Jonathan Rudge, Associate Director, Development Consulting at DTZ in Newcastle, comments:
“The government’s proposals to consider enabling the conversion to residential use of warehouses and light industrial structures through permitted development rights is encouraging albeit we will have to wait and see what the actual affect of this would be. Whilst it may encourage some speculative developers to pursue opportunities that would ordinarily be fraught with planning risk, in reality developers will only convert properties which provide them with a financial return. The costs of converting the property and likely sales return are of key concern to developers and we would therefore question the viability of the majority of warehouse conversions, particularly in traditional employment locations.”
