NEWS
Self-build is a ‘practical’ way to solve the housing crisis, says MP Prentis
Victoria Prentis, Conservative MP for North Oxfordshire, has said that increasing custom-built housing stock is a practical way to solve the country’s housing woes.
Identifying that only 8 per cent of housing stock was built via custom- build, Prentis highlighted that access to land, finance and the planning system are the main barriers and that Cherwell District Council, through its Graven Hill site, is doing much to “alleviate the burden”. The National Federation of Builders (NFB) has welcomed the fact another
MP is recognising the barriers facing smaller developments. It says it is “delighted” that decision-makers are beginning to understand the financial, community and environmental benefits of self-build. The popularity of self-build, the organisation says, has “not been helped” by local authorities focusing on larger sites to meet housing demand. They often lack a local self-build policy and have “failed to capitalise” on the Right to Build register implemented in 2016. When those failures are added to a “broken” planning system and the shortage of skilled workers, the NFB said self-build becomes a “daunting proposition”. Richard Beresford, NFB chief executive, commented: “The Government
backed self-build but too few local authorities have realised its true potential. Self-build homes are typically built by local developers, who win work on reputation and employ locally, therefore contributing to local housing and local employment.”
Head of housing and planning policy at the House Builders Association (HBA), Rico Wojtulewicz said: “We are 100 per cent behind self- and custom-build but it needs to be supported through planning policy. Despite being in place for a couple of years, too few homes are enabled through the Right to Build register and this means that councils aren’t doing anywhere near enough to get the right homes built in the right places. Self-build is part of the solution to the housing crisis.”
Research reveals the counties in England with the most land for self-build
Research by
Farawayfurniture.com has revealed which counties present the most opportunity for self-build, versus the least. The company undertook its research by using
property sites Zoopla and Rightmove, with the number of land/plot listings per county in England extracted separately then combined. Lincolnshire came out on top, with a combined total of 472 plots for sale. Alongside the county making up the top ten were Devon with 364, Cornwall (332), Lancashire (258), Norfolk (249), West Yorkshire (233), Cambridgeshire (230), County Durham (222), Essex (218), and Greater London (211).
At the other end of the spectrum, the county with the least number of listings was Bristol with just 28. It was followed by Warwickshire with 51, Isle of Wight (54), Worcestershire (57), Northamptonshire (57), Buckinghamshire (57), Bedfordshire (57), Dorset (74), Wiltshire (75), and Tyne and Wear (75). The data was compiled from manual searches made on the property websites on 22 March.
8
www.sbhonline.co.uk may/june 2019
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
