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- CommentAuthorTriassic
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2012 edited
This website http://www.selfbuildportal.org.uk/ is the result of a joint initiative between the Government and the custom build housing industry. The site provides encouragement and impartial advice to people who want to build their own home to suit their family’s needs. It forms part of the Government’s Housing Strategy to bring about a custom build housing revolution.
Building your own home should be easier for everyone. I want to help people, like you, fulfil their dreams of building their own home. We are near the bottom of the European league of custom builders. I want to see us moving up the table and double the number of custom build homes over the next decade.
So I urge you to explore this interactive guide, work out the approach that’s best for you and delve into the valuable guidance and information that’s available. You can register for further information and updates, or ask other custom home builders for tips and advice on the site’s forum. Building your own home is not easy. But people who do it will tell you it is the most rewarding and empowering thing they have ever undertaken.
So I urge you to get cracking in turning your dreams into reality and would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best of luck with your project!
Grant Shapps MP
Minister for Housing and Local Government
Anyone used it? Thoughts, money well spent? -
- CommentAuthorDarylP
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2012
Is this what KC was plugging on R4 this afternoon...?
....
Cheers
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- CommentAuthordjh
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2012
It looks a bit shiny and new, and under-populated.
Noticeably, Green Building Magazine isn't listed in the list of magazines to consult. Neither this forum nor the AECB one are listed in the list of suitable places for children to play (oops, sorry, websites for impartial advice). There's only one download available - elfin safe tea. And their forum has exactly zero members logged in.
I'll go back and take a more considered look later. -
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CommentAuthorJSHarris
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2012
The government need to get their act together here. With one hand they are making it more complex and costly to self-build, with barking mad planning bureaucracy, community infrastructure levy, random interpretation of the "rules", goodness knows how many bits of government, or quasi government wanting a say in what you can and cannot do (currently I'm negotiating with planners who want one thing, the AONB people who want another, the Environment Agency that want yet something else, Highways who want stuff that conflicts with everyone, the conservation officer who's views don't agree with the AONB people, building control who insist the planners are wrong, etc, etc).
It now seems the other hand of government wants to pretend all is OK and they are really helping self-builders! Who are they trying to fool? I'd like to get one or two of these people over to spend the day reading some of the correspondence I've got, maybe then they might realise that self-build in the UK (or at least in England) is treated by local government (and at least one government department) as a means to extract money, and absorb time. -
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CommentAuthorjoe90
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2012
JSH you are dead right, the more I learn about it the less I want to self build but renovate and jump through as few hoops as possible. -
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- CommentAuthorpmusgrove
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2012
JSH, one thing I have learnt working with the big contractors is that they don't play by the same rules as you and I; they just get on and build and ignore the little people in the Council offices for as long as possible. The other thing I have learnt is that the little people are now spending as much time as possible on each project to ensure that they keep their jobs and even invent stuff like the need for "public art" in private buildings! They also prefer working with people like you as you are honest, do what you say you are going to do, and abide by the rules; they don't like working with contractors so spend as little time as possible working with them knowing that at the end of the day the lawyers will become involved and the contractors have more money to spend on them so will win. Who said I am becoming a cynic?
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