CHP intern helps local council
Posted on 8 December 2015
This summer Ben Burton, a student of the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York was funded and supported by a student internship award to work in partnership with the City of York Council on a report into how local authorities can support self-builders. He was mentored by Alison Wallace from CHP.
The report was warmly welcomed by the Council and was used as a basis for a roundtable event where the possibilities of local self-build housing were discussed. The group at the event all helped Ben with his report and included local building experts and existing and potential self-builders. The group will continue to act as a sounding board for council policy as it develops.
Overall there is plenty of evidence that self-build can be a growth market. The main thing that self-build needs to succeed in a local authority will be political support.
The research had four main objectives:
- What support do prospective self-builders want?
- What support can local authorities plan to offer self/custom builders?
- What expertise (in respect of identifying land, design, planning, finance and construction) is available locally, that could be engaged to support self-builders?
- What financial packages are available to support group or individual self-builders?
The report identified that the need for a good supply of land and plots which already had planning permission, as well as tailored finance and technical support, were factors that could help this sector to grow.
The report is available to read here: Self-build report (PDF 
, 555kb)
CHP produced a report on self-building in the UK for Lloyds Banking Group in 2013, you can read it here:
Self build report (PDF , 1,996kb)
Self build report summary (PDF , 896kb)
Self Build Supplementary Report (PDF , 437kb)