7 May 2013
Planning Minister Nick Boles MP will be asked to consider a number of ways of adjusting the planning system to make it easier for thousands more people to build a home for themselves.
The Minister will be participating in a planning debate at the Grand Designs Live exhibition in London at 12 noon today. The radical ideas are grouped under two main headings – strategic planning initiatives that would encourage more land for self building; and ‘planning red tape’ that could be removed to make the processing of planning applications more straight forward.
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The strategic issues the Minister will be asked to consider include:
- Encouraging large scale self build communities in the UK – like they have done in The Netherlands and Germany.
- Allowing self builders to acquire surplus Government land on a ‘Build Now Pay Later’ basis (in the same way as the volume housebuilders can).
- Encouraging councils to run land auctions to buy land cost effectively, so that this can be used to provide modestly priced serviced building plots for local self builders.
- Defining certain small self build homes as being ‘affordable’ – this could help encourage more self building in needy rural areas.
The ‘planning red tape’ issues he will be asked to look at include:
- Reducing the number of ‘conditions’ local planning authorities impose on self builders. For example a typical bat survey can cost thousands of pounds and delay the construction of a home by many months.
- Allowing more people to build in large gardens. For example there are many examples of elderly people wanting to move into a bungalow in their garden, so they can pass their home on to their growing families; but at present projects like this seldom get approval.
- Encouraging more people to build really green homes by giving them ‘automatic’ planning approval is they reach a certain sustainability standard. (There would need to be some safeguards in areas such as the Green Belt).
The suggestions will be presented to the Planning Minister by the National Self Build Association (NaSBA), during a debate that should be one of the highlights of ‘National Self Build Week‘.
NaSBA Chair, Ted Stevens said: “The Government has already done a lot to make it easier for people to build a home for themselves, and they deserve credit for this. But we believe there is more that could be done. Most would-be self builders still find it incredibly difficult to find a suitable plot of land, and when they do acquire one they often encounter planning hurdles that can be very challenging to overcome. We want to work with the Government’s planning team see if there are some innovative ideas that can be progressed that might transform the self build sector and help it grow significantly.”
