NEWS
A SERIES OF EVENTS TO CELEBRATE HOMEBUILDING & RENOVATING
Future has announced a programme of new events taking place this year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Homebuilding & Renovating brand. Four new events will have been planned, starting at the National Homebuilding & Renovating Show in March. The Homebuilding & Renovating Awards will “honour the UK self-build industry,” while the Custom Build Summit will “help builders, developers and architects unlock growth in the market.” A third launch event will follow in
September when the Homebuilding & Renovating Roadshow debuts at Chester Racecourse. The single day event will bring the main show concept to the north west for the first time. The fourth and final launch will take place at the London show in September, where The Future Home Show will run alongside the main event, aiming to showcase the best products on the market and help consumers integrate them into their homes.
GRAND DESIGNS LIVE TO LAUNCH ‘THE GREAT BRITISH BOX ROOM’
According to Grand Designs Live, box rooms are being left “unused, forgotten or used as a dumping ground for the things that don’t fit anywhere else.” The Great British Box Room
Competition, a new series of six installations, each imagined by a different interior designer, will be on display at Grand Designs Live, from 2 - 10 May 2020. This new feature will “inspire visitors and encourage them to take home new ideas, information and supplier contacts,” said the organisers. The show is inviting British stylists
from all over the UK to submit their designs to transform tiny spaces into useful and beautiful rooms for any home. Designers will dress the rooms with products, which are easily accessible to exhibition visitors and are either in stock or online from current retailers, manufacturers and designers. From the six finalists chosen from the entries submitted, the winner of the competition will be announced on the Grand Theatre at the show, with judges including Kevin McCloud and Jenny Gibbs of the KLC School of Design.
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Survey shows owners are keeping up with the Joneses
With the housing market being increasingly volatile, many people are making the most of renovation over relocation, and according to a recent survey there are many ‘copycat’ neighbours in the UK, with 66 per cent admitting they have imitated aspects of a neighbour’s house. My Job Quote surveyed 2,113 UK
homeowners and others with the aim of investigating whether people are copying their neighbour’s renovations. Homeowners were also asked to specify
which aspects they had copied, revealing the most commonly copied feature of British homes, as follows: • Indoor furniture/items (72 per cent) • Colour schemes (57 per cent) • Outdoor furniture/items (53 per cent) • External house design (45 per cent) • Indoor accessories (41 per cent) • Garden design (34 per cent) • House architecture (29 per cent) • Room design (23 per cent)
• Floor plans (9 per cent). The survey also discovered that people have mixed opinions upon finding out a neighbour has copied them. It’s primarily met with discomfort (67 per cent), however sometimes neighbours can be flattered (5 per cent). Other reactions include: • Challenged/competitive (49 per cent) • Violated (42 per cent) • Angry/annoyed (31 per cent) • Happy/pleased (24 per cent) • Anxious (20 per cent) • Inspired (18 per cent) • Pressured (13 per cent) • Sad (10 per cent) • Impressed (8 per cent). When asked how pressured they feel to compete with surrounding properties, the most common answer was “somewhat” (35 per cent). This was, however, followed by “very” (23 per cent), “not very” (19 per cent), “a little” (15 per cent), “not at all” (7 per cent) and just one per cent saying “depends on the renovation.”
Local authorities accused of using ‘dirty tricks’ to restrict numbers signing up to Right to Build
Despite the number of people wanting to self-build seeing annual growth, The National Custom & Self Build Association (NaCSBA) revealed it has found that a number of local authorities are using what it calls “dirty tricks” to make it more difficult for individuals to sign up and remain on Right to Build registers. The NaCSBA said its Freedom of Information request revealed an estimated
55,000 people are now signed up to registers. It also believed that the increase in people signing up of 11,400 on the previous year “is not indicative of the actual demand.” NaCSBA identified three “tricks” in particular being used: • “Imposing unreasonable constraints over joining”, such as sign-up fees and denying those living outside the authority
• “Counting plots intended for building on by housing developers as being potentially suitable for self-build” • “Removing the names of those who have already joined a register,” in turn allowing them to justify reducing the number of permissioned plots. Means of removing names, according to NaCSBA, include “data protection exercises” that remove those who don’t reply, introducing fees in order to remain on registers, and restarting registers with a new set of conditions. NaCSBA estimates 8,000 people have been “wrongfully removed” from registers. The association says that this “works against the spirit of the legislation” and
restricts self-build opportunities to those who have the means to build without the support of the legislation anyway. The NaCSBA’s Freedom of Information request followed its first Right to Build Day on 30 October, when local authorities had to demonstrate they had granted permission for enough plots to satisfy demand. Despite this, it says only 45 per cent of local authorities claim to have met their legal duty, and 37 per cent failed to respond at all. Ultimately it says the numbers provided were “too unreliable” to allow for an “accurate assessment of self-build delivery.”
january 2020
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