The conclusion of a report published by the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) into the UK housebuilding industry, which encourages Local Authorities to consider making land available to an ‘enabler’ for self build purposes, has been welcomed by BuildStore.
The BERR report, published last month, is the Government’s official response to a review of the homebuilding industry by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), for which BuildStore was consulted. The BERR supports the recommendations made by the OFT in its review to make publicly-owned land available for self build, via an ‘enabler’, who would divide the land into individual building plots and oversee the design, infrastructure and development of the individual sites. If such schemes are adopted, it would significantly increase the number of opportunities for people to build their own homes.
In face of rising demand for its self build services from homeowners, BuildStore welcomes the call for increased provision of self build land. The company has seen a 30% year-on-year increase in enquiries in the first quarter of 2009, and is calling for more funding from lenders to help meet the demand.
Raymond Connor, Chief Executive of BuildStore comments: “With more people considering self build as an alternative way to climb the property ladder, this Government support comes at a very important time for the housing market. Self build is now a very viable and realistic option and in order for self builders to take advantage of such self build schemes, further investment in self build lending is needed.”
