Futures Forum: A solution to our housing problems: self-build in Devon
Futures Forum: A solution to our housing problems ... the Walter Segal self-build
Futures Forum: Self-build: part two
Futures Forum: Self-build
Beer has seen a very successful self-build project:
Futures Forum: Beer Community Land Trust
Today's Independent looked at this phenomenon:
Families clubbing together to build their own affordable accommodation
HANNAH FEARN Sunday 01 March 2015
Families unable to afford somewhere to live are clubbing together to build their own affordable accommodation in a new trend as communities are forced to find their own ways of solving the British housing crisis.
Residents across the country are forming community land trusts (CLTs), membership groups which buy up or lease plots of land and manage them on behalf of local people. They borrow from councils, government or banks to build new homes for sale to locals, with prices set at rates linked to real local wages rather than their prospective value on the open market. There are 170 such schemes across the UK, expected to build 3,000 new homes by 2020. The homes they build are not only open to members, but could also be offered to those they deem worthy of being allocated an affordable home. Catherine Harrington, director of the National CLT Network, said more people were interested in community trusts after being priced out of their community.
“People are frustrated that there isn’t an affordable option for them but also what’s being built isn’t necessarily the quality of housing that people actually want,” she explained. “This isn’t just about the community making a contribution to housing supply, but it’s also about trying to unlock wider development. Where you have got CLTs involved in a redevelopment they have got through planning in half the time that it usually takes.” In east London, the capital’s first community land trust is working with developers to build 23 homes on a site which will be sold at prices between £140,000 and £285,000, half the price of adjacent properties. In Beer in Devon, a group has built seven homes, borrowing from lenders and leading the entire process, including design themselves.
Yesterday the Conservatives announced plans to make it easier for people to build their own homes. Councils will be forced to help find plots for people seeking to build their own homes as part of a package aimed at providing another 20,000 properties a year.
Rules allowing bigger private extensions to be built without planning permission and making it easier for former offices to be converted to residential use would also be extended to 2020, with the latter to also include warehouses.
Shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds said the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government had “presided over the lowest levels of house building in peacetime since the 1920s and home ownership is at its lowest level for 30 years”. Labour says it will get at least 200,000 homes built a year by 2020
In other words, the politics of house-building is notching up a gear in the lead-up to the elections...
The government has championed schemes before:
Futures Forum: Self-build: latest government initiative
There are new plans afoot:
Councils will be forced into finding plots for those looking to self-build as part of Conservative pledge to plug homes shortage
By LEE BOYCE FOR THISISMONEY.CO.UK
PUBLISHED: 10:58, 1 March 2015
Councils will be forced to help find plots for people seeking to build their own homes as part of a package of Conservative manifesto promises aimed at providing another 20,000 properties a year.
The Tories said it would be made easier to secure suitable previously developed 'brownfield' sites in cases where a small builder had been commissioned to construct a dwelling, as the party turned its campaign attention to the housing shortage.
Rules allowing bigger private extensions to be built without planning permission and making it easier for former offices to be converted to residential use would also be extended to 2020 - with the latter to also include warehouses.
Grant Shapps: The Conservative party chairman says he is 'determined to get Britain building again'
Tories said the changes - which exempt conservatories and other additions of up to six to eight metres to the back of a property from requiring a full planning permission application as long as neighbours do not object - had sparked more than 12,000 applications.
Up to 3.2 million square feet of office space was also up for conversion to flats and homes, they said.
Party chairman Grant Shapps MP said: 'We are determined to get Britain building again, so that more people can find a good quality, affordable home. We want common sense on home extensions too, so families aren't crushed by expensive red tape.
'For home extensions and conservatories, as long as your neighbours are happy, a Conservative government will always give you the right to build, without old-fashioned regulations getting in the way. And, if you dream of building your home from scratch, we will require councils to help you find land, helping tens of thousands of first-time buyers and small builders. This is all part of our long-term economic plan, to build a Britain where everyone has a home to call their own.'
The policy was backed by the Federation of Master Builders, which said it could 'significantly increase opportunities for small builders, leading to more homes and greater choice'.
Popular programmes: Levels of self-building are low in the UK despite the popularity of shows such as Grand Designs, presented by Kevin McCloud
As part of the housing push, applications were opened yesterday to young first-time buyers hoping to take advantage of a scheme to provide new properties at a 20 per cent discount by lowering the regulation costs for developers using brownfield sites.
About 45 developers have so far expressed an interest in taking advantage of the move.
The lack of affordable housing in the UK will be a hotly contested issue at May's general election.
Shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds said the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government had 'presided over the lowest levels of house building in peacetime since the 1920s and home ownership is at its lowest level for 30 years'. Labour says it will get at least 200,000 homes built a year by 2020.
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