The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) Order 2016 was laid before Parliament on 11th March 2016 and comes into force on 6th April 2016.
The Order confirms that the permitted development right for the conversion of office to residential use will be made permanent from 6th April 2016.
This is consistent with the Government's oft-stated commitment to kick start new housing delivery.
Those areas currently exempt from the legislation (Article 2(5) Land) shall remain so until 30th May 2019, after which local planning authorities will be required to make an Article 4 direction (being a direction which, in exceptional circumstances, removes permitted development rights from a specified area) if they wish to continue to restrict the use of the permitted development right.
Article 10 requires a developer changing a building to residential use to supply to the local authority a statement specifying the net increase in the number of dwellinghouses proposed by the development, alongside its application for determination as to whether prior approval is required. Article 15(2) provides that this does not apply to applications made on or before 5th April 2016.
The full text of the Statutory Instrument can be found here