Ministers unveil an end to 'rabbit hutch' homes Figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors show the average British home has shrunk in size by 40 per cent in 80 years. In 1920, the average new large family home boasted five bedrooms and occupied 3,440 square feet. The equivalent nowadays has just four bedrooms and 2,409sq ft, while the ceiling height has dropped from 11ft to 8ft 8in. A typical semi-detached house has gone from 1,647sq ft to 925sq ft, losing one of its four bedrooms. Terraced houses have shrunk from three bedrooms and 1,020sq ft to two bedrooms and 645sq ft. Other standards that will be scrapped include requirements for new developments to collect rainwater harvesting in places that do not suffer from water shortages. Solar panels and windmills will no longer be required on roofs where they do not fit, while multiple phone lines will no longer be automatically in home offices. Don Foster, Communities minister, said: "I'm proposing to cut needless red tape to let housebuilders get on with the real job of building the high quality new homes that people need, especially families and first time buyers. The current mish-mash of housing standards means that from Allerdale in Cumbria to Zoar in Cornwall no same set of rules always applies - it's confusing, bureaucratic and will not be allowed to continue. No changes are being made to building regulations, which deal with safety and energy efficiency, officials stressed. The Coalition's changes to planning rules to make it easier to build houses have been heavily criticised by countryside campaigners. The Daily Telegraph also led a campaign against the proposals. Labour has now said that if it wins power it will bring in changes to the new planning rulebook called the National Planning Policy Framework. However Grant Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, insisted that the planning reforms would damage the party's chances at the 2015 general election. Asked if the reforms would cost the Tories vote, he told the Policy Exchange thinktank: "No I don't think it is going to be. I think the next election primarily will be won and lost on simple factors on whether it will be Ed Miliband or David Cameron walking up Downing Street, those are the only likely conceivable two outcomes. People will have a whole bunch of different factors on where they place their cross but I think on all the significant factors - welfare, the economy, and controlling immigration in a fair, proper way - in all these areas we are streets ahead of on he right side of the arguments that really matter. Mr Shapps also admitted that the Government had to be honest that "we can't solve the nations housing crisis pretending we can just recycle land." He said: "There comes a point when we do have to look at some further choices, whether that is done in a more localist way which are the changes we have brought by scrapping the regional plans."