Community Right to Build

Under the new Coalition programme of political reform, a Localism Bill, which is at the heart of the Big Society, will be introduced paving the way for the creation of Community Right to Build. This is intended to give local people, initially in rural areas, power to deliver the development that their community wants with minimal red tape by by-passing the planning system.

To achieve this, it is anticipated that a community will have to set itself up as a corporate entity to tackle all the obstacles to the delivery of a sustainable development. Schemes are not allowed to expand the size of a community by more than 10% over a 10 year period and are expected to give "communities the power to preserve their villages and tackle the shortage of affordable homes". Such proposals will then need to achieve 90% support in a local referendum.