An Analysis of Self-Build and Custom Housebuilding in the South West of England

Abstract

This paper seeks to evaluate how successful national policy interventions have been at addressing land barriers to self-build and custom housebuilding when applied by Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) across the South West of England. A longitudinal triangulated mixed method approach was undertaken to comprehensively interrogate the research objective. This comprised submitting a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to each LPA within the study area; an assessment of the most recently produced Strategic Housing Market Assessments (SHMAs); deriving alternative demand estimates using national data as a proxy; and alternate estimates of supply calculated using BuildStore and The Land Bank Partnership plot search websites. The findings of the study revealed that LPA Registers can only be viewed as a minimum assessment of demand for self-build and custom housebuilding and the effectiveness of LPAs in classifying suitable development permissions for self-build and custom housebuilding was highly dependent on the mechanisms used to identify permissions.