Persimmon Homes (Anglia) acknowledge the role that self-build housing plays in meeting the needs of groups with specific housing requirements. However, the imposition of a requirement to provide 5% of plots on residential proposals of 40 dwellings or more is not considered to be necessary nor the most appropriate mechanism for ensuring that sufficient planning permissions are granted to meet the demand for self-build and custom housebuilding across the housing area.

There is concern that such a requirement is likely to deliver self-build plots on large house building sites whereas the demand for self-build plots is more likely to be for individual plots in more rural locations. Furthermore, as highlighted in Paragraph 250 of the Strategy Document, in 2018/19 there were only 113 people on the registers in Greater Norwich. The proposed policy is therefore likely to result in the delivery of a large number of self-build plots that far exceeds the level of self-build demand in the housing area. In turn, this could result in self-build plots left empty where they are not sold, which would be to the detriment of neighbouring dwellings and the development as a whole.

Furthermore, by their very nature, self-build houses afford an opportunity to customise and achieve bespoke design to satisfy specific needs and circumstances of an individual. Persimmon Homes (Anglia) are therefore concerned with the design implications of allowing a limited number of bespoke dwellings with regards to their relationship with the character and appearance of the wider development. It is considered that self-build housing would be more appropriately delivered as part of smaller housing schemes or housing schemes that are exclusively self-build. Persimmon Homes (Anglia) therefore echo the comments of the HBF in taking the view that a more effective approach to meeting the needs of self-builders would be through Policy 7.5, but with an adjustment to allow developments of up to 5 dwellings.