Relaxed planning laws will lead to a boom of rabbit hutch-sized slum housing, critics warn.
As the Covid crisis hollows out many already flagging high streets, developers are eyeing up conversions to flat under PDRs. Government data suggests 60,399 homes have been created.
In July housing secretary Robert Jenrick announced that PDR would be expanded further to let developers demolish vacant buildings without full planning permission so they can be “quickly repurposed to help revive our high streets and town centres”.
The Royal Institute of British Architects has branded the decision to extend the policy “disgraceful”.
Andrew Boff, a Conservative London assembly member, said: “The Tory party simply won’t be thanked for building crappy homes.”
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government dismissed the findings as “misleading and unfounded”, adding that PDRs “make an important contribution to building the homes our country needs and are crucial to helping our economy recover from the pandemic by supporting our high streets to adapt”.
