Slumming it

I thought that I had seen everything in terms of styles, trends and fashions in the new build housing market.

Going back into the 1970's it was the through lounge replacing the traditional best parlour and back sitting room. In the 1980's the breakfast bar appeared in domestic kitchens. The 1990's saw the emergence of the en suite bathroom. After the millenium it was a case of those fancy fruit bowl hand basins and wet rooms. Current fads are for high tech control equipment, under floor heating and moves towards energy efficiency or self sufficiency. These things are of course all to do with the interior design and specification.

There has over the years been an equivalent transformation of exterior styles and house types. The modern semi detached went from a large brick built box to a more pleasing but still brick built box. The terraced house, once the domain of the working man and woman became trendy and a bit retro although heaven forbid the old practices of neighbours wandering in and out willy-nilly and leaving doors unlocked would be strongly resisted. Executive detached houses have just got larger and more tacky with electronically controlled gates across the cul de sac, private security patrols and heated all weather private estate roads. Three storeys have also become commonplace on the sprawling residential estates that ring most of our larger towns and cities.

A few brave or is it foolish souls do their own thing along the lines of those properties featured on Grand Designs and other cult programmes but to be successful you have to be a bit ruthless and have pots and pots of cash.

Most purchasers of a brand new house would probably prefer that older property but it is just so easy to buy new what with incentives and favourable purchase schemes.

In the last few months the house builders have seen a huge upsurge in demand for their products mainly down to the availability of  "Help to Buy" and an improvement in consumer confidence about taking on what is still a major financial commitment.

The larger national builders have responded to the demand by resuming development of sites that had lain half built and dormant since the credit crisis.

The houses actually seem to be getting smaller and more compact and today I came across a throwback house type from the grainy sepia tint period of the late 19th and early 2oth centuries. On a site in a popular commuter town they are building a back to back terraced house type.

I was initially confused by the concept during an walk around the interior and somewhat shocked by the absence of any windows on what would, in a conventional house be the rear outlook. I had to go back outside and take stock.

The house was one of 8 in a long block and yes, there were eight front doors, four on each aspect. It would be easy to be fooled on that first impressionable viewing thinking that you were buying a normal property with its own front and back doors.

Whatever is next in the mindset of the house builders?

The return of the slum? wattle and daub? A wooden stockade around an earth mound or even the return of the cave dwelling?