The ‘Right to Build’ as it’s known is part of the Self and Custom Build Housing Act 2015 and it requires local authorities to maintain a register of people who wish to build their own home. Not only that, the Act also states that local authorities must identify and offer suitable building plots within their locality equal to the number of registered would-be self-builders.
Richard Bacon MP, who has been instrumental in the passing of this Act from the very beginning says, “The fundamental problem in the UK housing market is that the supply of housing does not rise to meet demand, and so in addition to councils knowing who would like to build, it also has to become completely normal and straightforward to obtain a serviced plot of land.”
However, recent research by Custom Build Strategy has revealed that since the new legislation came into effect on 1st April 2016, only 35% of Local Planning Authorities (LPA’s) have met the new requirements. The National Custom and Self Build Association (NaCSBA) Chairman Michael Holmes says “We will be working hard to get this [level of compliance] to 100%.”
The NaCSBA has announced a new Right to Build Portal which aims to assist prospective self-builders. They hope this customer-facing portal will make it easier for people to sign up to their local registers and will also allow potential builders to find the six nearest registers to their location.
According to their most recent survey, NaCSBA reported that 53% of the population stated an interest in building their own home at some point, and yet last year there were only 12,500 selfbuild or custom homes constructed in the UK. It is hoped this new website, along with their Custom & Self Build Toolkit, will start to address this imbalance.