Our shrinking houses

New-build houses in Britain are among the smallest in Europe. But that's not the real problem, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

How small is your house? My guess is you think it is too small. You probably also think it is very small relative to the houses people in other countries live in. If it's a new-build, you're probably right.

As Matthew Lynn notes, strict planning laws combined with some other factors (the difficulty developers have in financing infrastructure, for example) mean our new houses are among the smallest in the world, at an average of 76 sq m (818 sq ft). In Ireland, it's 88 sq m. Go to Spain, and it's 97 sq m. Cross to Denmark and you'll get an airy 137 sq m.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.