Across the country, councils are setting up in-house design and development teams to build homes on their own sites. By doing this they are retaining the land, managing their own housing, addressing long waiting list times and pressures on temporary accommodation as well as responding to the homelessness crisis. These projects have the potential to deliver significant public benefits, often addressing neglected areas and helping to set high-quality design standards on sites that may not be considered to have development potential by the private sector.