22 May 2013
A number of councils in Great Britain have signalled their strong support for the self build sector.
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For example, Plymouth City Council is encouraging self builders via its ‘Get Plymouth Building‘ programme, which aims to create more affordable housing and help people get on the housing ladder. A self build champion, Amy Luxton, has also been appointed from the Council’s Housing Delivery team. Her role will be supporting people who would like to build their own homes and exploring options for sites in Plymouth.
The Council has also sold some land on the former Woodlands and Hillside Schools’ site in Whitleigh, and as part of the deal it will provide self build plots.
Plymouth City Councillor Mark Lowry, whose portfolio includes housing delivery, said: “We are actively promoting self build, we want people to build their own homes. This isn’t about huge Grand Designs style houses, this is about anyone who’d like to build a family home to live in and learn skills while they’re doing it. Self build is a viable way for us to address the shortage of housing and it’s one of a number of ways we are tackling the issue.”
Elsewhere in Devon, town councillors in Brixham have made it clear that people who cannot afford to get on to the housing ladder should have access to land to build their own house. Councillors attending a presentation by the Land Society, (a not-for-profit organisation which helps people build low cost homes), voted unanimously to hold a public forum for local residents to establish demand for self build homes.
In Sussex, Brighton and Hove City Council says it is “very supportive” of planning applications of a self build nature. A recent report published by the Council says that when identifying vacant sites with development potential, “we will consider whether there are any opportunities which could be offered for self-builds, rather than council housing.”
Bristol’s new Mayor, George Ferguson (pictured), a former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, has recently demonstrated his passion for self build. “Bristol is a test bed for new ways of doing things. I’m very much looking for people to come and self build at all scales,” he said. A team from the council has recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Almere in the Netherlands to see if they can apply any lessons they learned there back in Bristol.
Ferguson outlined plans to put all public land in the city under single management and said he would look to identify sites suitable for self-builders. “We will look for appropriate sites that might not otherwise get developed by conventional means,” he said.
A string of other councils have also started to champion self build via their emerging planning policies. For example Cornwall has published a draft affordable housing policy which helps to classify some smaller self builds as ‘affordable’ housing. In the Snowdonia National Park new policies have been unveiled that define the sort of self build project (or rural conversions) that qualify as affordable housing. The Park Authority also seems keen to encourage group self build opportunities, especially those that employ a Community land Trust structure.
Barnsley Borough Council has also introduced policies to encourage more self or custom build homes. It is keen to support not-for-profit self build schemes and has developed its own definitions of when modest self build homes can be treated as ‘affordable’. The report says the changes to its policies “will help to unleash the economic potential of this form of housing, and is entirely consistent with the imperative to meet the housing aspirations and by extension, grow the economy of the Borough.”
And in Dorset, Purbeck District Council has recently adopted a new Supplementary Planning Document that offers lots of advice to local people on how they might finance an ‘affordable’ self build project. Modest self build developments that meet the council’s criteria will in future be allowed on rural exception sites. “Self build rural exception sites can be single plots or in a group. The Council will continue to explore ways of supporting self build, either as individual bespoke properties or group projects, as part of achieving mixed and balanced communities,” says the new document.
