Boris Johnson welcomes decision to protect London offices from conversion

London Mayor Boris Johnson has welcomed the government’s decision to reconsider proposals that could have seen office space in the capital converted into homes.

Brandon Lewis, the Minister for Housing and Planning, is set to amend proposals that Mr Johnson believed would have put key business districts in the capital at risk, according to Property Wire.

Although the Mayor was successful last year in getting parts of central London made exempt from a policy allowing offices to be turned into homes without change-of-use planning permission, new proposals would have removed the exemptions.

In a Property Wire report, Mr Johnson was quoted as saying: “I am delighted that [the] government has put policies in place that will lead to the protection of our thriving business districts.

“Removing the planning exemption in those areas would have put the future economic growth of this city at risk, but by agreeing to amend their proposals the government are ensuring we will be able to maintain the full stock of quality office space required for our city to continue to prosper.”

The areas exempt from the policy, until May 2019, covered the Central Activities Zone, which includes the City of London, parts of Chelsea and Kensington and the commercial area to the north of London’s Royal Docks Enterprise Zones.

In amending the proposal, Mr Lewis said the government will let local authorities determine change-of-use planning applications with special planning regulations called Article 4 directions.

Elsewhere, the Mayor is on track to deliver 100k affordable homes by the end of his second term in 2016, with over 94k already built.