Living in a box: housing standards

Architects and housebuilders have once again locked horns after the government announced last week that it is considering introducing minimum space standards for all new homes and might even embed them in Building Regulations.

The revelation - in the long-awaited housing standards review - that the government wants to examine the case for national standards follows a long campaign by the RIBA and was hailed by its incoming president Stephen Hodder as having the potential to end what he called “rabbit hutch Britain”. “Some 30 years after [Parker Morris] space standards were abolished, this consultation is a significant step towards giving people the homes they want and need and putting right the housing wrongs of the last three decades,” he said.

The Home Builders Federation (HBF), on the other hand, warned ominously that minimum standards would constrain housing supply at a time of acute shortage, either by making sites less viable or housing less affordable.

So should we welcome the prospect of minimum standards and, if so, what form should they take? What evidence is there that they will hold back construction, and could empowering the consumer through so-called “space labelling” be a smarter way forward?

A universal need

It is often claimed that the UK has some of the smallest new-build homes in western Europe, and the RIBA is certainly not alone in calling on the government to tackle this. Left to its own devices in an already dysfunctional market, the private sector often gets it wrong and produces unsustainable, inflexible and uncomfortable homes, so the argument goes. Minimum standards, by contrast, would produce popular homes that would stand the test of time and be flexible enough to adapt to changing needs.

“When we look at our historically best housing built between the wars and after the Second World War, that resulted from space standards,” says Hugh Ellis, the chief planner at the Town and Country Planning Association. “I don’t understand why minimum standards are such a problem [for housebuilders].”

Proponents also argue that the general public would be less likely to object to new housing developments if it was convinced that the space and quality aspects of new housing had been properly addressed. While the famous Parker Morris standards of the sixties and seventies were only ever mandatory for social housing, Pippa Read, policy leader at the National Housing Federation, says the impact of such standards would truly be felt if they applied across all tenures: “For us, the need for space and for quality more broadly is universal. There shouldn’t be a distinction between public and private and we think minimum standards will help communities accept new homes.”

In recent years, minimum space standards have been developed at a local level. And those that have introduced such measures, including Bristol council and London’s Merton council - which introduced its standards in 1999 - insist that they have seen no evidence of the negative side-effects that the HBF warns of.

The same appears to apply in London as a whole, which has seen minimum standards in place for the past two years since mayor Boris Johnson declared war on what he called “hobbit homes”. Alex Ely, a partner at Mae Architects who worked with the London authorities in developing the standard, says he has no reason to believe that supply has suffered. “My perception is that since the introduction of the London Housing Design Guide, housebuilders are getting on with it - there has been very little grumbling.”

Pie in the sky

Developers, however, might well argue that it is nigh-on impossible to isolate the effect of such standards when housing supply and demand is so multi-causal.
One developer with reason to be watching the move towards national space standards closely is Marc Vlessing, founding director of Pocket, the London company that specialises in well-designed one-bedroom apartments of just 400ft2 for young professionals.

He backs the idea of a “graduated framework” because standards for central London should sensibly differ from, say, Hull. He says: “I applaud the idea of saying ‘enough is enough’, let’s draw up a minimum […] but the idea of a [single] national space standard is pie in the sky.”

Vlessing also argues that standards should be flexible enough to exempt certain groups with less need for space, such as students.

But if the industry can’t agree about space standards, the notion of mandatory space labelling - something the government seems to have made up its mind to roll out - may be less controversial. This would see market forces harnessed to improve home and room size by ensuring that homes are marketed with clear data on what space you get for your money.

The problem is that, while the HBF has said it is willing to discuss how space labelling might work, the RIBA is adamant that the idea doesn’t go far enough.

For Andy von Bradsky, chair of architect PRP and head of the challenge panel that scrutinised the government’s local standards review process, the government has missed an opportunity for a potential middle way that might satisfy the concerns of both sides: new regulations governing minimum sizes for individual rooms, but leaving it up to the market to determine how these components are arranged into flats or houses. Von Bradsky says: “We looked at whether there was a compelling case for some sort of minimum standards for parts of space, rather than overall house or flat space sizes. This would mean that rather than leave it to market forces to go out and create a 5m2 box and try to call it a bedroom, they would have to meet minimum requirements to be able market it as that.

“We think here the government might have missed a subtle opportunity to embed something in Building Regulations that offers buyers some protection that they’re getting what they expect, without limiting their choice.”

With the consultation running until 22 October, and the government likely to take some time to respond, it’s clear the battle raging over space standards is unlikely to die down any time soon, whichever option is ultimately taken.