Big houses, no gardens - nowhere to play.

mokryna

When I helped my daughter buy a place, it is nearly always the smallest, what the builders call a bedroom, that is the problem with UK homes. They are not big enough to swing a cat in, as the expression goes. It is a gimmick. I think the UK should follow the US in that a room can only be called a bedroom, if it can have a wardrobe as well as a bed, well, that was said on one of those US doer upper shows, I maybe wrong.
Also headspace is another problem, in France, the floor space can only be counted when it is a certain height (something similar to a person standing).

Absolutely!

We used to call that 3rd room the accurate name at one point - ie a "boxroom". So we'd say "That house has 2 bedrooms and a boxroom". I presume that room started getting called a "bedroom" when our housing prices shot up and many people wanted to try and make out that it was a "family size" house - rather than "It's got two bedrooms and will only cover a couple and one child really".

Headspace is indeed another issue - ie I get annoyed at a converted loft being called a bedroom if there isn't enough person height bit of the room that one can get in a wardrobe and chest of drawers.

Another giveaway thing is some of the houses that are called "3 bedroom" are actually = 2 bedrooms and a dining room. I've lost count of just how many houses apparently have a bedroom that's on the ground floor and has a set of patio doors to the garden in it = cue for thinking "Oh another 2 bedroom house then".

Though these fake "bedrooms" are certainly not the only problem. There are a lot of houses with kitchens that are too small and I look at them and think "I know it is a kitchen - but it's only really big enough for someone whose idea of cooking is 'doing ready meals in a microwave' ". For many of us we have to reject them as not suitable to "really cook" in. The kitchen in my house is what I'd call medium-sized and I've had to rip out the existing one before I could really afford to - as there wasn't a scrap of space-planning/time and motion consciousness to it and I had bought the house thinking "That kitchen will just about do - once I've replaced it".

Cue for the wall cupboards are 3 shelves in height, an odd space by side of kitchen door has had a few bookshelves put in, the corner base cupboard by sink had a carousel put in there. Where there was unusable/unused floor space on the radiator wall = I put in a breakfast bar underneath the wall cupboards I managed to fit onto the wall there. There's also a walk-in larder and that had its few tatty narrow shelves pulled out and more and wider shelves put in (two of them are worksurface width in fact).

I'd love to have someone go through house planning/house renovation ideas for houses before it came to it and do a "time and motion" study on how well (or otherwise) they'd actually work to live in.

Standard house here in urban Ireland would be three floors and with maybe three bathrooms. Apart from bedrooms, the trend for working from home needs accomodating. Gardens are smaller and now more overshadowing with taller buildings. Front gardens seem to be sacrificed and even parking can be away from the house. We used to have roadside grass verges with trees and they seem to be gone in new developments. Otherwise it seems apartments everywhere with underground parking and less open around around the buildings. All this leads to climate issues as more green areas covered over and water has to 'run off' somewhere and not into ground.

I watched a Kirsty and Phil programme helping a couple and their toddler find the right house or to convert their own.

The man was disabled and in a wheelchair and it moved me to tears to realise how inaccessible their current house was. He had never been in the conservatory.

Anyway, it had a happy ending.
Worth watching. Channel 4. Love it or List it.

There is obviously much more space where you live nanna8 I hardly think quarter acre gardens were ever the norm here!
New builds are generally small (2-3 beds) and gardens likewise . Space is at a premium again much of the UK.

"In much of"

It seems to me people can take children to parks or along with on walks. Size of gardens doesn't matter to children, decent parents matter.

RosiesMawagain

There is obviously much more space where you live nanna8 I hardly think quarter acre gardens were ever the norm here!
New builds are generally small (2-3 beds) and gardens likewise . Space is at a premium again much of the UK.

I think that depends which part of the UK you are talking about. Many of the houses around here have large gardens. Even some of the council houses - or now ex-council - have surprisingly spacious gardens.

There was a deliberate policy in council house building,I think postwar, to make c h gardens big enough allow for tenants to have a decent veg patch to feed their families

Today's private developers even outside the crowded south-east, would rather squeeze a few more buildings in.

I think times have changed. In most cases both adults in the house work, often long hours, and a lot more people work from home so need offices. Gardening for food is less of a priority for most people than in was fifty years ago, and if they do want to grow their own food, they can get allotments. Children do many more organised out of school activities than they used to, and day trips with parents etc. are also a lot more common too. I don’t think gardens are actually missed as much as we think they are by those families who opt for a larger house and smaller garden.

Norah

It seems to me people can take children to parks or along with on walks. Size of gardens doesn't matter to children, decent parents matter.

You can be a decent parent but not necessarily have the time to go to the park for a couple of hours each day. If you have a garden then you can be getting on with jobs whilst the DC play(s) in the garden. They don't necessarily need a helicopter parent to play with them constantly, it's good for them to be creative on their own.

SueDonim

I’ve just seen this photo elsewhere. For those complaining about the density of modern homes, perhaps our perceptions are skewed! In case you can’t see the figures, modern development, density 29.7 houses per hectare, Georgian terraced houses, density 74.8 houses per hectare.

I’ll just repost this from earlier as I don’t think it appeared.

Would you all turn down a Georgian house because of the high population density and lack of privacy?

The photo would help!

SueDonim

SueDonim

I’ve just seen this photo elsewhere. For those complaining about the density of modern homes, perhaps our perceptions are skewed! In case you can’t see the figures, modern development, density 29.7 houses per hectare, Georgian terraced houses, density 74.8 houses per hectare.

I’ll just repost this from earlier as I don’t think it appeared.

Would you all turn down a Georgian house because of the high population density and lack of privacy?

SueDonim you are comparing apples and pears. Georgian housing was built at a different period when different social norms applied. You are also econimcal about what you say about housing densities

In fact recommended housing density in the Uk from for new UK estates generally ranges from 20 to 40 dwellings per hectare for standard developments, with higher densities (50+ for urban, well-connected sites, that is the kind of urban areas where these Georgian houses are found

Assuming you are thinking about those lovely Gergian terraces seen in many areas of our big cities, not the tiny 2 up 2 down and back to backs that the majority of the population lived in, where children could be working from an age as young as 5 or 6. Occupants of the varying sized larger ones would have servants anything from one or two to twenty or thirty. Child rearing praciices were also very different.

Those nice Georgian terraces also front houses which contain far more space than modern houses do - and are of course almost entirely found in urban centres. I think most families would happily reject one of those beautiful Georgian terrace houses in favour of houses that are more family friendly.

Childless households might make different choices.

Are you accusing me of lying, Monica? Those figures are in the public domain. As it happens, I grew up for most of my childhood in a dilapidated terraced Regency house. We had a yard at the back with one flowerbed, much like all the other houses in our road, and the road behind us. No front gardens, we were all direct onto the street. The best thing about that house was the day we moved out.

By the way, I checked the size of the Norbury houses you linked to. They’re 13ft 3in wide. A very similar size to the Victorian terrace house my sister lived in, but with CH and two toilets, and about the same size of house as my recently-divorced friend has gratefully moved into.

of course I am not, I am merely saying that the fugures are more nuanced than you said. densities of around 30 may be the average, but in urban areas it can go up to 50 or more. In some rural and green belt areas it may be much less.

I hate averages, they should be abolished!! They are a meaningless generality that usually mislead.

The Norbury was linked as an example of the design of house I have been in. The ones I went in, not a Barratt house was about 12 foot wide. Anyway an extra 15 inches is hardly a big difference, less than half the width of a single bed, unless it is a narrow one.

The thing us you can't compare apples and oranges. I dont know what the area of Australia is, the population of the price of land. The UK is a fraction the size and especially in urban areas very expensive so it is not surprising that developers would rather squeeze in a few extra houses as it is more cost effective than an extra 10ft of garden.

We have a lot of land and a fair bit of it is not suitable for growing things or farming. Guess what ? They build on the lovely arable land and push the farming land further and further away to the dry desert areas. Nuts. It would be good if they encouraged growth in the small towns and settlements which are steadily emptying instead of cramming everyone into the extended city but hey Ho, the planners and politicians are not up there in the brains department.

Allira

Norah

It seems to me people can take children to parks or along with on walks. Size of gardens doesn't matter to children, decent parents matter.

You can be a decent parent but not necessarily have the time to go to the park for a couple of hours each day. If you have a garden then you can be getting on with jobs whilst the DC play(s) in the garden. They don't necessarily need a helicopter parent to play with them constantly, it's good for them to be creative on their own.

Not a parent - but I'd agree with that.

Open the back door for the children and say "There's the sandpit to play in, a lawn to throw each other a ball on, etc." and you'd know you could just take a quick peek out the kitchen window to do a two-second visual check on them and back to whatever else you were doing.

hey Ho, the planners and politicians are not up there in the brains department.

😁

Well, here they build on arable land and flood plains!
So no better.

"There's the sandpit to play in, a lawn to throw each other a ball on, etc."

Reminds me of when the little boy across the road came to play with DD and threw the sand from the sandpit all over the garden and patio! 😲
I consoled myself with the fact that it might do the lawn good, but I had to go and buy more play sand.
He usually caused chaos if he came over. Wonder where he is and what he's doing now?

DD’s property on the outskirts of a small market town is set in 3.5 acres, (this is Australia).

She says plots that size are no longer being sold, they are squeezing more properties in.

Allira

^"There's the sandpit to play in, a lawn to throw each other a ball on, etc."^

Reminds me of when the little boy across the road came to play with DD and threw the sand from the sandpit all over the garden and patio! 😲
I consoled myself with the fact that it might do the lawn good, but I had to go and buy more play sand.
He usually caused chaos if he came over. Wonder where he is and what he's doing now?

Probably in government somewhere 😀😀😀

nanna8

Allira

"There's the sandpit to play in, a lawn to throw each other a ball on, etc."

Reminds me of when the little boy across the road came to play with DD and threw the sand from the sandpit all over the garden and patio! 😲
I consoled myself with the fact that it might do the lawn good, but I had to go and buy more play sand.
He usually caused chaos if he came over. Wonder where he is and what he's doing now?

Probably in government somewhere 😀😀😀

😁

If I could remember his surname I'd look him up.

We had many sized gardens when DC were small and I cannot really say that it made any difference to how they played out. AS long as there was a climbing frame of some sort that could br transformed into whatever role play they were involved in and a paddling pool, that was really all that mattered. Sandpits and just running around nevr really interested in.

Thinking back to my childhood the most important thing for a garden to have was nooks and crannies to hide in out of adult sight. Much more important than size.

Paddling pools don’t get much use in Scotland. We never had a climbing frame, they weren’t really a thing when my boys were young, plus we moved house a lot. The girls had a trampoline but they got bored with it quite quickly and a neighbour gratefully carted it off to her garden one day.

When we had use of a swimming pool when living abroad, my girls were there all the time. They loved that.