Angela Rayner moves to protect pubs from being turned into houses or offices

Housing secretary says developers will have to prove there is no way to save pub, as she prepares planning shake-up

All pubs will get protection from being turned into housing or offices under a shake-up of planning laws in England to be presented by Angela Rayner this week.

The housing secretary will publish a new national planning policy framework aimed at loosening planning laws even further to help build 1.5m homes by the end of the parliament.

The government had previously been consulting on whether to change planning laws to protect the last pub in an area from being turned into housing or commercial use, but the limits of that proposal prompted warnings from hospitality campaigners that thousands of pubs could be lost.

Ministers have now decided this will apply to all pubs facing the threat of conversion into another use.

Rayner is making the move because of concerns about the rate of pub closures in England, with Andy Burnham already having announced a cut in business rates for the hospitality sector. According to the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), 794 pubs have closed this year, with 82 either being demolished or converted.

Pub and restaurant bosses have blamed the employer national insurance increase, the higher minimum wage and food price inflation as well as high business rates.

Under the changes, developers will have to prove there is no reasonable prospect of keeping a pub as a going concern, including evidence that it was marketed for sale for at least a year. Councils will need to consider whether losing a pub would deprive a community of a somewhere for people to gather.

Rayner said: “Pubs are part of who we are as a nation. They’re where we celebrate, grieve, argue and belong, the beating heart of so many of our communities, and it’s an outrage that weak protections have allowed too many of them to slip away without a fight.

“That’s why we’re drawing a line so that developers have to prove there’s genuinely no way to save a pub before they can even think about knocking it down, because building the homes we desperately need should never come at the cost of the pubs we love.”

When the policy was first proposed as part of Keir Starmer’s “pride in place” initiative, it was going to apply only to the last pub in a community area. However, this will now be widened to all pubs facing proposals for development.

Camra previously said limiting protection to the last pub in an area could “spell the end for thousands of viable pubs across England”.

It said: “Strong planning protections are needed to give people the right to try to save their pub if it is under threat of demolition or conversion. Crucially, this must apply to all pubs so communities can save their local even if there are other pubs in the same area.”