City and Westminster property giants are calling on London’s next mayor to clamp down on the number of office-to-residential conversions.
Westminster Property Association and City Property Association, whose members include British Land, the Crown Estate and Land Securities, have written a “mayoral manifesto”, a series of recommendations to tackle the housing crisis without threatening office space in central London.
Most of Westminster and the City are exempt from permitted development rights – a policy launched in 2013 which allows offices to be converted to residential without planning permission.
However, Westminster has still lost 4.4m sq ft of office space through the normal planning process as property owners have chosen to cash in on the house price boom.
WPA chairman Daniel Van Gelder said: “While the housing crisis is rightly recognised as one of the key challenges facing the next mayor, London is also facing a commercial crisis through the loss of office space to residential, especially across central London.”
The manifesto also calls on the mayor to encourage intense development around Crossrail 2 stations; retain receipts from Right to Buy sales to invest in affordable housing in the capital; encourage devolved powers for London; and make the case for the UK to remain in the EU.
The property associations together represent more than 400 leading property companies across central London, including eight in the FTSE 100.
