NEWS
New planning guidance to support Right to Build
The National Custom & Self Build Association (NaCSBA) has welcomed the Government’s recently published planning guidance which is designed to improve implementation of Right to Build across the UK.
The update to the Planning Practice Guidance on Self- build and Custom Housebuilding was published in February by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The new document updates the guidance to the original April 2016 legislation (previously updated in July 2017). The aim was to “strengthen the guidance as a tool for shaping provision and implementation of the Right to Build,” said NaCSBA. The Ministry’s chief planner Joanna Averley stressed the
Government's commitment to self- and custom-build housing, and the “crucial role” the sector has in delivering greater housing diversity. She commented: “Self- and custom-builders are well placed to build high quality, well designed homes that are energy efficient, accessible, affordable and welcomed by their communities.” The updated guidance will bring forward “a number of
advantages,” said NaCSBA. “Not least, it sets out that self- and custom-build can embrace a “spectrum of projects,” and the fact that multi-unit and communal schemes qualify for the Community Infrastructure Levy exemption. It also “adds weight to the registers in terms of them being a likely material consideration for planning purposes,” said NaCSBA,
reinforcing the fact that registers must be considered as evidence of demand by local authorities. It also includes several other measures that will support the delivery of custom- and self-build and “ensure it factors into wider local housing strategies.” The Government has committed to publishing data around the permission of plots “to create a body of evidence drawn from local authorities.” As well as supporting future custom- and self-build, this will “increase transparency,” said NaCSBA. The updated guidance came alongside publication of the numbers of prospective self-builders currently on councils’ Right to
Build registers, and performance on Right to Build thus far. Right to Build is the common term used to describe the duties set out by the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015, as amended by the Housing and Planning Act 2016.
Self-build market shows resilience through the pandemic
According to the latest report by AMA Research, the self-build sector suffered a lot less in 2020 in comparison to the wider housebuilding market. While self-builds fell by about 8 per cent from the previous year, and the market value declined by about 10 per cent to £4.3bn – the general market for houses completed suffered far worse.
A likely factor for this is that Covid-19 forced larger construction sites to close, with the majority of self-build projects managing to remain operational. This is because social distancing was a lot easier to achieve on these smaller sites, with offsite manufacturing also more conducive to safe working.
The findings showed that during 2020, self-build completions accounted for around 7-8 per cent of the overall housing output. Further analysis in this report suggested that self-builders still managed to save around
20-40 per cent, compared to purchasing a similar house on the market. The 50-60 age group remained the most active in the market during 2020, largerly attributed to the fact they are more likely to self-fund their projects – using either savings, equity release from an already owned property, revenue from the sale of a property, or using properties as collateral against a remortgage.
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www.sbhonline.co.uk
issue 02 2021
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