Green Light for Conversion of Great West House
263 new flats planned for landmark building
Great West House in Brentford. Picture: Maxwell Hamilton
August 23, 2024
Hounslow Council has given its approval for both towers at Great West House to be converted into residential use.
The owner, Great West House Ltd, submitted a request for a determination as to whether prior approval was needed on each building (GW1 and GW2) at 983 Great West Road this May. Then in July it requested certificates of lawfulness for a change of use on both buildings following a ‘failure to determine’ the earlier submission. This later application was withdrawn when council planners reached a decision on the original applications (PAC/2024/1397 and PAC/2024/1398) in which they ruled that prior approval was needed and was granted.
Another application for the conversion of the first eleven floors of GW2 into storage units made this April has also been withdrawn.
This means that GW1 is set to be converted into 153 new flats with a total floor space of 11,516sqm and GW2 will be converted into 110 flats with 7,008sqm of residential floorspace.
The acceleration of the decision increases the chances of Hounslow Council reaching its new housing starts target which was recently set by the incoming government.
Earlier this year, Hounslow Council announced that it was making an Article 4 direction that would restrict Permitted Development Rights (PDR) in areas in which it wanted to maintain a supply of office space including along the Great West Road. PDR allows the conversion of commercial buildings into residential without a requirement to get full planning permission. The changes will not take effect until next April .
Normally when buildings are converted to residential under permitted development rights, there is no affordable component.
Great West House is a 60-year-old development sitting on a 3.2 acre site. It currently provides approximately 14,400 sq m of office space.
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