Abject failure to deliver on self-building

 

The Right to Build Taskforce www.righttobuild.org.uk is trying to draw attention to hopeless state of self and custom building in the UK.   The New Self-Build Data Release І4 August 2021 issued by the MHCLG reveals the failure of Government to achieve anything close to what it has said it would like this sector to contribute to new housing supply and shows that a large proportion of councils are in breach of their legal obligations in terms of permissions for serviced plots available for self/custom builders on the statutory registers, and a fraction of the opportunities that NaCSBA say is the real demand.

 

The Task Force has assessed a large number of “general support” policies in local plans and find that they are of limited use in decision-making.  “Allocations, exceptions, percent policies and criteria based support for community-led and collective infill and exceptions are the most robust policies for providing an responsive land supply for self-build.” Any qualified planner working in development control/management would have known that this would be the case.

 

Richard Bacon MP should take credit for the current state of the law (ie the duty to permit serviced plots commensurate to the demand on registers), but has now become complicit in the failure to deliver in accordance with the legal duties.  Neither he nor NaCSBA (or the Right to Build Task Force) have ever been prepared to support custom-splitting as a way of increasing supply of opportunities for people to create their own homes, equivalent to a serviced plot but generally within existing built-up areas with existing facilities. New dwellings would be created with minimal levels of 'construction carbon'.  This would be a means of enabling the space and fabric of existing houses being heated and insulated to meet housing needs.  It will be interesting to see whether the Bacon Review to be published in the next few weeks has anything new to say on what is a sorry state of affairs.