Office to Residential Conversions
Following changes made to the Town and Country Planning General Permitted Development Order which came into effect in May 2013, we have been appointed by several clients to advise them how they can benefit from the new Class J (now Class O) provision which allows offices (Class B1a) to be converted into residential properties (Class C3) using the less stringent prior notification procedure.
At Compton House, a substantial vacant office building in Northampton town centre, we were able to advise the client how they could secure planning consent for the conversion of the building to create 94 student apartments. This required robust arguments to be developed, based upon a thorough review of case law, to show how the proposed student accommodation fell within a C3 (residential) use class and therefore was able to benefit from the prior notification process.
Within Northampton, we have utilised the prior approval process to create new homes on several sites, in addition to securing planning permission/listed building consent for the conversion of several listed office buildings within the town’s central area.
