Frequently asked questions

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Q: Who is responsible for the redevelopment?

Cherwell District Council. It has a team of housing, planning and construction professionals overseeing it. The Council  exchanged contracts to purchase the site in March 2014.

Q: What qualifications or skills would I need?

You don’t really need any. Above all we are looking for committed, energetic people who have a positive ‘can do’ approach.

However, if you want to do some of the construction work yourself a reasonable grasp of basic DIY skills would at least be handy. You may have expertise in certain subjects – for example book keeping or project management – that can be adapted and prove valuable.

Where you don’t have any skills we will be able to arrange some training to help you.

Q: How much time will I need to devote?

Depends on how you go about building your home.

You could:

• Completely build it yourself – but this might mean 15 – 20 hours a week for at least a year, which you will need to fit around your work and family life. You could do this on your own or with other fellow self builders as part of a group or community build.
• Hire a building contractor to build your house for you. In this case you just need to be good at hiring and managing your suppliers. This will require you to source suppliers and oversee the construction – its usually very intensive for 12-18 months.
• You can get your home built for you by a custom build developer, a kit home company or hire a project manager to oversee it for you. This is probably the route to follow if you are really short of time. In these circumstances you may have to pay a little more to get them to organise it all for you.

Q: Who is eligible?

70% of the self-build opportunities at Graven Hill will be sold on the open market. Anyone with the right resources can buy one of these homes or plots of land. There may also be some opportunities for rented housing for those people not yet in a position to buy their own home.

30% of the opportunities at Graven Hill will be affordable homes to buy or rent.

Priority for the affordable homes to buy will be given to local people who currently live, work or study in the Cherwell area and have incomes below £60,000.

If you want to part buy or purchase a home (or a serviced plot) outright you will also need to demonstrate that you have sufficient funds, or that you are likely to be eligible for a mortgage on the completed property.

Q: How can I keep up to date on the progress with the various sites/projects?

We will send out occasional newsletters to all the people who have registered with us. If you are not already registered e-mail us at

We also plan to regularly add information to this website – so bookmark us as one of your favourites

From time to time we will also organise update meetings. We will e-mail everyone who has registered with details of these.

Q: If I register am I formally committing to anything?

No – we just need to get an idea of how much demand there is and what sort of homes people want to build. You can withdraw from the register at any stage.

Q: What will the building plots cost?

We are still working on this, and none of the figures are formally agreed yet. We are aiming to provide a wide range of opportunities.  If you have a local connection to Cherwell and you have a household income below £60,000 a year you will also have the opportunity to secure a plot on a part-buy, part rent basis.  As soon as we have finalised the plans and set the prices we will provide more information to our registered users.

Q: How big are the plots going to be?

They will vary a lot. A small plot suitable for a modest new terraced home might be just 50 sq m; a larger plot suitable for a detached property could be 1000 sq m or more. We are still working on the layout of the site and hope to release this information later in 2014

 Q: Will the new homes have to comply with the Code for Sustainable Homes? And if so, what level are you planning to require?

We want to encourage sustainable development and therefore all homes will need to be built to Passivhaus standard or Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5.  We will have a full-time technical advisor who can help people work through their designs and signpost you to other sources of advice  and suppliers.

Q: Will people be able to buy more than one plot?

Initially we will limit people to one plot per family, though in exceptional circumstances we may be prepared to be flexible on this – for example if a large extended multi-generational family want two of three plots next to each other.