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On 10 July Richard Bacon MP announced an update to his 2021 Independent Review into the Scaling up Self Build and Custom Housebuilding at a Parliamentary reception held by the National Custom and Self Build Association (NaCSBA).
House Extension 2023 provides an update on progress around the Bacon Review’s six recommendations, identifying both areas where change has been implemented and where further action is needed.
In his update Bacon calls for government to do more, and vitally to empower the new dedicated delivery team within Homes England to facilitate increased supply of custom and self build homes.
The 2021 review identified custom and self build as a missing market in the UK, with the recommendations aimed at closing the gap between mainstream housing and custom and self build.
Housing and Planning Minister Rachel Maclean MP addressed the reception, saying she intended to use the update to inform government activity around custom and self build, which remains an important element of government’s wider housing strategy.
The Bacon Review’s original recommendations:
- A greater role for Homes England
- Raise awareness of the Right to Build
- Support community-led housing, diversity of supply and levelling up
- Promote greener homes and increased use of advanced manufacturing
- Support self and custom housebuilding through the planning reforms
- Iron out any tax creases
Read the update
In his introduction, Bacon says: “At the heart of the challenge remains the failure to put the customer at the centre of the new build process. We have created a “market” where housebuilders compete for land rather than on the quality of the homes that they build; perpetuated in part by an overstretched and under-resourced planning system.
“The consequences are stark. Quite simply, new housing is feared. In no other time in our history would housing be thought of as pollution. To change this, we need to create the conditions in which customers are treated as if they matter the most, rather than – for the most part – scarcely mattering at all.
“The solutions are there, as set out in my Report. We do not need to find them, only to deliver them.”
Image: Left to right: Richard Bacon MP, Peter Johns NaCSBA CEO; Rachel Maclean, Housing and Planning Minister and Gareth Griffiths, Ecology Building Society CEO