Do Designated Areas Make Good Building Plots?

Period-Style Home in a Conservation Area
(Image credit: Darren Chung)

To the untrained eye, finding a building plot doesn’t seem that hard. After all, there are endless fields and paddocks that look like ideal spots. However, finding a plot that stands a chance of securing a planning permission is another matter. 

Whether we agree with it or not, much of Britain is made undevelopable by planning policies imposed by our government. Taking South Cambridgeshire as an example, only 6% of its land mass is built on; much of the rest is being used as farmland and therefore unsuitable for development from a policy perspective. While there are good reasons to prevent houses being built in the open countryside, this doesn’t change the fact that planning policy severely restricts the supply of developable land.

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Ken Dijksman

Ken, a former planning officer, is an experienced planning consultant with over three decades of experience helping self builders, renovators and developers achieving planning permission. He set up his own consultancy, Dijksman Planning LLP, in 2005. He is also the author of The Planning Game, How to Play the System and Win Planning Consent: An Insider's Guide to Planning Permission for Newbuilds and Extensions.