Solving sustainable and affordable housing crisis

Edited by the Buildingtalk editorial team Oct 11, 2005

"Self-Builders can solve sustainable and affordable housing crisis " claims Professor Benfield

"Grant more planning permissions for self builders and Britain will gain exemplar sustainable housing projects applying all of the ideas presented to this conference", Professor Michael Benfield told delegates and visitors to the Greener Homes and Buildings conference and exhibition at Machynlleth, Powys.

"Doing so will also enable the nation to make great strides toward solving Britain's affordable housing crisis", he continued.

Addressing the Grand Debate, chaired by Welsh Assembly Member Mick Bates, which concluded an intensive day of seminars, presentations and showcased environmental products, Professor Benfield - a leading environmentalist, housing specialist, and nationally recognised timber frame engineer - argued passionately for a substantial increase in the grant of planning permissions for self-builders.

"Everything points to the fact that if the building plots were made available we could see a doubling or tripling of the present 20,000 or so 'self builder' projects undertaken in the UK every year" he claimed.

"Self evidently such an increase in self-build activity would make a huge dent in our need for affordable, as well as sustainable housing." Dedicated to mainstreaming greener building concepts for homeowners, architects, planners, surveyors, procurers and everyone working in construction related industries, findings from the Grand Debate are being fed back to the Welsh Assembly for urgent action as Ministers struggle to fulfil their claim that Wales is one of only three countries in the world to have fully embraced the principles of sustainable development in its policies.

Supported in his argument by other members of the debate's panel of experts, Professor Benfield claimed that many self builders are in fact the 'path finders' for sustainable development, " _ prepared to invest their own time, effort and money in using all of the materials, methods and ideas considered here today, to build their own - 'truly ideal' - homes".

With the conference having added its voice to the call for many more 'demonstration' schemes to secure massive reductions in green-house gas emissions from the built environment, he suggested that increasing self-build activity would be one of the best possible ways to create exemplar projects for sustainable development throughout the country.

On the continent many more people build their own homes than in Britain, with, for example, local authorities in parts of Germany being required to allocate up to 40% of all building land for private, one-off houses, said David Olivier, one of the panellists.

Responding to the implied criticism that town planners and their profession were to blame for mounting environmental and housing problems, Professor Benfield pointed out that Local Authority planners were subject to the 'whims and wishes' of the elected members - the councillors and committee members - who were their bosses and told them what to do.

"Given the urgency and importance of the problems faced, the Assembly should initiate a serious and meaningful programme to educate members in the issues and what is necessary to address them, possibly making this a statutory requirement for all planning committee members." he said.