UK Space Invaders

Using compelling statistics, Mark Simpson at Extra Room Self Storage looks at how UK homes, among the smallest in the Western world, can benefit from self storage.

The UK is the only country in the Europe with no minimum space standards for private homes. The result of this is that England now builds the smallest homes in Europe, with the average home built today being significantly smaller than the equivalent built in 1920.

Not enough room!

Research has shown that many residents do not feel that the space they inhabit is adequate to support basic activities on a day-to-day basis. This lack of living space has wider ramifications for storage, the placement of furniture, cooking, energy management and environmental sustainability. All of which can contribute to emotional well-being.

A survey conducted in the UK in 2009 found that 69% of people with new homes said that there was not enough room for all of their personal possessions; and 58% said that they didn’t even have enough room for all of their furniture!

International comparisons

The current average house in the UK has a floor area of approximately 915 square feet (85 sq m). The average new home is even smaller, at around 818 square feet (76 sq m). In the Netherlands, a country with similar pressures on space, new homes are over 50% bigger than in the UK at 1,237 square feet (115 sq m).

Outside of Europe, the gap widens further; British new-builds are less than half the size of those in the United States and Australia. Nor does this difference show any sign of reducing: the average American home swelled from 983 square feet in 1950 to 2,349 square feet in 2004 – a 140% increase in little more than 50 years. In 2010 the average house size in the US was around 2,392 square feet (222 sq m), another 2% increase in less than ten years!

Squeezed

As mortgages become increasingly difficult to acquire and consumer confidence stays low, fewer people are in a position to move home, even if they need the extra space. The total number of completed residential transactions in 2011 was just 867,000, more than 400,000 below the 10 year average of 1,300,000. The average UK house price is around five times as much as the average salary, which all means people have to come up with ways to make do and find more space without relocating to a larger home.

Self storage to the rescue!

Self storage can be the perfect solution to this space problem and is one of the reasons more than 235,000 people use self storage in the UK. Rooms are available in over 20 different sizes, from the size of a cupboard right up to a double garage and beyond.

Self storage also allows the kind of easy access that lofts, attics or garages don’t. The extra space and blank canvas to store from the ground up make it far simpler to keep track of everything. Security and the right environmental conditions are also assured, which removes the need to worry about break-ins or weather damage; and modern-day self  storage units employ state-of-the-art humidity control and hi-tech security.

All you have to do is keep track of the key!

Extra Room Self Storage is a state of the art UK self-storage facility located just off the A5 in Warwickshire, offering self storage in Tamworth, Nuneaton and Hinckley.