NEWS
He says frankly: “We should look as a society at how we got to this point, where we accepted that this was the way things are done.”
He notes that the Government is well aware of the problems, acknowledged in its 2017 White Paper. The Conservative Party’s last manifesto even included clear commitments to do more to help people to acquire land, and extend the Help to Buy scheme to the custom and self-build sector.
So, what’s holding things up? GRAND IDEAS
One of the most important barriers to greater adoption is image, says Andrew. Grand Designs paints a very different picture to the general reality, he says. “Your typical Grand Design is inspiring, but it basically implies that if you are going to build your own home, then you have to be prepared to have a near breakdown in the middle of it and an extra baby by the time it’s finished.” While he notes people “shouldn’t underestimate” the complexity of building a house, he says that it should be borne in mind that being a TV show, “it’s nothing without the drama.” He says that while Grand Designs can offer inspiration, “what we really need is normal, everyday people to understand that this is an
option that’s available to them, just like in every other country.”
A HELPING HAND
With a UK housing market not currently geared towards self-build, it comes down to policy to drive things forward. This is where NaCSBA comes in: “We are unique in being singularly focused on growing the sector,” says Andrew, and “driving the political and policy led changes that are needed to make this happen.” NaCSBA’s mission is to fight for the self and custom-build sector, and, according to Andrew, it has already been instrumental in moving sector-benefiting policy forwards.
One of the most prominent of these policies, he tells me, was The Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015, which led to the creation of Right to Built registers – making it a legal requirement for local authorities to maintain registers of people looking to self build, and bring forward enough plots to match that demand.
NaCSBA was integral to getting government to bring forward the legislation, says Andrew, adding that it “continues to argue strongly for greater Government support, by lobbying and challenging those in power.” He adds
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that magazines such as Selfbuilder + Homemaker are also crucial to progress, “acting as an interface with the public, to help people undertaking this journey to understand the best ways to go about it.”
To help local authorities, NaCSBA runs the Right to Build Taskforce, funded by the Government, which is a consultancy service that offers free briefings to every UK authority to explain what they need to be doing to fulfil their legal obligations.
CHANGE
Andrew holds that self and custom-build is the answer to the problems in the housing market. But in order to make it work, he says there’s “a massive job” to simply educate people and make them think about it as the market matures. He concludes: “When people begin to believe that this is an option for them, when they join the registers and look at the options that are available to them, options without massive premiums, they’ll realise that this isn’t about cost, it’s about choice – they don’t need to compromise.”
To find out more about NaCSBA’s work, visit
www.nacsba.org.uk and to find your local authority’s self build register, visit
www.righttobuildportal.org
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