- Nicky Frost
NaCSBA calls for Greater Support for Self Builders
Ahead of the Spending Review tomorrow, the National Self Build and Custom Association (NaCSBA) has pushed the government to follow up its manifesto promises with greater support for the self-build sector.
The pandemic has made longer-term planning harder for the government, so tomorrow's Comprehensive Spending Review 2020, led by Chancellor Rishi Sunak will only cover the 2021-22 financial year instead of three or four years in an attempt to guide the UK economy forward during a time of huge uncertainty
Today, Andrew Baddeley-Chappell, Chief Executive of NaCSBA, hopes that the forthcoming review will include support for self build, following the government’s manifesto pledge in December, in which it promised to “support community housing by helping people who want to build their own homes find plots of land”.
What could the Spending Review mean for Self Build?
NaCSBA wants to see the government focus on five main areas:
1. Extending the Help to Buy scheme to the custom and self build sector
The current Help to Buy scheme doesn’t work for self builders, because it relies on a single payment upon the legal completion of a sale, and custom and self build homes aren’t built that way. But Baddeley-Chappell says the system could be adapted in order to benefit self builders.
2. Continued support for the Right to Build taskforce
NaCSBA’s Right to Build taskforce provides expert self build advice to local authorities, among others, to deliver self build projects, but government funding for the taskforce is set to end in March 2021.
3. Extend the Community Housing Fund, which previously ended in March this year, so more community projects can come forward.
4. Create a new self build homes expo
To highlight the variation of homes that are being delivered to self builders across the world, NaCSBA is campaigning for a large show home site to be created in the north of England.
5. Put a new Community Infrastructure Levy self build mechanism in place
Custom and self build is exempt from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), which is a welcome saving for people building their own home, but Baddley-Chappell says this can sometimes act as a disincentive for councils in bringing forward more custom and self build plots because it impacts on their income.
NaCSBA is seeking a mechanism where the self builder still doesn’t need to pay CIL, but local authorities don't lose out - in effect, the money would be reimbursed from the government centrally to cover the cost of the income at local level.
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