A group of architects have called on housebuilders to offer greater choice and diversity as part of rising to the government’s challenge of building new homes that people want to live in and existing communities find acceptable.

Responding to the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful commission in a report entitled Distinctively Local, the four firms – HTA Design, Pollard Thomas Edwards, Proctor & Matthews and PRP – argue that boosting housing supply and building attractive homes requires new developments to be rooted in their local context.

The report said greater choice included offering a wider range of pre-designed homes and programmes of custom build, self-build and micro-development, while there should be a “balance between variety and uniformity”.