Planning and mental health implications of modular homes

An interdisciplinary study of modular homes and the vulnerable people that live in them, funded with the assistance of a Practitioner Research Fund grant from the RTPI. These homes frequently do not meet the UK’s ‘Nationally Described Space Standard’ (2015), or the Republic of Ireland’s ‘Design Standards for New Apartments’ (2018), in which the minimum is 37 square metres of floor space per dwelling, the smallest permissible studio apartment for a single person.

Some modules are built from timber frames or insulated panels, while others are converted from shipping containers. External dimensions are constrained by the need to move these units by road and deploy each module by crane. Local authorities and charities have implemented housing schemes based on these prefabricated structures, intended to tackle homelessness more quickly and at a lower cost than conventional construction.

While people living in caravans have been the subject of planning case law for many decades, ‘tiny’ or modular homes have been presented as a new housing solution despite being functionally similar to caravans lived in by gypsies and travellers, or tourist caravans used year-round by permanent residents.

Any discrepancy between attitudes to ‘tiny homes’ and caravans creates uncertainty for planning and housing officers regarding accommodation for some of the most disadvantaged people in society. While anyone can become homeless, this risk is greatly increased for marginalised groups, and so spatial standards for accommodation can be considered an equalities issue.

Densification is increasingly seen as a way to address the persistent housing shortage in metropolitan areas while promoting sustainable forms of development that prevent urban sprawl. Suburban areas have largely been neglected in debates about this, yet in many respects are ripe for densification provided advocates find ways and means of fitting new development into small, constrained sites in existing neighbourhoods.

Established suburbs in England often have active civic societies comprising of local community members. Many of these voluntary societies take an interest in urban planning, mobilising local knowledge about their neighbourhood and built environment to comment and advise local authority planners as acritical friend, so are well placed to advise on how suburban densification can fit into their neighbourhood. But it is presently unclear how civic societies view this densification; is this something they support or oppose? What aspects are acceptable and which are not?

Drawing on 16 interviews with civic societies in suburban neighbourhoods and towns from across England conducted during 2025, we find a highly variegated appetite for suburban densification which is largely dependent on the relative qualities of what is proposed and its location. Crucially, civic societies seek to improve their neighbourhoods by enhancing the quality of development rather than oppose all development outright. However, government pressure to increase house building can lead to civic societies finding themselves at odds with planners and being unfairly labelled as NIMBYs, thereby fuelling fears of alienation amongst community groups in local decision making.

With the Government’s target of 1.5 million new houses over the current Parliament and the
policy of ‘grey belt’, there are wide-ranging and profound questions being asked and discussed
about the future of the Green Belt as it comes under unprecedented development pressure.
However, with the revival of strategic planning there are distinctive opportunities to rethink the
purpose and function of the policy, especially surrounding having a 'multi-functional' purpose.

With the publication of a Monograph recently on the Green Belt (Goode, 2025), this paper aims to, firstly, to examine past attempts at Green Belt reform through the lens of historical institutionalism. It then uses this to explore the possible trajectories and ramifications of the Government’s ‘grey belt’ reforms at a time of unprecedented development pressure on Green Belt. Secondly, it conceptualises alternative futures for the policy including the possibility of a more environmentally based policy whilst strategically being reviewed to meet housing need.