Let it be: London councils should allow offices and shops to be converted into homes

Amid all the Brexit brouhaha in Westminster it is important that parliamentarians do not forget the many other issues that affect people's day-to-day lives.

Bravo, therefore, to MP Chris Philp for reminding Theresa May during yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions that the dream of homeownership remains all too elusive for many young adults – particularly in London and the south east.

An average home in the capital has rocketed in price from around £290,000 in 2012 to nearly £473,000 at the end of 2018, despite steadying over the last year or so.

Ultra-easy money has exacerbated a supply-and-demand mismatch stretching back to the 1990s.

To quote the Mayor of London's researchers: "In the last two decades the number of jobs in London has grown by 40 per cent and the number of people by 25 per cent, but the number of homes by only 15 per cent."

Yesterday Philp praised measures such as Help to Buy and the first-time buyer stamp duty freeze while calling on councils to prioritise starter homes. Such measures, however, do little or nothing to fix the problem.

Instead, we need a far more liberal planning environment that allows people to adapt existing properties and shape new-builds in innovative ways that respond to ever-shifting demand.

There are signs that this idea is finally gaining traction in government, with high streets minister Jake Berry arguing that it should be far easier to change the use of all manner of properties.

"If there is more demand for office space or housing on a high street than betting shops or laundrettes, there should be processes in place to allow the conversion of unwanted units without undue delay," Berry recently wrote in City A.M.

While sentiment is moving, there is a long way to go. Recent figures compiled by Sir Stelios' "easyMoney" lending outfit show that the number of office-to-residential conversions has been tumbling, from 3,110 in 2014-15 to just 1,740 in the latest fiscal year.

Indeed, some councils are actively preventing conversions – Islington recently boasted that it was preventing 900,000 square metres of office space from being "lost to developers".

Such thinking is increasingly outdated, yet remains imbedded in our authorities. Until there is a meaningful change of tack, many Londoners will continue to suffer from unaffordable housing costs and drab, anachronistic high streets.