Although the UK doesn't have much in the way of trailer parks, it has other things that are often just as bad, but without all that lovely floor space.
Living in Hackney in east London, my daily walk takes me along Regent's Canal. At any time of the year you'll see overlapping rows of narrowboats moored up beside the canal, at any place they can. The area around Broadway Market is especially popular. Narrowboats often have this romantic image as a place to live, but they are effectively floating mobile homes. While some of them probably have more floor space than the average one-bed flat, most don't, and a lot of them are really unlikely to be fun places to live. Especially the ones that are just converted lifeboats.
Having known people who've lived in one, they are a tempting prospect for the cash-strapped, especially the young. Rent is in the three digits per month usually, which for somewhere that could be parked in zone 1 is exceptional. Of course, there are many hidden costs. You need wood for the stove, especially in winter. Gas for the cooker, diesel for the engine, change for the laundrette, bottled water for, well, lots of things. A gym membership is also a must unless you would like your friends to sit further away from you in the pub.
Plus the there are all of the other aspects that make that lifestyle hard. Unlike land houses, canal boats depreciate in value over time. Your house is literally rotting (and rusting) away. If you forget to get water, tough! No tea for you in the morning. Engine broken? Basically the worst thing to ever happen, and inevitably it will on a rainy late-November night when it's 2 degrees out, and you're trying to find a place to park your house, as you must every two weeks (narrowboats that stay in the same place for a long time are fined).
This is all mostly ok if you're in one of the nice boats and it's your 24th birthday in two weeks, but otherwise it can be even harder. There are a lot of boats like this in London, as you would imagine given the price of housing, and councils have been trying to reduce the numbers for ages.
This is before we get on to Shipping Container housing, and the dystopian nightmare that is!
Although the UK doesn't have much in the way of trailer parks, it has other things that are often just as bad, but without all that lovely floor space.
Living in Hackney in east London, my daily walk takes me along Regent's Canal. At any time of the year you'll see overlapping rows of narrowboats moored up beside the canal, at any place they can. The area around Broadway Market is especially popular. Narrowboats often have this romantic image as a place to live, but they are effectively floating mobile homes. While some of them probably have more floor space than the average one-bed flat, most don't, and a lot of them are really unlikely to be fun places to live. Especially the ones that are just converted lifeboats.
Having known people who've lived in one, they are a tempting prospect for the cash-strapped, especially the young. Rent is in the three digits per month usually, which for somewhere that could be parked in zone 1 is exceptional. Of course, there are many hidden costs. You need wood for the stove, especially in winter. Gas for the cooker, diesel for the engine, change for the laundrette, bottled water for, well, lots of things. A gym membership is also a must unless you would like your friends to sit further away from you in the pub.
Plus the there are all of the other aspects that make that lifestyle hard. Unlike land houses, canal boats depreciate in value over time. Your house is literally rotting (and rusting) away. If you forget to get water, tough! No tea for you in the morning. Engine broken? Basically the worst thing to ever happen, and inevitably it will on a rainy late-November night when it's 2 degrees out, and you're trying to find a place to park your house, as you must every two weeks (narrowboats that stay in the same place for a long time are fined).
This is all mostly ok if you're in one of the nice boats and it's your 24th birthday in two weeks, but otherwise it can be even harder. There are a lot of boats like this in London, as you would imagine given the price of housing, and councils have been trying to reduce the numbers for ages.
This is before we get on to Shipping Container housing, and the dystopian nightmare that is!
They should, but they won't.