IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rptpxx/v17y2016i2p175-191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Greasing the wheels, or a spanner in the works? Permitting the adaptive re-use of redundant office buildings into residential use in England

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Muldoon-Smith
  • Paul Greenhalgh

Abstract

This paper explores the challenges involved in planning the adaptation of the urban built environment. It approaches this subject by appraising a recently introduced national planning policy (the permission to convert office buildings into residential use without planning permission) in England. Drawing on interviews conducted with planning practitioners, it is possible to unravel the impact of this policy instrument at the coal face of the discipline. The office-to-residential conversion policy has removed the long-established process of local planning discretion in England in favour of a developer led planning policy. Consequently, there has been a tactical manipulation of additional planning tools, originally designed for other use, to re-exert influence at the local level by local planning authorities. Rather than greasing the wheels of office-to-residential conversion, the new policy has thrown a spanner in the works of a unique local planning process that was originally developed to manage urban change. The paper concludes by calling for local planners to reformulate their role in planning urban adaptation by reasserting their role as “market actors” through the development of city information models, the exploitation of professional communication networks and the transference of their own tacit knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Muldoon-Smith & Paul Greenhalgh, 2016. "Greasing the wheels, or a spanner in the works? Permitting the adaptive re-use of redundant office buildings into residential use in England," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 175-191, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:rptpxx:v:17:y:2016:i:2:p:175-191
    DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2016.1156144
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14649357.2016.1156144
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14649357.2016.1156144?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rylan Graham & Jenna Dutton, 2021. "Obsolescence as an Opportunity: The Role of Adaptive Reuse in Calgary's Office Market," SPP Briefing Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 14(4), February.
    2. Nancy Holman & Alessandra Mossa & Erica Pani, 2018. "Planning, value(s) and the market: An analytic for “what comes next?â€," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(3), pages 608-626, May.
    3. Ian Chng & Jonathan Reades & Phil Hubbard, 2024. "Planning deregulation as solution to the housing crisis: The affordability, amenity and adequacy of Permitted Development in London," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(3), pages 961-978, May.
    4. Jessica Ferm & Ben Clifford & Patricia Canelas & Nicola Livingstone, 2021. "Emerging problematics of deregulating the urban: The case of permitted development in England," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(10), pages 2040-2058, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rptpxx:v:17:y:2016:i:2:p:175-191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rptp20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.