The Netherlands Almere is a Dutch new town of slightly under 200,000 standing on reclaimed land thirty minutes from Amsterdam. The site also contains Europe’s largest self-build programme consisting of a 350 acre site to the south west of the town. Master planned into a number of districts, each of which has around 720 self-build plots, with over 1000 homes already built, and an eventual 3,000 self built homes planned. This self-build city was announced The Almere Principles, a strategic policy shift in 2006, and is being closely watched by other European housing policy ministries, including the current UK Coalition administration. This local government document can be found here.

A Guardian article on the Almere phenomenon in the British context can be found here.