield regeneration and bringing existing buildings back into use have “the potential to play an important role” in meeting housing need.
But he added, “while the number of new homes is important so is their quality and safety”.
Smart said: “The permitted development regime bypasses usual planning processes and in recent years has led to some incredibly poor quality homes which should not have been built. Government promises that there will be protections to prevent this are encouraging, but the detail here will be very important to not repeat these mistakes.”
The consequences of such change for Croydon’s town centre could prove to be profound.
The borough’s businesses and residents have been waiting for a £1.4billion regeneration of the ageing Whitgift and Centrale shopping malls for 12 years. Developers Westfield’s previous scheme included shopping, entertainment and almost 1,000 new homes.
Westfield were supposed to deliver their (third) masterplan for the long-stalled development in 2023, but delayed that around the time that Gove announced that he was undertaking his review of the London Plan. Westfield had disliked that City Hall had insisted that one-third of the flats under their previous scheme should be “affordable”.
Today’s announcement will undoubtedly influence Westfield’s thinking before their next scheme comes off the drawing board sometime next year (yes, another delay). And if there’s not enough profitable benefit in it for the French-owned business, it could even mean that there might not be another masterplan at all.
- Click here to read Katkowski’s London Plan Review in full
- Click here for Michael Gove’s frosty missive to Mayor Sadiq Khan
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Croydon’s had worse: SPD2.
And Heather Cheesborough.
Croydon escaped because most of the town centre and surrounding area is already chock a block with towers of flats