Planning in London

opinion
The bananas republic of Hackney (PiL 51 leader)

If a building is structurally sound, meets the building and fire regulations, and appears suitable to the user for the purpose he wishes to use it for, and the use causes no annoyance to neighbours, what right does the local council have to dictate how someone who has paid to do so should use that property? This is the civil rights issue at the heart of the live-work debate.

The right of the individual to exercise property rights without unnecessary bureaucratic interference. But Hackney Council, for example, thinks so-called 'live-work' properties are just a ruse to provide valuable residential space and has withdrawn its SPG on live-work. This is the borough which resisted strenuously the regeneration of Shoreditch throughout the 1980s and early 1990s by refusing to grant consents for lofts in old warehouses a phenomenon which has demonstrably transformed a derelict bit of Hackney into a thriving inner city location.

It then in desperation tried to regularise things by trying out live-work consents one early consent stipulating 'no children under 16 shall live in this apartment', or words to that effect. Scary. Hackney of course now tries hypocritically to claim some credit for regeneration, while other observers criticise Shoreditch and Hoxton's self-regeneration as exclusive of local people and socially divisive.

Well it probably is, and that's because while the private sector was prepared to risk its capital, while Hackney resisted, and is still resisting. an economic tide which its long-suffering residents could benefit from. We don't need another use-class specifically to cover live-work. We should remove the need to obtain planning consent to convert a building from employment use to residential. London is screaming out for more housing, yet Canutes in planning departments all over London resist this with every fibre of their professional beings to the point where you begin to think it's just a control thing.

This was the story of the whole loft movement in London. Planners saying 'no' while residential prices rocketed and supply dwindled. There is no reason why suitably designed or refurbished buildings cannot be used for either office/studio or residential purposes, or both together, provided they meet the regs.

So just forget about live-work and let people get on with making London more prosperous. Instead of trying to preserve employment uses for political ends (which is the root of many boroughs' employment zoning policies gerrymandering by another name) why not spend the extra tax generated by more valuable residential uses on improving education?

Or stopping street crime? Or do you want to carry on uselessly controlling property uses in a degenerating banana republic? When we have enough houses in London, prices will fall. As employment space is converted to residential, the value of employment space will rise. When a balance is reached, London will be better able to grow and its citizens will benefit. Londoners at both ends of the social spectrum are suffering right now because planners wear political blinkers.