At the start of November over 100 professionals gathered at the National Self Build and Renovation Centre (NSBRC) in Swindon for NaCSBA’s first ever conference, sponsored by Fleming Homes, Iceni Projects and the NSBRC itself.
The NaCSBA conference was an extremely full day, with nine speakers covering a range of subjects. These included topics specific to custom and self build, such as Steenvlinder sharing its Netherlands experiences of self build at scale, to those more relevant to the wider construction sector, such as Biodiversity Net Gain.
Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, shared a welcome with the NaCSBA conference, in which he re-emphasised government’s commitment to the sector to support the creation of housing, saying that he was a huge fan of custom and self build.
Watch Michael Gove’s video
This was followed by Richard Bacon MP, a stalwart advocate of the route and the author of the Bacon Review. Richard set out what actions had resulted to date from the review, and the progress around the full six recommendations that he’d put forward to government.
As the new head of the Homes England ‘Self Commissioned Homes Unit’, ex-NaCSBA Board member Angela Doran gave an overview of her personal and professional self build journey that led to this appointment. She followed this up by getting stuck into her remit of discovering what barriers the sector faces moving forwards.
Other morning speakers included Steenvlinder’s Hans Sparreboom sharing insight into the market in Netherlands and Bryony Harrington, Head of the Right to Build Task Force, providing an overview of the Task Force’s activity.
The afternoon provided an opportunity to drill down into a wider range of topics based around planning. These included specialists sharing their insight around Biodiversity Net Gain and the Small Sites Metric, Nutrients Neutrality, Community Infrastructure Levy and some influential planning appeals.
Sarah Mathieson, Managing Director of lead sponsor Fleming Homes closed the conference with the following words:
“The work that NaCSBA does, and the high-level relationships that it has built within government should not be taken for granted. It serves as the loud voice of our sector and actively encourages positive change, seeking to reduce the barriers faced by potential self-builders, such as challenging local authorities who are not correctly fulfilling their Right to Build obligations.
“NaCSBA is a membership organisation and relies on the support of businesses operating in our sector in order to continue its good work, with a range of membership packages to suit various sizes of companies. NaCSBA is providing real value to its members, by ways of regular educational updates, policy work as summarised in their annual market report, and of course the conference.”
Find out more about membership by contacting Donna Muir.
Find out more about the NaCSBA conference on the dedicated page.
“The conference was a great introduction into the custom and self-build world. It was interesting to hear from a variety of speakers who were focused on encouraging and educating on the benefits and process of developing custom and self-build dwellings throughout the UK. A key aspect brought up was that custom and self-build brings a new diversity to housing that contributes to higher quality housing and communities which is why it should be supported.’” – Alyssa Birum, Bluestone Planning
