Revert to Residential? - subject to planning.
This property has approx. 87 years of a 125 year lease remaining. Drafted as a residential lease, it is understood to have originally been a residential unit.
Spanning the building from front to back, access is via both Wilbraham Place and Ellis Street allowing for the possibility to create two separate units.
The logical knock-on effect of new legislation is that failing retail spaces can (and likely will) convert into offices, thereby freeing up those residential properties, which have been used in latter years as office space, to revert to their original residential use.
Whilst planners are not necessarily yet formally conceding the point, we believe councils now have no logical argument against allowing this type of naturally residential property to revert to residential use again.
The space is approx.1,240sqft/115.2sqm plus 157sqft/14.6sqm of vaults, accessible only from the premises, which are un-demised but have been used exclusively for many years.
In recent years it has been successfully operating as a B1 registered co-working centre.
New planning regulation brought in on the 1st September 2020, now allows for a multitude of alternative commercial uses.
We quote from RBKC's website regarding the legislation.
'Parliament has recently changed the Use Classes Order 1987, to allow free interchange between the majority of ‘shopping centre’ uses. From 1 September 2020, existing Classes A1, A2, A3, B1, and D1 of the Use Classes Order 1987 have been combined to form a new Class E, entitled ‘Commercial, Business and Service’.
The new Class E encompasses uses such as retail shops, hairdressers, estate agents, coffee bars, cafes, restaurants, B1 business, doctors, dentists, gyms, creches/day nurseries and more, so from 1 September they can be changed to the other without requiring planning permission. '
Clearly, this opens up all sorts of potential businesses that could make use of the space.