What the flex is this all about!

I think in most modern kitchens, the plug sockets are fitted low down on the wall directly behind the machine and a separate fuse switch is fitted above the work top for each appliance to comply with safety laws.
Therefore, you only need a short length of cable. That’s how all of my white goods are ‘plumbed in’, in the utility and kitchen.
I can imagine it’s frustrating if your kitchen/utility isn’t designed that way though.

DH maintains that the manufacturers probably are making a big saving on the cost of flexes now that they are using so little on the machines.

I agree nothing using water should be on an extension flex. We don't have the problem as we have just had the house re-wired, but perhaps you would consider having a new socket put in?

The problem is that all appliances, among many other household goods are designed on the assumption that they are going to be installed in brand new houses which are built to all the approved regulation.

They conveniently ignore that the vast majority of us live in houses over 20 years old, or in my case 550 years old and although we have modern services etc, they may have been installed some time ago, or that it isn't practical to place them where they would be in a modern house.

I currrently have points behind a coat rack and in a cupboard because we use the house differently to the previous owners, who had the house rewired and their utility room with points carefully placed for iron and washing machine is now a cloakroom, hence the points behind coats and in a cupboard. Neither of them is ever used.

My house was built in 1983. It's a kit house bought, I believe from Norway. The kitchen was laid out to the original owners specifications. The socket for the dishwasher is now in one of my kitchen cupboards. If we need to switch it off for any reason, I have to empty the cupboard to get at it.
The thing with the short flexed is annoying! Fortunately where I sited my new washing machine was right next to a socket, if I'd needed to put it in a different position, I would have had the same trouble as the O P.

It seems highly dodgy to me as many people would need an extension lead. I’m ok as I designed my own utility room with the sockets just on the worktop so it would reach, but one metre is no distance at all.

My second home, built 1994, only has sockets above the worktop in the kitchen so my washer has always been used with an extension even though it sits in a space beneath the worktop. In my main home refurbishment all kitchen appliance sockets are in the back of kitchen cupboards, a real pain, and each half of kitchen is on a different circuit board.