Battery-hen Britain set to continue, as UK homes remain smallest in Europe

The Brits build the smallest new homes in Western Europe

It’s a story that has been quietly ignored by most in the mainstream media, yet its outcome could have far-reaching consequences for the average Briton.

The UK’s Communities Minister Don Foster recently refused to sanction calls to introduce minimum space standards on new homes in the UK – condemning future generations of Brits to live in the smallest homes in Europe…

The UK’s housing situation should already be an embarrassment for the government. Property prices in Britain are massively over-inflated, with the average age of a first-time buyer standing at 38. In fact, most young people in the UK require some third-party financial help – such as a windfall inheritance or a sizeable handout from the bank of mum and dad – in order to get on to the property ladder at all.

And when (if) they get there? Then they are faced with the smallest living spaces in Europe. Overpriced and undersized, yet still the demand outstrips the supply, with large-scale developers sitting on undeveloped land in the hope that their inaction will drive up prices in the scant number of properties that are built. It’s a tactic that’s working, largely because the government turns a blind eye to such practices, allowing the situation to worsen with every passing day.

The size of the average British home has shrunk from 85 sqm to just 76 sqm in the space of 30 years. The average size of a one-bed new-build apartment is approximately the same size as an underground tube carriage. Compared to the rest of Europe, British homes are 15 per cent smaller on average, and a whopping 80 per cent smaller than homes in Scandinavia.

“A lack of space has been shown to impact on basic lifestyle needs that many people take for granted, such as having enough space to store possessions or even to entertain friends,” said a report by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

“In more extreme cases, lack of adequate space for a household has also been shown to have a significant impact on health, education attainment and family relationships.”

That’s the experts’ opinion, backed up by hard evidence which shows that not only are new UK houses small, they also lack storage space and natural light due to unnecessarily small windows. The minimum space standards act was abolished in 1980, and there have recently been calls to re-introduce a similar ruling.

However, those hopes have now been dashed in Don Foster’s consultation paper, which was published last month.

“The degree to which space standards should be developed or mandated is hotly contested and views for and against are very polarised,” read the report. “The government does not have a preferred approach on space standards at this time.”

So there you have it: the official line from the UK government is that it is happy to maintain the status quo on British housing, despite all the evidence suggesting that something should be done, if only for the future health of the next generation.

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Turns out, all you have to do is look closer to home to understand just why a move to Spain might well be the best decision you will ever make…