The practice of squeezing new homes onto the gardens of bigger houses became increasingly common over the last decade, as developers bought large properties, confident in the knowledge that they could reap a huge profit by securing planning permission to build on the garden.

Local authorities could only see more council tax receipts from more residents filling the coffers, and said their hands were tied. Central government was busy setting targets and insisting that more new homes needed to be built. No distinction was made between gardens and old industrial estates. Councils could, and generally did, ignore perfectly reasonable objections from existing residents and failed to take account of the additional pressure these new homes, and their occupants, put on space, roads, transport, health provision, social service and education services.

Nearly a quarter of all new homes built in the last twelve years have been crammed into residential plots. And, whether John Prescott likes it or not, this has provoked widespread anger and dismay, and not just in middle-class suburbs. Turning low-density suburbs into high-density concrete jungles was not a very clever method of winning votes when residents felt that green and pleasant suburbs no longer had any green space, and have become too cramped to be pleasant.

Towns and cities, especially in the south-east, have become even more crowded, and garden developments have removed what little green space remains. There are limits to how much a city or region can grow, and it is clear that London and the south-east has reached this limit. At least the new laws mean that councils and protesters will have stronger powers to block new developments.

The debate should not just be about unsuitable sites for property development. A study last year from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) revealed what many people knew to be true. New-build properties do not provide enough space for everyday living.

The UK builds the smallest homes in the developed world. In Holland the average size of a new build dwelling is 115 sq m and in Japan it is 92.5 sq m, while in the UK it is just 76 sq m.

Labour in government continually ignored these basic problems and was outflanked by, of all people, London Mayor Boris Johnson. In 2009 Johnson deplored the fact that ‘new buildings in London have some of the smallest rooms in Europe’ and talked about ‘homes for hobbits’. For new social housing to be provided in London, Johnson promised to re-establish the space standards first promoted by the visionary planner Sir Parker Morris.

Parker Morris Standards, adopted for social housing in the 1960s became mandatory for council housing in 1969, and remained in force until 1980. It’s worth remembering, as with so many decisions that have made life just that bit more unpleasant over the years, that it was the Thatcher government that got rid of these rules.

Since Parker Morris standards were dropped, it is hardly surprising that older houses and flats continue to be more desirable than new build properties. There was room to swing a cat. Since the mad rush for home ownership began in the 1980s, houses and flats have got ever smaller, and now there is barely room to swing a hamster.

In 1961 the Parker Morris Standards recommended to government that a one-bed flat should be at least 490 sq ft, a two-bed flat 623 sq ft and a three-bed unit 792 sq ft. Today, almost 50 years later, builders are putting up one-bed flats as small as 300 sq ft; two-bed units of 445 sq ft and three-bed ones at 657 sq ft. These are the very smallest examples uncovered by London Residential Research, which says the average one-bed flat has shrunk by 13 per cent since 2000.

As well as new housing being built in the wrong place, and which are too small, there is a third problem. The quality of new homes built over the last two decades has got steadily worse. Penny Anderson – aka Rentergirl – has much to say about gossamer-thin dividing walls, poor quality brickwork, leaks and worse.

This is not a matter of marginal interest. Housing availability and quality affects millions of people; those in social housing and with housing associations, and also those in the private rental sector. It affects voters in most major cities, especially in the south-east (and in an awful lot of marginal constituencies) who have seen their communities rapidly change and the local landscape be transformed.

Labour’s housing policy in government was a colossal failure. The housing that was built over the last decade (and for years before) was not socially sustainable, fit for purpose or even relevant to demand.

The glut of ‘luxury executive’ apartments across the country, often empty, and rarely owned by the poor occupier, because they were built by speculators for landlords, will inevitably become tomorrow’s social housing of the last resort. If they can sell them at all, of course – thousands of developers’ surplus new build homes in England have been rejected by housing associations because they were not built to a high enough standard.

Labour has a lot to do to regain the high ground on housing policy. It can start to rebuild (sic) trust by supporting quality over quantity in housing and recognising that we all need a bit of space to think or dream in.

UPDATE: Readers may be interested to see Grant Shapps’s recent speech on the housing market