Amongst all of the ‘doom and gloom’ regarding the UK’s economic performance, the cost of living and rising interest rates, many in the SME development community are still finding and exploiting opportunities for development using permitted development rights, especially the wonderfully useful Class MA permitted development right.

As consumer spending over the next 12-18 months is likely to be severely constrained by rising fuel and food costs and increases in interest rates add pain to mortgage costs, these challenges are likely to place further pressure on already-struggling secondary and tertiary retail and commercial pitches, in turn prompting opportunities to exploit Class MA permitted development to change these premises to flats and houses.

In the May edition of PIN, we walked you through a Class MA case that we took through planning for a High Street premises that had become vacant as a result of recent economic turbulence. Since then, we added further value for the client by adding another floor on top to create another 2-bedroom flat. This has given this scheme an additional useful profit margin, much-needed to ensure the continued economic viability of this scheme.

Building on the Class MA scheme
In May 2022, prior approval had been obtained to change the use of the ground floor and lower ground floor, and then under a separate application the upper floors to a total of eight one-bedroom and studio flats.

The applications were submitted in early February 2022 and finally determined in May 2022.  Normally, Class MA applications are subject to a 56-day (2 month) timeframe and it is open to the applicant to wait until this period expires and, if and when it does with no decision, then approval follows automatically.