As part of the recently announced Action Plan for custom and self build, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has commissioned the Bacon Review to assess the opportunities and barriers to growth for the sector, and support a “major scaling up of self-commissioned homes”.
NaCSBA welcomes the review, which offers an opportunity to create a valuable snapshot of the industry ten years on from An Action Plan to Promote the Growth of Self Build Housing, published in 2011. This identified the issues of land, regulation (planning) and finance as the barriers, making the Bacon Review a timely re-examination of what has changed since then. NaCSBA will also be feeding into the review, sharing the findings of research and pressure points that it is conscious of.
Since the Letwin Review, government has been aware that the way we build housing can result in the constraining of supply due to a lack of innovation and competition, a fact which Johnson’s letter of commission acknowledges.
At the heart of the review is the need to diversify housing and give consumers more choice about the homes that they live in.
“We know that self and custom builders deliver high quality, well-designed homes that are energy efficient, accessible, affordable, and welcomed by their communities.” Boris Johnson, Prime Minister
Richard Bacon MP and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Self-Build, Custom and Community Housebuilding and Place-Making has been tasked with conducting the review, with the final report due on the 23 July, to coincide with summer recess. During the process he will be interviewing a range of stakeholders, from landowners to financiers.
Baddeley-Chappell said: “Lasting change can be supported by Government but will ultimately be delivered by businesses. The skills and experience needed already exists but it is not always pointed in this direction and some lies outside the country.
“To deliver the number and quality of homes that are needed we need plots to become available and to be serviced by the full range of companies needed to deliver new homes. These could be single plots, small developments and or larger sites that have been subdivided to include capacity for plots. There are big opportunities for those able to focus their businesses on delivering all aspects of the homes and communities that people want.”
Other measures included in the Action Plan for Self and Custom Build include:
- The previously announced Right to Build legislation review
- A Land Release Fund for local authorities to bring forward plots on land they own
- An extensive new review of the custom and self build sector
- A second round of funding for the Right to Build Task Force to enable its work with English local authorities
