There is a peculiar truth in the UK: while the sales of most consumer products – fashion, cars, technology – thrive on the appeal of “the new”, housing is one purchase for which customers have a dogged preference for the old and traditional. The recent exhibition at the RIBA by artist Pablo Bronstein, Conservatism, highlighted the British people’s enduring love for Georgian architecture. And a 2016 public survey by the Home Builders Federation (HBF) revealed only 33% of respondents would buy a new-build home.

But while the much-reported quality issues around some new homes may be putting customers off buying new-builds, a number of buyers don’t have the same attitude to homes they design themselves. According to the National Custom & Self Build Association (NaCSBA), 53% of adults aspire to build their own homes – no doubt partly inspired by television programmes such as Grand Designs.

Since self-build seems to have such an appeal, the government has been trying to make it easier to acquire land from local authorities for this purpose – between April 2016 and November 2017, more than 33,000 people signed up to local authority Right to Build registers across England, according to the NaCSBA.

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