Ministers urged to put brakes on offices in England being turned into homes

Housing providers and charities want development rights abolished amid concern over lack of affordable homes

Dozens of organisations have signed an open letter calling on the government to scrap office-to-residential conversions in England, which analysis has found led to the loss of almost 28,000 affordable homes.

Local government campaigners, housing providers and homelessness charities have all joined the call to abolish some permitted development rights (PDR), which grant automatic planning permission to building projects and are often used to convert office blocks into housing.