On Tuesday the 1st of November, NaCSBA (National association for Custom and Self-build) organised its first national conference at the National Self-build and Renovation Centre in Swindon. Since quite some years, NaCSBA has put self-build on the (political) agenda. With great success.
It’s not surprising that Michael Grove, now Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, opened the conference with a supportive opening statement believing in the opportunity of scaling up custom and self-build to bring more quality and choice to the housing market. With great thanks to the work of Mr Richard Bacon, MP for South Norfolk, who finished his Independent review into scaling up self-build and custom housebuilding in April 2021. It was good to have Richard Bacon join the conference, via Zoom. We’re still on a mission together and on all levels we are working towards result.
Hans Sparreboom, owner of Steenvlinder, addressed the conference about how to develop for the individual or collective self-builder. His first statement echoed: “a self-builder is not a developer”. In other words, we, as an industry, must dive into the minds of a self-builder, have to get under their skin, step into their shoes, to see what they need to be enabled to self-build. And it will take time. Developing for self-builders is a mission, not a model for mere profit. It takes time to encourage and enable anyone to build their own home, but it is that focus of trying to make it easier and accessible that will bring diversity and choice to the market.
