Dealing with a large volume of business leasing across the whole of North-West Kent, one of our Commercial Department’s reoccurring issues has been the time involved with obtaining sensible changes of use, particularly across the retail sector where, for example, a shop with A1 retail use might require a change to D2 use as a gymnasium.  

‘We all know that traditional retailing is under pressure from its online equivalent, but more and more as a Commercial Department we have seen a move to leisure style pursuits taking up the slack’ comments Sealeys’ Managing Director, Michael Alan Sears, which is why he welcomes the government’s latest move to streamline the change of use protocols from 1st September 2020.

All local authority planning departments are understaffed and underfunded, and will be more so post-Covid-19, so to simplify the Use Classes Order makes perfect sense.  ‘For too long’ comments Michael ‘the real effects of planning and its direct influence on the economic regeneration of our towns and employment has been under-estimated and ignored by central government.  ‘In addition, the new order seeks to properly regulate the emergence of houses of multiple occupation, something which has been hard to police and again falls on the doorsteps of fund-poor local authorities’. 

To see how the order may affect you please click here to download our information sheet.