COMMERCIAL / CHANGE OF USE & COMMERCIAL CONVERSIONS
Unlock a building's next use.
Change-of-use and mixed-use planning — commercial to residential, redundant buildings to productive ones, and complex mixed schemes that need a real strategy.
- We secure
- Change of use
- Includes
- Mixed-use strategy
- Then
- Design + build
- Proven
- A3/A4 + 4 lets, Bristol
- “The unit's been vacant since the last tenant and the class is wrong for everyone who views it.”
- “We think there are flats above this shop — legally.”
- “Prior approval sounds fast. Is it actually?”
Use-class strategy is chess, not form-filling: which route — permitted development prior approval (Class MA and friends) or a full application — depends on the building, the policy map and what the end use needs to be worth. We read the position first, then commit to the route that lands.
Prior approval in particular rewards precision: daylight, amenity, noise and contamination are examined fast and hard. Our approach — light before layout, efficient cores, defensible amenity — got a multi-unit residential scheme above retail through exactly that scrutiny. And for genuinely mixed schemes, Queen Square shows the ceiling: hospitality below, holiday lets above, in a Grade I setting.
- Prior Approval secured for multi-unit residential above retail — deep-floorplate daylight solved by design.
- Mixed-use consent at the hardest difficulty: A3/A4 plus four holiday lets in a Grade I townscape.
- Route strategy first: we pick PD or full application on evidence, not habit.
Former Seamen's Institute — mixed use where it wasn't supposed to be possible
A derelict institution re-consented as bar-restaurant and holiday lets, through heritage and sustainability policy that has stopped other schemes dead.
Read the case studyWhat's the difference between prior approval and full planning?
Prior approval is a faster, tightly-scoped check of specific matters (daylight, noise, contamination, transport) under permitted development rights; full planning weighs everything. Which is right depends on the building and the policy map — we assess before committing.
Commercial to residential — is it still viable?
Class MA and related rights remain a fast route where the tests are met, but authorities scrutinise daylight and amenity hard. Design quality is what gets it through — see our prior approval field note.
Can you handle a genuinely mixed scheme?
Yes — hospitality, accommodation and restoration in one consent is exactly what we secured on Queen Square.
START HERE
The building is fine. The use is wrong. Fix the use.
A short conversation with Tom is the fastest way to find out what’s possible — no fee, no obligation, an honest read on your site.