Grand Designs: The Street (with host Kevin McCloud centre) soon turns into neighbours at war. Photo / Glenn Dearing
Grand Designs: The Street (Three, Mondays at 8.30pm)
Kevin McCloud is in heaven. For the Grand Designs host, heaven is a big empty field in Oxfordshire, that the district council has divvied up into sections and started flogging off to punters desperate to build their own houses – bespoke houses.
"Imagine a different kind of community," he invites viewers at the start of new Grand Designs spinoff series, The Street. "Imagine a different kind of neighbourhood … Imagine a street where every house is self-built."
It sounds like he's trying to get us to join a cult. In a way, that's what The Street is about – the cult of Grand Designs and what happens when normal folks are inspired to build their own houses as a sort of fun hobby. Like all good cult documentaries, it serves in large part as a cautionary tale.
McCloud's heaven turns out to be more of an ongoing hell for the buyers of The Street's first two plots of land: retirement-aged Northampton couple Terry and Olwen, who have snapped up section one and their single neighbour Lynn, who has snared the section next door. For a very reasonable £275,000 including land and building costs, they have bought the dream of building their ideal houses side-by-side, sharing tools, knowledge and cups of tea.
