Self-Build in Local Plan for Devon’s Teinbridge

Teignbridge Council in Devon has become the first in the UK to force developers to make plots available to people who want to build their own home.

The new Teignbridge Local Plan, which sets out the council’s 20-year blueprint for housing, contains a number of policies that will make it easier for people to complete an individual or collective home building project; including recognising custom build as a means of providing affordable local housing.

But the headline policy – the first of its kind in the UK – is that developers working on sites of more than 20 dwellings must make at least 5% of the plots available for sale to custom builders for their own occupation.

The Teinbridge policy is forged from evidence of high demand for custom build in the area. One land agent’s figures indicate over 3,000 people have used paid-for subscriptions to search for residential building plots in Teignbridge since 2001.

Speaking to the BBC, planning minister Nick Boles highlighted his hope that the Teignbridge Plan would set a precedent for other councils to follow.

“I’m delight the policy is in there. It is a first. It is genuinely ground-breaking stuff,” said Boles. “There are lots of people who, rather than buy a house from one of the big house builders, would like to be able to get a local builder and maybe a local architect to design their own.”