The Amazing Shrinking Plots.

[Executive Sadman]

Not sure if its quite this bad nationwide or just in my current local authority, East Cambridgeshire.

I guess you can expect claustrophobic streets in city centres, or student villages, but rural towns and villages, on developments of supposedly 'family homes'?

8 houses built on one previous home. Gardens all of 10 foot deep. Parking, sure you get a garage which probably wont fit a car, and a space that again, probably wont fit a car.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3935293,0.2460514,3a,90y,163.69h,79.22t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0CkNQcvhK7o8v84Kylhx_A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Or 4 'family homes' in the back gardens of 2 ex-local authority semis. You get a carport in this instance, presumably if it was a garage, your doors wouldnt open. I guess you have to reverse all the way up to the main road, i'm not sure how you could turn your car around if the neighbours had cars in their 'driveways'

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2723251,0.3330618,3a,60y,326.28h,78.1t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6xwcvZOYTIBZlVo2A692EA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I thought plot sizes were bad in the 80s and 90s. Since then, they seem to have taken away what little parking you got, shoved rooms in attics and done away with footpaths too.

[Errol]

The world just keeps getting better and better. We are truly blessed to live in such an age.

[zugzwang]

Plan A.

1. Privatise and sub-divide the housing stock.

2 Admit half a million migrants from the Levant every year.

3. Repeat 1.

[fandanman]

Christ, I did a ****** just looking at that streetview, talk about claustrophobic

[interestrateripoff]

Houses for hobbits

[winkie]

Some people like living on top of each other......or squashed next to each other.

.....otherwise other than that there are others that don't think they have a choice, or have been given a choice.

Edited April 5, 2016 by winkie

[onlyme2]

Plan A.

1. Privatise and sub-divide the housing stock.

2 Admit half a million migrants from the Levant every year.

3. Repeat 1.

You missed 2A,

Promote and subsidize BTL to house 2.

,

[streamingfreedom]

That's pretty standard now for any new build site. The worst ones are the three storey ones packed in with no parking provisions aside a single space. The roads in those estates are always totally jammed with double parked cars.

[stuckin2up2down]

New build are all like that.

I'm looking for my next home and the main thing is being far enough away from another house so I never hear them. Its a very difficult task as anywhere with a big plot is virtually sold as a building plot.

[Guest BillyNI]

Looking in London with each new build the flats get smaller and smaller. I think I could probably tell the year of build from the square footage

[ccc]

Someone needs to check the local planning commissioner for brown paper envelopes.

[nnails]

I brought a 1970s house last year. For the following reasons

1. A new house garden was same size as the living room. ' tiny'

2. allocated parking (1 space)

3. more expensive than 1970s house.

4. the house had no where to store stuff.

5. It did not seems as well made.

Im not saying my house is perfect but just felt much nicer.

My friend as recently brought a shared ownership house. It as unique feature which is discussed a lot. The stairs case is so wide you could fit a stair lift by design. Everyone is bemused why would someone who is disabled by a new build house with stairs? Why would the council make them do this? Im not saying its good or bad idea just a bit unique. My friend is very happy to have it and it does suffer from postage stamp garden problem

[cashinmattress]

That 'estate' looks like something out of Tim Burton film.

Bizarre.

Good luck getting on with your neighbors.

At least it's a minor improvement on the uber-flat living model prevalent in Scandinavia.

[Guest eight]

This is what I'm quite sure our spacious Georgian terraced house is eventually going to be pathfindered into.

[billybong]

House sizes across the world

http://greenlivingpedia.org/House_size_comparisons

The UK is right at the bottom of the list - as smallest - and they're getting even smaller

One should of course add that they're also among the most expensive in the world.

Edited April 6, 2016 by billybong

[@contradevian]

See the video in the Daily Mail article. The average new build is the same size as an underground carriage!

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3341412/Half-new-builds-small-families-RIBA-architects-warn.html

My 70's flat is built to Parker Morris space standards. So probably now compares with a new build "house"

[justthisbloke]

I'm not sure what the problem is. Or, if there is a problem, from where it arises.

In an ideal world of free markets and contracts entered into voluntarily by all parties, then the size of a house, garden, and associated infrastructure is matter of supply and demand and market operation. No council clipboard wielders needed.

Of course, it's not like that by a long shot and councils and government stick their oars in all over the shop as they try and socially engineer our domestic arrangements and home architecture. But, if people didn't want small places, they're still not forced to buy them. The cry of "it's all they can afford" identifies a bubblicious HPI issue, not a house size issue.

[Executive Sadman]

That 'estate' looks like something out of Tim Burton film.

Bizarre.

Good luck getting on with your neighbors.

At least it's a minor improvement on the uber-flat living model prevalent in Scandinavia.

Don't most Scandinavians tend to have a villa type thing in the country to escape to though? Or is that another post-war halcyon days era generational goody that seems to have disappeared in a puff of 21st century smoke?

[Executive Sadman]

I brought a 1970s house last year. For the following reasons

1. A new house garden was same size as the living room. ' tiny'

2. allocated parking (1 space)

3. more expensive than 1970s house.

4. the house had no where to store stuff.

5. It did not seems as well made.

Im not saying my house is perfect but just felt much nicer.

My friend as recently brought a shared ownership house. It as unique feature which is discussed a lot. The stairs case is so wide you could fit a stair lift by design. Everyone is bemused why would someone who is disabled by a new build house with stairs? Why would the council make them do this? Im not saying its good or bad idea just a bit unique. My friend is very happy to have it and it does suffer from postage stamp garden problem

Yup. If you don't mind the less 'traditional' look of 70s houses, 1980 seems about when things started going downhill with regards to plot sizes (particularly parking) and room sizes. Since about 1910, terraces were being replaced with semis, suburbia was born and kept going thru to the 70s. Then Thatchers deregulation begun. Asset bubbles got going, land values went through the roof and the modern 'cul de sac' replaced the street. 70s cul de sacs seemed to be more street like, with proper pavements and verges.

[Errol]

Yes, originally most cul-de-sacs had pavements, verges and front gardens with drives infront of each house (large enough for more than one car).

[GinAndPlatonic]

I brought a 1970s house last year. For the following reasons

My friend as recently brought a shared ownership house. It as unique feature which is discussed a lot. The stairs case is so wide you could fit a stair lift by design. Everyone is bemused why would someone who is disabled by a new build house with stairs? Why would the council make them do this? Im not saying its good or bad idea just a bit unique. My friend is very happy to have it and it does suffer from postage stamp garden problem

I notice that a lot in modern social housing. Huge hallways and doorways with small rooms.Personally I`m not complaining though as I transport furniture for a living and they are wonderful for offloading into the rooms.

[GreenDevil]

The price to pay to live next to the London pit..

[sexton]

Don't most Scandinavians tend to have a villa type thing in the country to escape to though? Or is that another post-war halcyon days era generational goody that seems to have disappeared in a puff of 21st century smoke?

Plenty of houses round here only inhabited for a short time in the summer.There's one across the road that is visited for less than a week a year.Many houses have an unoccupied older house on the plot as the locals like to keep them for sentimental reasons.

[Saving For a Space Ship]

See the video in the Daily Mail article. The average new build is the same size as an underground carriage!

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3341412/Half-new-builds-small-families-RIBA-architects-warn.html

My 70's flat is built to Parker Morris space standards. So probably now compares with a new build "house"

From the photot in the article...Don't have a dump, then a shower, the partner won't appreciate it , with that shared door.

East Claustrophobridgeshire

[zugzwang]

I'm not sure what the problem is. Or, if there is a problem, from where it arises.

In an ideal world of free markets and contracts entered into voluntarily by all parties, then the size of a house, garden, and associated infrastructure is matter of supply and demand and market operation. No council clipboard wielders needed.

Of course, it's not like that by a long shot and councils and government stick their oars in all over the shop as they try and socially engineer our domestic arrangements and home architecture. But, if people didn't want small places, they're still not forced to buy them. The cry of "it's all they can afford" identifies a bubblicious HPI issue, not a house size issue.

There's nothing ideal about unregulated 'free' markets. The more liquid they are, the more likely they are to be unstable and inefficient. Empirical evidence of a statistical equilibrium (i.e. proof of existence of an Invisible Hand) has never been produced for any real market.