Mike Hardwick
As you contemplate the dream of building your own home, you probably have a vision of the ideal piece of land for it to go on: a perfect rectangle, flat as a pancake, south-facing and big enough to accommodate what you’re planning. However, the reality is often far from this scenario. The chances are that the plots you track down within your budget will present compromises. But remember, challenges can be turned into opportunities. Here’s what you need to know about the issues that can crop up on tricky sites – and how to deal with them.
When assessing this plot for a client, Mike Hardwick could barely get his car down the narrow alley – so materials deliveries would have been next to impossible. Plus an electrical transformer was located right where the master bedroom would be. Moving this kind of infrastructure is incredibly expensive
1 Access
I recall one plot I looked at for a client where access was down a narrow 150m-long alley, barely wide enough for a car and with no passing points. When I eventually got to the site, there was a massive electricity transformer slap bang in the middle of it. The client had been promised this would be moved at the vendor’s expense – but the cost of this would have been astronomical and therefore very unlikely to happen.
Mercifully, I eventually managed to persuade him of the folly of buying this particular plot. If you can’t get in or out in a normal car, then the emergency services and delivery vehicles won’t be able to either – which renders the site useless in practical terms.
Another common access issue occurs where it’s not possible to enter the highway safely, with clear visibility and in a forward gear. Unless you can prove otherwise, this problem will make it impossible to get a project through planning – this kind of plot is no use to anyone, so move on.