Give young land to build their own homes, says planning minister
Young people who cannot afford a home should be given land by the state so they can construct their own, minister says
Nick Boles want the young to be given land so they can build their own homes Photo: PAUL GROVER
5:31PM GMT 22 Nov 2013
Young people who cannot afford to buy a home should be given land by the state so they can construct their own houses, the planning minister has suggested. Nick Boles said it would be a way of reaching out to a generation of young Britons who want to be “given the opportunity to get on and help themselves”. Instead of renting or applying for council housing, young people should be able to “put themselves on the list for self-build,” he said.
The Coalition is seeking to increase home ownership among younger people, in part by relaxing planning laws on house building. The reforms have proved highly controversial with many Conservative supporters, but Mr Boles suggested the Government should “go even further”.
Figures suggest the average first-time buyer is now over 30 years old, as rising prices leave many young people unable to take the first step on to the property ladder.
Mr Boles said: “We should think about saying, 'If you can’t buy a home then you should be able to get a plot and to be able to build yourself a home if you want one – put yourself on the list for self-build’.”
The minister was speaking at a Conservative think tank earlier this week where he also raised concerns about how Tories are seen by young voters, suggesting many see the party as “aliens”.
Mr Boles suggested that reforming planning laws to let people build their own homes was a way for the Conservatives to reach out to that generation of voters. “There are empowering liberal reforms to planning that we can make that fit with this generation,” he said.
The National Self Build Association recently suggested that up to 4,000 additional homes are being planned by people overseeing their own construction.
Give young land to build their own homes, says planning minister - TelegraphCoalition minister wants to give land to young to build own homes | Politics | The Guardian
Government continues self-build push | Online News | Building
Government reveals new self build sites | link2portal - news and business directory
There are problems getting a loan, though:
Limited mortgage choice for self-builders - FT.com
Self-build organisations:
National Self Build Association - The Voice of the Self and Custom Build Sector - Home
Self-build is much more common abroad:
Build your home yourself - weblog about designing and building a house in Holland
Haus Selber Bauen: Alle Baukosten, Daten, Fakten und Infos
Vauban-Frieburg @ selfbuildportal.org.uk
Another government initiative from over two years ago:
19 July 2011 Last updated at 02:41
Self-build: Should people build their own homes?
The government wants to double the number of people building their own homes. But is it wise to encourage the population to take up DIY housebuilding?
Programmes like Grand Designs tap into the desire to build your dream home. Now the government - keen to raise the stubbornly low housebuilding rate - wants to start "a self build revolution".
Housing Minister Grant Shapps will later this week launch an action plan to double the number of self-build homes within a decade.
In reality, few Britons follow the Grand Designs model. The show's creator Kevin McCloud argues that Britons buy houses like baked beans - as generic products from a developer's catalogue - rather than creating something that fits their lifestyle. But what exactly is self-build?
The term is something of a misnomer, admits Ted Stevens, chairman of the National Self Build Association, which drew up the action plan. "It suggests you're laying the bricks yourself. But the truth is that most self builders hire an architect and do a bit of decorating themselves."
Other countries are way ahead, he says. In Austria 80% of all homes are self-built. In Germany, France and Italy the figure is 60%. In the US and Australia it is over 40%. By contrast the figure for the UK is about 10%.
There's huge interest and growing demand, says Stevens. Over three million people watch Grand Designs, 100,000 subscribe to websites announcing available plots of land and a similar number buy self-build magazines. But only 13,860 built their own home last year. Why so few?Continue reading the main story
"It's really hard to get your hands on a plot of land," says Stevens. "The housebuilders are very nimble, always sniffing around to find a field that might one day get planning permission." The planning system also fails to take self-builders into account, he says.
Grant Shapps wants to make land and mortgage lending available to self-builders. The aim is to rebrand it from something for the wealthy over 50s and "bring the opportunity of self-building to the masses".
But this is unrealistic says Steve Turner, a spokesman for the Home Builders Federation. Self-build will never move beyond being a fringe activity for a committed few to something mainstream, he argues. "Building a house is a very complex procedure from the planning stage, to designing the shell, to the electricity, plumbing and insulation. I wouldn't want to live in a house I'd built myself." Because the self builder is the landowner, they are also liable for improvements to local infrastructure, a cost that would normally be borne by the housebuilder.
But overall, self-build saves money, supporters argue. The average new build home costs £189,940 compared to a self-build cost of £84,000 if you do the work yourself or £146,000 if you employ tradesmen to do it for you.
Lynda Williams was given a plot of land in mid Wales by her father. She didn't have the money to hire a project manager so ended up building it herself from a timber frame. It took eight months and meant putting it together in the evening after work. The main motivation was getting value for money. Her mortgage was £110,000 but it is now valued at £260,000. In addition to the financial spin-off, there is an emotional payout from being connected to the design and construction of your home. "I love my home. I quite often look up and remember when we built that section."
Planners are supportive of the concept. But there's a danger that allowing people to start building their own homes en masse could leave a blot on the landscape, they warn. "When you build a house you're creating an asset for a hundred years," says Hugh Ellis, chief planner at the Town and Country Planning Association. "The design is not just a matter of personal taste, it has an impact on the wider community." He fears the government's deregulation of the planning service may allow self-builders to "stick two fingers up" at planning controls.
Poor design is not the real problem, says Edwin Heathcote, the Financial Times's architecture critic. "The mass housebuilders have done such an appalling job of despoiling the countryside. So from an aesthetic point of view self-builders can't do any worse and should be encouraged."
The trouble with self build is that it steers clear of city sites - where development is most sustainable - as few can afford the land prices there. Instead self-builders buy land outside cities, where they are reliant on cars, and use larger plots than necessary, encouraging suburban sprawl. "Although the idea of self-build is potentially quite hippyish, it's relatively unsustainable," Heathcote says. The answer, he says is to do self-build on a collective level and create a new city development. One current scheme is Ashley Vale in Bristol where likeminded people came together to redevelop an inner city site.
It boils down to giving power to the individual, says Stevens. "You've found the site, specified to the architect what you want, decorated and landscaped. So it feels different to just turning up one day to the house and picking up the keys."
BBC News - Self-build: Should people build their own homes?Meanwhile, parliament intends to examine the whole issue of 'not enough housing':
NPPF faces parliamentary probe
MPs are to carry out an inquiry into the impact of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), it has been announced.
Committee chair Clive Betts told Planning he expected a call for evidence to be launched in February or March. He said terms of reference had yet to be determined, but that the committee had previously expressed a desire to look into the practical effects of the NPPF once it had been given "time to bed down".
Betts said he expected prominent topics to include: greenfield construction, housing supply levels, developers’ behaviour toward authorities without local plans in place, out-of-town development, the success of "town-centre first" policies, and new energy developments.
"To an extent we’d expect submissions of evidence to influence the shape of the inquiry," he said. "We’ll be very interested in clear examples of where concerns are being raised about the impact of the framework: Particularly from planners – or anyone else – with hard examples of cases where applications have been accepted despite appearing to be in conflict with what we believed the NPPF was about."
The committee previously published a 244-page report on the draft NPPF in December 2011.
Government's handling of UK housing shortage to be reviewed
MPs launch inquiry into housing policy as planning minister admits parts of it may be too complex
Nick Boles said the government would review the neighbourhood planning process, under which local groups can combine to make planning decisions. Photograph: Rex
Nick Boles, the planning minister, is facing a parliamentary inquiry into the government's handling of the acute shortage of new homes in the UK.
Clive Betts MP, the Labour chairman of the communities and local government committee, announced the investigation on Wednesday and said he would ask whether the government's two-year-old planning policy was working when only 100,000 homes are being built and at least 250,000 are said to be needed.
The move came as the shadow housing minister, Emma Reynolds, attacked the coalition's "laissez faire" approach and revealed Labour had asked the former BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons to investigate whether new towns and garden cities, capturing the spirit of Stevenage, Milton Keynes and others built in the years after the second world war, would be needed.
Boles on Wednesday admitted part of a key plank of the national planning policy framework might be too complex and would be reviewed. He said the government would review the neighbourhood planning process, in which local groups are able to combine to make their own planning decisions rather than leaving them to councils. "We want to hear from people who have done it and come up with something that may be an alternative to the full-blown system or a change in the full-blown system," he said, according to Planning magazine.
The housing crisis is already dividing the Conservative party, with some MPs hitting back against the policy, which has allowed increasing numbers of developments on greenfield sites to the anger of constituents. The Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, a member of the 10 Downing Street policy board, has complained that the decision to grant approval for 800 homes near Anne Hathaway's cottage in his Stratford-upon-Avon constituency "shattered my constituents' belief in this government's commitment to localism".
In London, where house prices are rising rapidly again, 16,000 homes are being built when demand is for three times more, according to the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA). Around 1.7m households in England are waiting for social housing, according to the housing charity Shelter.
Speaking at the TCPA's annual conference, Betts said the inquiry would examine whether the coalition's national planning policy framework, launched in 2011, had allowed private developers to steamroller local authorities and win approval to build on greenfield sites in the face of bitter local opposition. Betts said the public was concerned to see greenfield sites being developed under the new policy when previously used land was available and there was a growing sense that developers were able to use loopholes in the policy to access previously protected open land.
On the question of where homes should be built, Boles said the government was "not in the business of imposing on areas and local communities". For Labour, Reynolds did not rule out imposing new towns on local authorities, but said in the first place the party wanted to provide incentives to local authorities. "We are trying to prepare the ground for the new towns and garden cities now in the runup to the 2015 election," she said. "I simply don't think we can achieve the numbers or quality that we need unless we look at these seriously."
Government's handling of UK housing shortage to be reviewed | Politics | theguardian.com
See also: Eco living: an Alpine log house in Ramsgate - Telegraph
Self-build - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Futures Forum: Self-build
Futures Forum: Self-build: part two
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Would love the opportunity to build my own home.
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