NaCSBA member Mayflower Mortgage and Finance works with self builders at the very earliest stage of their project, helping them get the right financial product for their needs. We asked Mayflower to share some insight with anyone considering a self build, by chatting to Victoria and Gareth, a couple part way through their build. We hope you find their answers helpful!
Knowing we wanted to self build, we bought the plot with prior approval and existing plans in place.
Once it went through we consulted with a local architect to see if he could rework plans within the existing footprint to include some of the extra features we were hoping to fit in and improve access.
We also looked to amend the specified outer material from grey cladding to a rustic red brick on the bottom half of the building to look more in keeping with the local area.
Thankfully our local council supported the plans and viewed them as an improvement on the previous scheme so we were very lucky to get the layout and look we were hoping for whilst still staying within the constraints of Class Q development rights (see box, below).
Financial Advisor -everyone’s starting point should be sourcing a great financial advisor that specialises in self build. With so many options available you need someone who can help rationalise and build a plan with you.
We used Mike Pawley at Mayflower Mortgages who made everything so simple and hooked us up with a fantastic product that suited our needs perfectly.
An architect is an obvious one, though we only used ours to finesse what was already there, which wasn’t expensive. It’s worth reviewing plans if you buy a home with planning in place, to ensure you get the home that reflects your needs.
Engineering companies – these are essential, and must be consulted as and when needed for any technical drawings and calculations needed for the planners.
Green specialists – if you’re considering going green I’d highly recommend considering a company that can offer you a complete turnkey solution. We used The Big Green Beard who have been excellent.
We’re lucky on the project management side, as Gareth’s background is new-build construction (though this is the first time we’ve built on our own). If you haven’t got the knowledge and contacts I’d recommend consulting with a third party that can steer the build and ensure the sequencing of the various jobs is correct.
We broke ground in December 2020 with ground works taking a long time due to the extensive excavations needed. We aim to be in the house with Building control sign off for the end of November 2021, which we are really happy with considering we’ve both been working full time and haven’t had contractors on site full time.
Absolutely 1000%! We’ve been living in a caravan nearby, which has been challenging at times, especially in the winter months, but we’ve enjoyed the journey and actually living a simpler life for a bit.
To anyone considering self build, as long as you do your due diligence and the financial side stacks up comfortably we’d say go for it and live your dream. Anything is possible with drive, planning and determination.
I don’t think there’s anything we’d change about the build itself at this point – perhaps ask us in a year though!
Find out more about Gareth and Victoria’s build on Instagram at @ourbarnconversionstory
Permitted development rights (PDR) are a set of rights in England that allow people to do certain things within the law, with planning permission automatically granted as long as the conditions are met for each category. They are set out in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 (as amended) (GPDO 2015)
Class Q permitted development rights can support the conversion of agricultural buildings into a home (or up to five homes) without the need for full planning application.
This uses a process called ‘prior approval’ instead of needing full planning permission from scratch, as long as certain criteria are met.
You will still need a planning consultant to help you with the process, as the conditions can be many and various, and it is important to get these right to ensure the PDR is valid. This is because the planning authority must still approve the plans before any work commences. The CLA reports that nationally, about 60% Class Q applications fail – often due to local interpretations of the rules. But this means that 40% do allow people to build, so don’t discount it as a route to your home.
Find Self Build Planning specialists in the NaCSBA members directory.
THIS IS A NaCSBA MEMBER UPDATE
Scotland-based Allan Corfield Architects is expanding its national coverage with a permanent presence at the National Self Build and Renovation Centre (NSBRC) in Swindon, and the launch of its first seminar for self builders wanting to develop their skills.
Architect Jenny Chandela has joined ACA, working out of its brand new NSBRC stand three days a week, and is able to answer questions or chat to you about your project. Alternatively, if you cannot get to Swindon ACA also offers a free initial online consultation.
In line with ACA’s ethos of supporting self builders, as seen in its online Learning Centre, it has launched its first self build seminar at the NSBRC, How to Self-build Successfully*.
The one day event runs from 8:30 – 4:30, and is repeated on the Wednesday 27 and Thursday 28 October, and costs £80 per person, and is designed to educate novice builders all the key elements of the self build journey.
Topics covered include:
Speakers at the event:
Allan Corfield, AC Architects, Self Build and Low Energy Expert
Tom McSherry, BuildStore, Finance Expert
Brian Singleton, ADM Systems, MVHR Expert
David Gallagher, AC Structures, Structural Engineer
James Bryden, CLPM, Project Management and QS
David Hilton, Heat & Energy, Renewable Heating Expert
To find out more visit Allan Corfield Architects website and register your interest for the event, or get in touch with your questions to Kim via email or call 03333444217
* The How to Self-build Successfully seminar is not suitable if you are already working with an architect.
Super sized custom and self build development Graven Hill has teamed up with Iconic Development Group to offer would be self builders the option of building a turnkey ICF-constructed home on the site.
Iconic offers a unique one-stop shop service, offering self-builders everything they need to build their insulated concrete formwork (ICF) home. A turnkey home refers to the fact that the self builder commissions the home, and then it is entire built and fitted out by the developer, and handed over as a completed home. The owner simply ‘turns the key’ and moves in!
Iconic can take projects from the earliest stages of financial planning, offering expert advice that continues right through to construction.
Founded by Dheeraj Malik and Sanjeev Basra in 2018, Iconic Development Group focuses on providing high quality homes at competitive prices.
The pair already built their own homes at Graven Hill, an experience that adds to their decades of knowledge and skills in construction.
Iconic Development Group is building six homes at Graven Hill, and plans to build 20 houses at the site in the coming years.
In addition to working with self-builders more generally, they work with a range of developers using ICF, and are able to offer fixed price design and build service.
Gemma Davis, Customer Experience Director at Graven Hill said: “Over the past 18-months, we’ve seen people rushing to adapt their living space to home working. Realising that this ‘new normal’, is here to stay, many now feel these temporary solutions aren’t suited to post-pandemic life.
“Working with suppliers like Iconic is so refreshing; they share our belief that everything in your home should be designed and optimised based exactly on how the individual or family like to live. Our partnership allows us to ensure each self and custom build project is tailored to an individual’s lifestyle, environmental objectives, and budget.”
Dheeraj Malik, Co-founder of Iconic Development Group Ltd said: “Our initiative was born out of a desire to help others, based on our personal experiences of self-building at Graven Hill. Through our partnership with GHVDC, our experience, skills, and knowledge allow us to provide fixed price design and build services, which help self and custom builders achieve their dream homes.”
Malik continues, “We foresee a greater demand for bespoke properties in the next decade, especially in towns like Bicester. Not only can people have easy access to major cities like London, Oxford, and Birmingham, but they can also hand-pick elements for their dream home without paying hefty city prices.”
ICF is an easy system to build with, that involves using large hollow blocks that are stacked to create walls. The expanded polystyrene blocks interlock to create a formwork with a cavity that flows around the entire building. Once built, this is then pumped full of concrete, which, once dry and shuttering is remove, creates a robust structure with great insulation values.
Self-builders may be able to get involved – should they wish – with a bit of training from your supplier. The finished building can be clad in render, or a material of your choice.
A new biography has been published sharing the work and vision of Walter Segal, a leading figure in self build in the 1970s when he created several projects, including a whole estate of self build homes, in London. Walter Segal: Self Built Architect
In the book, author and friend of Walter, John McKean tells the story of Segal’s life (1907–85) life, covering his youth and early architectural career in Berlin, before exploring his unique approach to architectural practice – and, specifically, to everyday housing. The book takes in Segal’s work in Switzerland, Mallorca and Egypt, before reviewing his post-war building career in England and the philosophy that drove his work. This included a commitment to self building, which led to him creating a self build community in Lewisham, London (above and below). This has now become a reference point in every historical review of self build in the UK.
Overtime Segal became interested in coming up with the best dwellings for 20th-century towns and his concern for the empowerment of ordinary citizens – and crucially this involved giving them the ability to build their own homes.
Alice Grahame follows with an exploration of the enduring impact of Segal’s timberframing method, looking at how this has led to the possibility of making, and then living within, communities where houses are constructed with a flexible, easily assembled and planet-friendly building system
A Professor of Architecture at the University of Brighton for 11 years, John McKean wrote the first monograph on his friend Walter Segal over 30 years ago.
Alice Grahame has written about Walter Segal in The Guardian and architecture and design magazines. She curated an exhibition about Segal – Walters Way: the Self-build Revolution at the Architectural Association Gallery in London.
We’re following the story of Anne, mother of six boys who is building a home for her family and one for the grandparents on the same site. They used the Right to Build to help them escape the private rental sector, acting as pioneers for the legislation, which even the council was unsure about at the time.
A quick recap:
Our offer for the Vicarage garden (with our partner family) had been overtaken as Council and Diocese got into dialogue. Against that disappointment things were picking up on the community building idea.
It was 2018 and the beginning of a new year. My husband Peter spent Christmas working up a scheme for the two sites to house 5-7 units, to make the most of the site.
He was also formulating a proposal to convince the church that, rather than sell off the ‘family silver’ to fund philanthropic ‘mission’, community housing was, in fact, a mission purpose in itself, and could even be framed to support the work of the church locally.
At this point the Diocese was in the process of drawing up a scheme for maximising the number of units on both sites. It would obtain a valuation and then take the site to auction. We knew that any private sale bid would have to be 10% above the valuation, as before, but this time for the combined sites.
Only a registered charity, the Diocese Development Manager pointed out, would have a chance of bidding below market value. I could feel his discomfort, as he was trying to tell me we no longer stood a chance.
However, for some reason I did not feel uncomfortable, saying that, “Nothing is impossible….”
I had further conversations with the Council Property Disposals manager who was happy to share the plans being drawn up with the Church, but his position was similar: ‘best price’ needed to be achieved. We would have the same chance as others to compete for the scheme.
It was clear that we had got as far as we could with the property departments. We needed to reach visionaries.
Consequently, we came up with a prospectus which we called, ‘Reimagining Community: a pilot scheme in N14’. This was inspired by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ‘Reimagining Britain’ in which he challenged ‘the purpose of housing should be understood as creating communities and not merely building accommodation”.
‘The housing crisis’, we wrote, ‘presents an opportunity that creative, dynamic and devoted families wanting to establish a secure base and build community need help to get started…’
My first port of call was the vicar’s wife who was encouraging. I talked through some of our ideas and she recommended that we approach the area Bishop (Bishop of Edmonton) who was interested in affordable housing and Father Edd said he would put in a good word and introduce us by email.
This turned out be very timely. I followed up our contact at Faith in Affordable Housing (see Blog 5) who informed me that the Bishop of Edmonton had recently become a trustee of Housing Justice.
He also gave me the contact for the Diocese Strategic Development Manager. Community housing was of interest, but the Diocese had no policy to date and although a ground rent model was a sensible business model for the church it was one that was not recognised yet.
Father Edd was as good as his word and immediately wrote to the Bishop saying he had seen our proposals which were very interesting and should be seriously considered.
We then wrote our letter in our custom way – I draft the letter, Peter puts red lines all over it and re-writes it. We were not sure how to address a bishop but in the end decided on the old fashioned formal form:
“My Lord, … we are looking for support within the Church for our small community led housing proposal… The development would pioneer a new form of affordable housing made possible because the Church would retain ownership of the land.
Families would be able to own their own homes but not have to buy the land and instead pay a ground rent to the Church. In that respect it is like buying a flat.
The Church maintains a steady income stream and has helped create a community invested in the school and church. The houses would remain affordable in perpetuity…
The development explores the idea of intergenerational living with some of the characteristics of an extended family in which the old can provide some childcare and the young can help the elderly in various ways. The scheme also looks at how students or those starting work or just married can find their feet.
…Currently Council and Diocese are looking to marry the two sites which back onto each other and dispose of them at auction for development for luxury houses and apartments. The Council site is landlocked and the Diocese owns the access and so has the controlling interest.
Our proposal offers an alternative model which while it will not furnish a Best Price lump sum up front it will deliver value in terms of Mission, for families and the community and almost certainly achieve better overall cash value in the long run…
The approach is a new and practical application of some of the principles recently promoted by the Archbishop and by the Mayor, and would help London Borough Enfield to deliver on their new obligations on Self Build. Indeed we believe Enfield will welcome the opportunity.
They are already taking some quite brave steps on ‘custom build’ ahead of other boroughs and so this is an opportunity to give some encouragement that the great moral authority of the established church can lend.
This site offers a curiously unique symbol of cooperation of the two great pillars of Church and State to bring forward fresh answers to the biggest questions for families in Britain today…”
I received a call back a couple of weeks later to say the Bishop was happy to meet us and a meeting was set for a month’s time. It was exciting.
Our task now was to seek a similar visionary in Enfield Council, we knew there was one, he was working with Naked House, but could we reach him?
Read the other parts of the Self Build Family Build Blog.
Part One: Deciding to Self Build, the Turning Point
Part Two: Looking for Land in London
Part Three: The Land Value Idea
Part Four: A Small Matter of Access
Part Five: The Mystery of the Road Unravelled
Part Seven: Best Consideration Pursuing our Community Building Idea
Part Eight: Calling on Higher Parts
Photo: printed with permission of Fiona Hanson 2020©
According to specialist lender Together, a third of Brits would sacrifice part of their garden if it meant they could self build on the land. Based on a new survey, the data indicates that over 34% would take on a major self-build, with a mix of motivations. Of those surveyed, 14% said this would create a home for a family member, 10% would build a house they would sell and 8% would move in themselves.
According to the survey, 26% of respondees were interested in creating a standalone ‘granny annexe’ for visiting friends or family, if they had the space. Many attributed this desire due to the way in which the pandemic forced us to reconsider how we interact with our extended families.
One in ten also said that the boom in popularity for staycations offered an opportunity to rent such a garden build out as a short-term holiday let, while 8% said they were interested in long-term lets.
But it’s not just big builds that people wanted in their garden, with a fifth (20%) of respondents saying they’d be keen to build a summerhouse or workshop to create their perfect space.
Scott Clay, distribution development manager at Together, said: “Our survey highlights homeowners’ ambitions as we begin to return to a different kind of normality.
“People are thinking more creatively about how they could use their outside space, whether that is providing a standalone home office, a home for themselves to live or sell, or a specially-designed home for elderly or disabled relatives.
“It’s important that homeowners have enough space and get any required building consent, including planning permission, before they take on a self-build. They will also need a lot of planning, determination, and the right finance in place before they start their project.
“However, as well as Help to Build, there are other options of funding your own build, depending on the borrower’s ability to repay the loan. This could be through an advance from an existing lender, a self-build mortgage, or a remortgage, bridging loan or other types of property finance from a specialist lender.”
Duncan Hayes, a spokesperson for the National Custom and Self-Build Association (NaCSBA) said: “When considering options for garden plots it is important to understand the approach of the local planning authority. The right proposals in the right areas can help with the delivery of better and more sustainable homes that we urgently need.
“Care is needed as many will have specific policies to prevent inappropriate development of gardens that may cause harm to the local area. NaCSBA recommends that anyone wanting to build should sign their local self-build register and check out the planning policies on their local council’s website in regard to creating new dwellings in a garden.”
Andrew Baggot, managing partner and chartered accountant at Clarke Nicklin, adds: “As far as tax is concerned there are a few matters to bear in mind with a self-build project. As well as the tax benefits, there shouldn’t be any Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) to pay on the self-build, on the basis that it is being built in the owner’s own garden.
“However, one tax that might need to be considered in more detail is Capital Gains Tax (“CGT”). Your primary home is exempt from CGT. Although, as soon as you’ve acquired a self-build home you then have two properties, only one of which can be exempt from CGT. It’s therefore important to plan ahead if you’re then thinking of selling one of the properties so that you minimise any tax that might become payable”.
The National Custom and Self Build Association (NaCSBA) welcomes today’s launch of the £150 million Help to Build equity loan fund. Research in October found that 1 in 3 British adults were interested in a self build, and this new fund will help make this dream possible.
Announced by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, Help to Build will transform the sector, and reflects Government’s confidence that more custom and self build homes can be delivered.
Help to Build will help those with smaller deposits access a self or custom build home, and will provide access to additional funding and a lower mortgage rate than would otherwise be the case. A dedicated scheme was necessary because almost all custom and self builders were unable to access the existing Help to Buy Equity Loan Scheme.
In addition to the benefits of having a home built to your own designs and specifications, the scheme is based on the cost to the customer of building their home, and not the price for which a completed home is being sold.
Andrew Baddeley-Chappell, NaCSBA CEO said: “There has been a long-recognised need for greater diversity in our new homes market, and the Help to Build scheme is an important step towards greater customer choice for those with ambition, sound plans and smaller deposits. Help to Build is about increasing choice for the homebuyer.
“Contrary to common perception, in most cases custom and self build is not about people undertaking the build themselves. Rather, it is about the homeowner having control over the design and specification of their project – enabling them to create the home they want, rather than the one someone else believes they would like. It means that new homes will now be part of the solution for the large numbers of people whose cultural, ecological, physical or emotional needs are not currently met by the new-build market.
“In addition, there are many areas where speculative builders are choosing not to build at the speed and scale that is needed, that will benefit from the new housing that Help to Build will facilitate. Custom and self build is common everywhere else in the world. Were we in this situation we would be delivering over 100,000 homes each year via the route.
“This scheme is all about delivering more and better homes, that more people aspire to live in and that communities are happier to see built. This is part of a wider set of changes from the Government to improve diversity and access in our new homes market including the Right to Build. This is an important day for the sector and an important part of building better and beautiful.”
For anyone thinking of self building, NaCSBA has this advice:
Sign up to your local self build register in the area where you would like to build – find yours at www.righttobuildportal.org
For help with plots, check out:
• PlotBrowser from the team at SelfBuild & Design magazine
• Plotfinder.net from the team at Homebuilding & Renovating magazine
• PlotSearch from BuildStore
Image: A self build by English Brothers Limited, built using pre-insulated timber frame panels and includes an insulation ‘wrap’ which makes for a cost-effective way to achieve a u-value of just 0.14 W/m2k.
Heating and ventilation specialist Zehnder brings you its take on how to ensure your Self-Build project is sustainable, ensuring it provides the optimum comfortable climate for you.
Self-Building your own home offers you the opportunity to factor in a range of measures that you wouldn’t find in a typical open market home. Top of the bill for many Self-Builders is the ability to spec elements that make your home more sustainable, making it greener, more comfortable and cheaper to run.
There’s a trade-off here between cost and outcome, but Self-Builders tend to stay in their homes longer than most, and also invest more in them. What’s more, Self-Builders, as NaCSBA acknowledges, are innovators in greener building, championing new materials and micro-renewables to ensure they get the home they want. As such, they are the green heroes of UK housing.
Self-Building requires careful budgeting, but money spent on sustainability is typically money well spent. The Passivhaus Trust states that Passive /house builds can be achieved on a range of budgets that can bring a 90% reduction in the energy needed for heating requirements, which means savings from year one.
Zehnder specialises in heating and ventilation solutions that can help you achieve your goal. Jason Bennett, National Business Development Manager for Self-Build at Zehnder explains a bit more: “Building regulations and legislation set out sustainability standards that must be met, but these are minimum standards that many self-builders use as a starting point.
“Passive House advocates would argue that energy usage is as equally important as the focus on carbon emissions, giving a more rounded approach, that’s a helpful way to look at the bigger picture.”
Zehnder has put together fives steps for Self-Builders to consider when planning to build greener.
Think about what you will use to build your home. Timber remains an extremely environmentally friendly building material, as long as it is sustainably sourced. In contrast, the production process for cement is extremely carbon intensive, which should be weighed up in terms of sustainability.
Even when used as a form of biomass, timber should result in very little net carbon emissions as long as replanting replaces lost trees.
The Renewable Energy Hub states that a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system (MVHR) can save up to a whopping 50% on energy bills in a home. This will vary significantly depending on the building itself, meaning that time spent at planning a whole house approach is always time well spent.
For optimum results, MVHR is best suited to an airtight and highly-insulated building, designed from the outset to utilise an MVHR system.
These work by removing stale air from the house, which is replaced with filtered fresh air. But the clever bit is that the heat is extracted from the stale air, and retained to warm the incoming air to minimise heat loss. This ensures a constant supply of warmed fresh air, with the internal temperature remaining comfortable and stable. Although you can open windows and doors in such homes, the system is designed to be used within the house as a sealed unit with the MVHR doing the hard work, while opening doors and windows less frequently can help minimise noise and air pollution too.
Highly efficient MVHR units, such as Zehnder’s ComfoAir Q range, can recover up to 96% of the heat from extracted air that would have otherwise been exhausted outside. This reduces heating bills, which keeps costs down for the homeowner.
What’s more, MVHR systems are great for keeping allergies at bay, as they extract excess moisture, pollutants and pollen from the air.
Passive House builds are based on the principle that insulation is vital for a building’s performance, keeping heating requirements to a minimum.
Insulation comes in a range of materials, including environmentally responsible products, such as sheep wool. The U-values wool can achieve compare favourably to those of rigid board insulation or fibreglass, which have a far more carbon-intensive production process.
Designing your home from scratch means you can make the most solar capacity. And when combined with air-tight, insulated construction, solar energy can be used to run an efficient electric heating system, such as an air or heat pump.
Heat pumps can also run on electricity generated from solar power, making them 100% renewable.
While more space intensive, ground source heat pumps use the stable ground temperature as their heat source, making them even more efficient than air-based pumps. These need careful planning from the start of a project, and installation costs are higher, so it’s a decision each Self-Builder must make as part of the wider picture.
In rural areas where space is less of an issue – and especially if you’re off-grid, biomass can also be a good eco-source of heat. Systems can be expensive to install, so check with manufacturers the time period by which the installation costs will start to be paid back by savings.
Finally, for hot water, solar thermal remains a highly sustainable way to heat your hot water.
Water is a relatively cheap utility in the UK, especially in comparison to heating, but the costs to the environment remain high due to the carbon emissions and energy used to produce and supply it.
A rainwater harvesting system is simple to plan into a self-build early on, ensuring you capture free water that can be used for a range of uses, such as flushing toilets, watering the garden and cleaning the car.
Again, it needs to factored in early as the containers are large, and will need major plant to install, which you will inevitably have on site at some point.
We’re following the story of Anne, mother of six boys who is building a home for her family and one for the grandparents on the same site. They used the Right to Build to help them escape the private rental sector, acting as pioneers for the legislation, which even the council was unsure about at the time.
A quick recap:
We made an offer on the Vicarage plot, partnered with a family who were a great fit with us and had got as far as Heads of Terms with the Church. But at the last minute the Council contacted the Diocese to look at a commercial scheme marrying the two sites.
“Pick yourself up, brush yourself off and start all over again,” my old philosophy tutor used to say. I was deeply disappointed. When I rang the Diocese development manager a few days later his manner was cooler than it had been (at least I imagined so).
When I asked where we stood he confirmed the strength of our offer lay in the fact that at a future date we might work with the Council to develop their site but events had changed and the Council and Diocese were now talking about marrying the two sites themselves.
Our chance of building two homes was now slim. The conversation ended in an awkward silence. The reality was that we would not be able to compete with a better financed developer to develop both sites.
I put down the phone and the tears poured out! We had been so close. We had not only built up our own hopes but our friends’ too. It had been almost a year since I came across the Right to Build Legislation, and eight months since we started pursuing the Council plot.
The obvious question was: ‘Should we now give up?” Peter and I held the view that we should pursue something until every door and window was shut in front of us. The door had obviously and firmly been shut but there was a small window open.
About the same time I received an email from the Community Land Trust Network that our application for first stage funding had been successful (see blog 5) and I could chose an advisor to work with us for our first scoping day. They also approved my application for a bursary ticket for the National Community Led Housing Conference later that month.
We began to pick up where we had left off with our ideas of community building. If the Church and Council were looking at marrying the two sites for a larger housing development, then being both public mission landowners surely they should at least consider a community scheme for local families committed to the local area and local church?
We met with Stephen Hill, then Chair of UK Cohousing Network and Trustee of Community Land Trust Network. Stephen set out our current position and set out two or three different routes of community led housing we could look at.
At the present time we were two families looking to house ourselves with the potential to help other families along the way. As such, we did not represent a community benefit organisation.
Community Land Trusts steward land for the community, with the community having a say in the organisation, and members have a vote. There is quite a formal governance and legal structure, and those who set up the CLT do not necessarily get to live in it. Cohousing is slightly different and perhaps closer to what we were envisaging. Cohousing groups are intentional communities run by the residents. The initial group have a significant role in designing and creating the community.
Stephen likened our approach to a not-for profit Community Interest Company called Naked House. They were part of the Urban Community Land Trust family and, like us, were responding to the need of families who don’t qualify for social housing but are unable to afford a home on the open market.
In 2015 they won a competition by New London Architecture partnering with Enfield Council to produce a scheme as one way of solving the housing crisis. Their scheme involved repurposing Enfield Council land to create 22 new units across three sites.
They would be a developer led custom build initiative providing ‘naked’ homes, houses stripped back to bare essentials: habitable with electricity, heating and a basic bathroom but also planning and building regulation compliant and purchasable with a high street mortgage.
We had heard of Naked House and in fact earlier in the year invited the founders over to dinner. At the time they helped us understand some of the challenges they were facing.
To make the houses affordable (apart from the ‘naked’ element) they were looking at a leasehold/ground rent model with Enfield Council. This was proving difficult not least because the Government were planning to ban ground rents due to abuses of the system.
They have since been enormously successful and are currently building the 22 homes in Enfield and are working with Lewisham and Croydon Councils to do something similar. They were the first community led housing group to receive funding from City Hall.
Homes will be delivered as an affordable discounted market sale product (anticipated between 25-30%) and the discount will be locked in to keep the property affordable in perpetuity for allocation to those priced out of the market. The lowest cost homes will be genuinely affordable to those on London median wage, whilst those with an income up to £90k are eligible to apply.
The regeneration team at Enfield, they told us, was headed by a pioneering and visionary leader. Perhaps we could make contact and look to do something on a smaller scale as a self build community initiative?
The benefit of having a similar narrative, Stephen said, was that decision makers feel more comfortable working with ideas that have already been given official political endorsement.
Stephen suggested we work up an outline viability appraisal for the site and our priority should be to establish with both landowners the basis on which they would engage with us directly, and still satisfy their legal requirements to obtain the ‘best consideration reasonably obtainable’.
This does not mean the most money in either case. “The church as a charity can use its land to achieve its ministry objectives,” Stephen said, “and the Archbishop’s pronouncement [in 2017] that the church should use its land holdings to promote affordable housing, should be helpful to us.”
So as the year drew to an end here lay our challenge: could we find a way of presenting to the church and council that ‘best consideration reasonably obtainable’ for their site was not the highest price but a local community led initiative supporting the local area and local church?
Read the other parts of the Self Build Family Build Blog.
Part One: Deciding to Self Build, the Turning Point
Part Two: Looking for Land in London
Part Three: The Land Value Idea
Part Four: A Small Matter of Access
Part Five: The Mystery of the Road Unravelled
Part Seven: Best Consideration Pursuing our Community Building Idea
Part Eight: Calling on Higher Parts
Photo: printed with permission of Fiona Hanson 2020©
Anyone interested in building in East Sussex will be interested to learn that Leaper Land Promotion has submitted a planning application for 22 serviced plots at Horam.
The proposals, which include eight affordable homes, were submitted to Wealdon District Council following consultation with local residents, and has now been validated. You can see the application on the council’s website.
Anyone wishing to build their own home are encouraged to leave positive statements of approval for the site, to help counter the inevitable objections that all planning applications attract.
Set on a 0.8 hectare site, is on the south of the village of Horam, set between recent housing and the Sussex countryside. The homes have been designed by award-winning architect Pollard Thomas Edwards and planning consultancy Rural Solutions, working in conjunction with the land owner.
The homes will offer a range of choices in the homes, including a palette of designs and materials that buyers can use to customise their design. This will create a sustainable and valuable new addition to the village that the Leaper believes will be an asset for the future. The inclusion of custom build as well as affordable homes will increase housing choice in the town for existing and new residents of the village.
The design has been carefully framed to boost local biodiversity across the site to connect with the woodland buffer zone between the site and the open countryside.
“Leaper’s latest self and custom build scheme at Horam in East Sussex falls within a draft updated village development boundary and was supported at pre-app. A detailed design code has been developed to best reflect the local vernacular architecture and the scheme if approved will provide much needed plots for the local area,” says Ben Marten, Director of Leaper Land.
If you have land that you think would be suitable for custom or self build, get in touch with Leaper Land.
Images: Pollard Thomas Edwards/Leaper Land
