Home-builders to get access to cheap public land

Housing minister Grant Shapps is to announce that housing self-builders could get cheap access to public land in order to create their dream home, in a move to help tackle the housing crisis.

In a speech to the Grand Designs show today Shapps is expected to say that self-builders, who build nearly a fifth of the homes in the country, can get access to public land under the “build now, pay later” principle announced in the Budget.

According to the Observer, Shapps will say: “Self-builders deliver affordable, greener and more innovatively designed homes, and make a big contribution to the number of new homes built in this country, yet there is scope to significantly increase the number of self-built homes in the UK - both for individual households and for community-driven projects.”