www.buildforlife.org.uk
The website of the All Party Parliamentary Group
on Self-Build, Custom and Community Housebuilding and Placemaking
latest news
BBC Radio 4 "You and Yours" broadcasts a week of items on self-build in the Netherlands. Listen to them now:

You can contact the All-Party Group by:

  • Writing to us at: Richard Bacon MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA
  • Telephoning us on: 0207 219 8301 or 01379 642738
  • Or email us by clicking here
“The consumer has been on the receiving end of a pretty poor deal. We build some of the poorest, most expensive and smallest homes in Europe. That’s not something to celebrate.”

Kevin McCloud, Presenter of Channel 4’s Grand Designs, speaking at the House of Commons, Tuesday 25 March 2014

(Photo by Glenn Dearing)

  

It could all be very different.  According to Ipsos MORI:-

  • 53% of the adult population would like to build a house during their lives.
  • 30% would like to do so in the next five years.
  • More than 1 million people want to buy a site and start building in the next 12 months.

The supply of housing in Britain does not rise to meet demand. This needs to change.  The Self Build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015 and other impending changes to the law will make it easier for people to bring forward their own projects and help to build and shape their own communities.

Instead of building the most poorly performing, most expensive and smallest homes in Europe, let’s do things differently.

Let’s use our imagination and knowledge to make the best places that we can, with the best-performing homes that we know how to build, in the most beautiful surroundings that we know how to create, where people will be able to :-

  • find an education
  • find the skills they need for life
  • find a job they enjoy
  • perhaps start their own business
  • put down roots
  • build a house, or have a house built to their own design
  • raise a family
  • be part of a community

People need more real choices over the homes they wish to live in.

Giving people more choice will help to solve the nation’s housing crisis and help to create flourishing communities in which people want to live.

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