Adjournment debates allow the House of Commons to shake off party raiment to discuss matters of importance to ordinary people from the very local to the more general. The only trouble is that the debates are not only time-limited but usually poorly-attended. Last Monday, the Conservative member Victoria Prentis gave a boost to the revived interest in self-build and custom-built housing.
One of the things I learned from this debate is that local authorities in England are required "to keep a register of individuals and community groups who have expressed an interest in acquiring land to bring forward self-build and custom-build projects and to take account of and make provision for the interests of those on such registers in developing their housing initiatives and their local plans". This is from the description of the Self-Build and Custom Housebuilding Act when it was introduced as a Private Member's Bill in 2014. It received cross-party support (Liberal Democrat John Pugh was one of the sponsors along with Labour and Nationalists)
As a visitor to Crawley in the 1960s, I was impressed by the amount of self-building which was going on, and all without the benefit of legislation encouraging it. Mind you, the purchase tax regime was more benign then. Latterly, Kevin McCloud has revived interest in the concept.
Later this year, Self-Build Wales comes on stream. Not only will it make it easy to identify available plots throughout Wales, but also make loans available through the Development Bank of Wales.
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