Not only do they have the vision to embark on such ambitious projects, and the finance and wherewithal to see them through, they also have the expert advice and sympathetic ear of the grand master of design himself.

The results are beautiful and the programmes absorbing but the projects are one-offs: nice but not for the likes of you and me.

If only Kevin Mc Cloud would turn his attention to semi-detached suburbia and build beautiful affordable homes for the masses. But hang on, it seems he is about to grant our collective wish.

Ambition

“Local authority housing? It’s my next project,” he says, reluctantly declining a second glass of champagne – he still has a speech to make – at the press launch in Birmingham last night for next month’s Grand Designs Live show at Birmingham’s NEC.

His ambition is to improve the built environment, and consequently “make people feel better”. This latest idea involves building up to 200 houses, a mixture of for sale and for rent, in the West Country, about 90 minutes from his own home in Somerset.

He’s already set up his own development company to carry out the work, which will take around three years, and the really good news is that he expects the project to be the first of many.

His gripe is not with social housing – in fact, he has nothing but praise for organisations like the Rowntree and Peabody Trusts which, he says, are showing the way in terms of adventurous architecture.

No, his venom is reserved for “the Noddy houses” that are taking over the suburban landscape.

“They’re everywhere, up and down the motorway, developments of hundreds of identical brick houses with fake Georgian windows and fibre-glass porches. It’s not contemporary, it’s not even pastiche because it’s not done with any affection for the original. It’s shamefacedly cynical.

“They’re badly built with tiny rooms. It’s the kind of architecture that demotes people to the lower orders of life on the planet. It shouldn’t be like that. Good design is for all of us, it’s about providing friendly, beautiful good-quality buildings.

“So when I was asked by the programme producers what I wanted to do next, I said: ‘Actually, I want to design houses for everybody’ – and we’re going to film it.”

A graduate of Cambridge University where he studied languages for a term, then philosophy, before settling on art and architecture, he toyed with becoming a musician but turned to theatre design instead.

His television career kicked off with early appearances on Home Front and he also presented BBC2′s series on tall buildings, Don’t Look Down. He has since written and presented all six series of Grand Designs and a further series is planned for January 2007.

He has penned numerous books and designed successful ranges of tableware, ceramics, garden furniture and lighting for Debenhams as well as a home products range for Fired Earth.

He has also designed lighting for some of Europe’s finest buildings including Edinburgh Castle, two European palaces and the Savoy and Dorchester hotels.

Makeover

Now in his mid-forties and married with four children, he is busier than ever. When I ask what he thinks about makeover programmes, he claims his schedule is so hectic he doesn’t manage to catch any telly before 10.30pm.

“Look, makeovers are good fun – without them there would be no Grand Designs. They’ve made interior designers of us all. I applaud the fact that people are getting into interior design and architecture.”

The staging of the Grand Designs Live show at the NEC illustrates the growing interest in design. Even his young daughter has a take on the subject, describing the Bullring’s Selfridge’s building as “the one covered in silver Smarties”.

Her Dad likes it, too. Just just don’t ask him to get there by train. The vitriol that spews from him at the mere mention of New Street Station would be depressing if it wasn’t so entertaining.

In January he was forced to spend three and a half hours there after his train to Bristol was cancelled.

“It’s Dante’s seventh circle of hell. You can hear the sound of frozen souls buried in the concrete,” he starts. “Light would be nice, a little protection from the elements wouldn’t go amiss, treating people like human beings – now there’s a concept.

“Instead we’re given buildings that relegates us to the level of pondlife. It makes me so angry.”

Kevin McCloud, feisty critic of planners, architects and developers, is off on one again. Long may he continue.

l Grand Designs Live is at the NEC Birmingham from October 6.

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