Scarcely bigger than a parking space and starved of natural light, they could soon be a feature of your local high street.
Developers are exploiting planning laws to convert empty banks, takeaways and barbers into tiny flats, causing fears Britain’s high streets are becoming modern slum housing.
Relaxed planning laws and the impact of the coronavirus on the high street have led to a flood of applications to convert shops into homes under so-called permitted development rights (PDRs), which until recently had mainly been used for office conversions.
In Southampton’s Shirley Road, the Open Fire Centre store sold electric and gas fires. Now it is six studio flats. The smallest measures 15 square metres (160 sq ft), about half the area needed for a home