Housing minister backs land grants for people to build their own homes | Money | The Observer

Housing minister backs land grants for people to build their own homes | Money | The Observer

People inspired by property development television shows to build their own homes will soon be offered exclusive access to publicly owned land.

In a speech at the Grand Designs Live 2011 show on Tuesday, housing minister Grant Shapps will say that he wants self-building, where amateurs oversee the construction and in some cases actually build their homes, to become a mainstream housing option.

Although self-builders already account for one in every five homes built in Britain each year, collectively making them the biggest housebuilder in the country, the UK continues to have one of the lowest proportions of homes made by self-builders in Europe. The credit crisis and recession has also deterred self-builders, with the number of completed self-built units dropping from about 20,000 in 2006 to just 14,000 last year.

Shapps is expected to say he wants more land – public and private – to be made available for individual and community self-build schemes, and that he intends to announce the first public sector sites available only to self-builders under the government's Build Now, Pay Later scheme. Launched last month, it will enable cash-strapped builders to pay for land after they have started work on new homes.