Everyone knows the Tories aren’t shy of donning a high-vis jacket if they smell a TV news crew at five paces. But while starter homes have enjoyed much fanfare of late, the Conservative obsession with self-build has also re-appeared as the Housing and Planning Bill goes through parliament.
Sadly, our decades-long failure to build enough homes needs solutions of scale, not DIY flights of fancy.
The bill will amend the Self-build and Custom House Building Act – passed last year – requiring councils to grant “sufficient suitable development permission of serviced plots of land” for those looking to build their own home. Essentially, people get allocated land with the planning waved through. This marks a considerable step up from when councils were only required to keep a register of those “interested” in self-build, which could be up to 26 million people according to an Ipsos-MORI poll from last year.
Former housing minister and party chairman Grant Shapps first championed the sector in opposition, promising a “self-build revolution”. This support continued into government: in 2014 the planning minister Nick Boles announced a “right to build” and warned councils would be sued if they failed to apportion land.
Historically, 10-15% of new housing supply comes from self- or custom-build, with the UK lagging behind our European neighbours. Awkwardly, the number of self-build applications has fallen under the Conservatives: only 18,000 self-build planning applications were submitted in 2015, 30% below the 2010 peak figure.
A lack of available finance has been a major obstacle: building your own home is expensive, and most people have to take a loan, which is harder since the recession.
But the government’s answer – a £150m Custom Build Serviced Plots Loan Fund, available for self-build collectives delivering five to 200 units – is unlikely to be big enough to yield any serious results.
Planning regulations are another barrier, but with self-builders exempt from the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 affordable housing contributions as of last year, a key roadblock has been removed.
Yet this opens up problems for everybody else. The Autumn Statement may have led you to think otherwise, but Britain’s housing crisis isn’t just one of homeownership. More homes of all tenures are needed and, with housing associations taking a hammering, the lack of affordable homes will only get worse. More funding, not less, is needed.
The traditional approach of volume housebuilders has its flaws. Many have developed vast new neighbourhoods that lack any sense of character or distinction.
Rather than parcelling public land off to individuals and small groups, dividing sites between professional developers will stop over-bidding, help achieve best value and deliver variety. Self- and custom-builders can be part of the mix, but not
the whole cake.
Another alternative is to partner with build-to-rent developers, striking agreements that will generate long-term steady incomes for both parties as well as providing much-needed rental accommodation. Transport for London, which is planning to release 300 acres to create 10,000 new homes mostly for rent, offers a good model to follow.
It could be that current Tory darling Angela Merkel may be as much of an inspiration here as middle-class hero Kevin McCloud. Germany’s constitution contains an explicit “right to build” clause.
But we must be realistic about what will make a meaningful impact. Delivering homes across a range of tenures and price points needs to be the priority – not DIY housebuilding.
Charles Mills is head of planning at Daniel Watney
