Cross-Party Self-Build Support

I was at the House of Commons yesterday to represent Build It magazine at an enlightening meeting of the new All Party Parliamentary Group on Self-Build, Custom Build and Independent Housebuilding.

Following swiftly on from the chancellor’s custom build-friendly 2014 Budget, this meeting was all about educating MPs and Peers about why, as chair Richard Bacon MP so succinctly put it, “it is time to make self-built homes a mainstream part of Britain’s housing market.”

The panel – which included planning minister Nick Boles, shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds, Hab Housing’s Kevin McCloud and NaSBA’s Ted Stevens – set out a strong case for more bespoke housing.

Satisfying demand

The UK needs to construct upwards of 236,000 homes every year to satisfy demand. At the moment, we’re delivering more like 130,000 (about 10% of which are self-builds).

So there’s a huge shortfall to make up – and the big developers simply can’t churn out those kind of numbers.

Speaking at the All Party Parliamentary Group, Nick Boles set a target of delivering “at least 25% of the UK’s new housing stock through self and custom build homes; otherwise we will never hit 236,000.”

The Right to Build

Following the launch of the Right to Build idea as part of the Budget, Nick Boles set out more detail on the government’s plans for a “revolution” in UK housebuilding.

Revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework in early 2012 have put the onus on local councils to assess the demand for self-build in their jurisdiction. Front-runners such as Cherwell District Council have made great strides in doing so, but other local authorities are lagging behind.

“We want to convert the urge to assess [interest in self-build] into crystal clear demand,” said Boles. “We can do that by having local authorities produce ‘Right to Build Waiting Lists’ that become as popular and well known as the social housing lists.”

Cross-party support for self-build

Perhaps the biggest thing to come out of the meeting was a show of unilateral support for the sector across the political spectrum.

“Revolutions happen when successive governments agree, as they do with self-build,” said Boles. “The Right to Build will be one of those revolutions.”

“More self-build will provide fantastic competition for developers, which will help to improve the quality of our housing stock,” said an enthusiastic Emma Reynolds, shadow housing minister.

Bring down barriers

NaSBA chair Ted Stevens highlighted how MPs can help grow the sector. “How can you [MPs] help? By reminding councils of their duty to assess the demand for self-build,” he said. “Be bold and encourage pilot schemes in your area.”

“Yes land, finance and planning are all barriers – but we also need a change in culture,” added Reynolds. “Local authorities need to guarantee plots, and the culture needs to change in banks to help make self -build more applicable to people in their 20s and 30s. There’s great interest in self-build, but it’s also a bit scary… so we need to de-risk the process.”

That’s exactly what will be achieved if custom homes can be delivered on a wider scale. “With my company Hab Housing, we’re looking at a number of custom home delivery models – one of which would be slab-up,” said Kevin McCloud.

Such schemes would take the uncertainty out of the foundation stages of a  project – the kind of sticking point that’s inhibited big-bank lending in the past.

Did you know?

• 14% of adults are currently researching how to self-build and whether they can get finance

• 1,000,000 people would like to self-build in the next 12 months

• 40% believe finding land is the biggest obstacle

Photo: Self-Build Portal