Support

Representation ID: 7876

Received: 23/09/2021

Respondent: Central Bedfordshire Council

Policy SB1 and the supporting text is well-worded and meets the legislation.
It is interesting to see the clearly defined set of site thresholds within the policy. This represents a graduated approach to the policy which ranges from circa 20% self-build delivery on the smaller applications, reducing to circa 7% on the larger sites.
It is also noted that applications of 100+ dwellings are able to negotiate on the level of provision, however this provides no certainly to BBC or the developers in terms of delivery of Self & custom build homes on large, strategic sites.

Overall, the graduated approach is sensible as it requires higher delivery (proportionately) to the smaller sites in order to target self-build delivery. This may accord with demand data from your register so it may be useful to make this clearer in supporting text if this is the case. It may also be useful to make some reference to any viability studies BBC has to evidence that delivery at these various site thresholds is viable.

CBC’s evidence demonstrates that self & custom build provision does not to diminish land value in any way and we would be happy to share any viability information with Bedford if this is helpful.