Single Aspect Blog

Who to vote for on space standards? You might have thought that following the promises made (and broken) by Boris Johnson in raising the profile of Sir Parker Morris that space standards would by now have found their way into the manifesto commitments of all three major parties but you would be wrong.  What each of the three candidates below are essentially saying is that if you are free to move around in the market place you can avoid the smaller housing and move to larger but what they are not saying is that so much of what is being built today is inadequate. That housing standards across the country are failing in terms of space so the housing stock is itself being diminished.

On 19 January 100 property professionals had the opportunity to question housing spokespeople from the three main parties at the RICS, Building and Property Week pre-election hustings.

Rt Hon Nick Raynsford (Labour)

Introducing space standards for new private housing is not appropriate, since there is more choice and mobility for tenants and owners than in the social rented sector.

Grant Shapps (Conservative)

Space standards in the private rented sector and density targets
Temporarily relaxing space standards could allow many empty homes to be brought into use by the social housing sector. Density targets would be removed by a Conservative administration.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrats)

Space standards
Agreed with Nick Raynsford regarding the differences in mobility and choice between the social and private housing and therefore did not support blanket space standards for new private homes.

https://www.rics.org/site/scripts/news_article.aspx?newsID=1194