Well Of Course British Homes Are The Smallest In Europe
WHY are British homes the smallest in Europe? Because we’re the only country in Europe stupid enough to insist that they must be small.
This really isn’t a surprising finding from Cambridge University:
British families are living in some of the most cramped conditions in Europe with more than half of homes falling short of minimum modern space standards, new research has found.
The study found the UK has the smallest homes by floor space area of any European country with the average new build property covered just 76sq m compared with almost double that amount of 137sq m in Denmark.
The reason for this is that the government of the country has been taken over by morons. They’re in the grip of a delusion that we’re short of land to put houses on these days. When in fact only 3% of England is actually houses: we could therefore build another 33%, or make all housing 33% larger, just by using 1% of the country.
We just don’t have a land shortage. Heck, in Surrey, there’s more land under golf courses than there is land under houses. And quite a lot of people would like to live in Surrey too.
It’s actually so bad, this delusion, that if you do get planning permission to build on a bit of land then you’ve got to crowd them in. 14 houses to a hectare is the minimum that anyone will ever let you get away with. All of which is very different indeed from the old demand that any and every house (from post WWI, “Homes for Heroes” and all that) must have at least a quarter acre garden (you can only get 8 of those to a hectare, including some room for the houses themselves) so that people can grow their own veg.
The reason that new British houses are titchy is because the law currently insists that they must be titchy. It’s crazed lunacy. And it’s a problem that we can solve really easily. Loosen up the planning permission system and two things will happen. First, building land will become cheaper meaning that houses don’t need to be squeezed in. Second, that the law won’t insist that houses have to be crammed in.
This is all, absolutely, the fault of the law, nothing else. Except, perhaps, the cretins who make that law.
Posted: 7th, July 2014 | In: Money Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
