Government should call for showcase live/work schemes

The government should launch a national programme of exemplar live/work schemes, recommends a new Live/Work Network report.

The study, Tomorrow’s Property Today, the culmination of a series of UK case study visits to live/work schemes, was launched at the Network’s national conference in London last month. It says central government should ask each region to support the development of live/work cluster demonstration projects.

It says the pathfinder projects should be designed to show how quality schemes can become used for live/work over a long period. As part of the programme, Whitehall should earmark resources for sharing knowledge between individual projects.

'Planners frequently ask for examples of successful live/work schemes in their area,' said Network director Tim Dwelly. 'But many schemes have been sold to buyers and their developers have had no reason to track what has happened there since. In our experience, only specialist live/work developers in the private sector remain involved in their management. To encourage this and to learn more about what really works, the public sector should use the leverage of its own land ownership to create quality exemplar schemes. A more proactive approach to live/work by local authorities and RDAs is long overdue.'

The report also includes proposals for a new live/work use class in planning law, The new use class would enable planners to set expectations for high quality live/work schemes featuring an appropriate balance of live and work uses and encouraging development of clusters of units.

And the report says VAT should be removed from genuine live/work schemes in order to encourage developers to increase the provision of workspace.

Tomorrow's property today - alongside other Network policy reports, videos and presentations - can be downloaded or viewed by members in the downloads area.