The first ever Right to Build day takes place today!

England’s first ever ‘Right to Build’ Day takes place on 30 October 2019. According to the National Custom and Self Build Association (NaCSBA), this is "the most important day in the history of those building or commissioning their own home”. It marks three years after the close of the first "base period" of local authority Custom and Self Build registers, which ended on 30th October 2016. Registers are a legal requirement of the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015. Under this new law, councils across England have three years to grant sufficient ‘development permissions’ for the number of people who have signed up to their registers, and they must now for the first time demonstrate whether they have achieved this target or not.  

Data gathered by NaCSBA shows that over 18,000 people had signed up to local authority registers by 30th October 2016, so if the new law has been successful, at least 18,000 new self build plots should have been brought forward in England in the last three years.

Since 2016, Ecomotive has been helping local authorities across England to operate their custom and self build registers through its online platform the Local Self Build Register (localselfbuildregister.co.uk). We are pleased to be playing a role in helping councils to comply with this legislation and in doing so, to help create more opportunities for self build and community-led housing across the country.

NaCSBA will be gathering information from all local authorities and sharing it with the national Government to help shape future policy and practice on self build and custom build.