Brooklyn Becks, garden annexes and fast housing
POLITICIANS, academics, top medical professionals, NGO leaders, novelists, the Pope, David Attenborough, a clatter of important scientists, Dermot Bannon, the Dalai Lama. Each, or all, can bang on endlessly on TV — about their new ideas, issues of the moment and solutions for the maladies threatening humanity — and until the bovines veer homewards. But in the age of social media, only the pensioners might sit up and take notice.
Because if you truly want to get a message out there, I mean really out there, you’ll have to get familiar with Instagram influencer ventriloquism.
Instead of Orville the Duck or Nookie Bear as the conduit, you’ll want to get yourself a Kardashian to talk through. Or a boy-bandy six-packed lifestyler (no band necessary), or a model who peddles makeup tips, or a code spouting haircut who ‘unboxes’ on cam. Or a McGregor who boxes. You’ll need a social media influencer, whether intentionally commercial or accidental. Why? Because they really are massively influential.
Consider the global influence footprint of one Brooklyn Beckham, 19-year-old son of Bend-It and Posh. Having won the birth lotto (we agree the Beckhams are nice as well as rich) Brooky is best known for looking handsome, baker boy hats, early Depp-era squinty pouts, commencing and quitting a world famous photography course, looking handsome again, and having a model girlfriend.
Brooky utterances on Instagram include stuff like: (from Italy) “No place like Italy innit.” And at just 19, it’s wholly reasonable not to expect seminal works from the lad just yet. But get this — last year Brooky Becks took his Instagram account off public view after it hit 11.5m followers. To put that in perspective, the reach of Becksian Instagram blurtings stands at five times the daily circulation of the New York Times. Or 20 times the Washington Post’s.
So if you want to bring down a US administration today, forget about Woodward and Bernstein (or Putin); you’d hit harder and wider dropping that explosive leak through a Brooky or a Kimmy.
Last week we heard that Brooky B got himself a garden annexe in the grounds of his parents’ £31m mansion in Oxfordshire. It’s from Homelodge whose customers include the British royals. These cabins have a distinct whiff of Edwardian cricket pavilion and they cost about £75k. The notion round at the Becks is that junior gets to exercise some independence from the family unit.
So today the planet is talking about garden annexes thanks to Brooky B’s: “And you can put your granny in one.” “And you can come home any time for clothes and food,” “And it’s totally like moving out, but like, totally not moving out.” And so on.
And I have an argument to make about garden annexes and the potential they offer for helping to solve a housing crisis.
To maximise online impact I’m unashamedly piggybacking on the Brooky B garden annexe online wave. By mentioning Brooklyn Beckham lots (keywords), I’m also trying to get it under more noses online. Do you see what I’m doing there? Brooklyn Beckham. Brooklyn Beckham. And did I mention Kardashians and a McGregor? This column runs both in print and online. Brooklyn. Beckham.
For the confused (who now find themselves unexpectedly clickbaited into semi-current affairs stuff), you have permission to leave now. Otherwise, consider that high quality factory made garden annexes like the Beckhams’ are an instant no-brainer part-solution to our urban housing problem. They can bring down the cost and increase the availability of reasonable housing at pace.
Kit cabins have long been a part of suburban Irish life. I have an office cabin at the end of my garden for when I get fired. What’s remarkable is that, despite heavy usage, it’s still looking pristine and in excellent condition at 10 years old, better than some apartments the same age. The build standard is well up to housing quality and, best of all, it cost six grand.
Recently a Dublin council pooh poohed local representative suggestions that cabins or prefab homes could be installed in the back gardens of semi-detached homes for full time housing purposes. Why? Because they are already in widespread use in cities, despite the planning rules.
Not only providing families with teenage Becksy buffer zones, offices, home gyms and so forth, but on the grounds they are already deployed as under the radar granny flats, homes for adult children (some with children themselves) and occasionally for cash earning rentals.
The technology of prefab annexe building has improved to the degree that there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be permitted as full time homes for singles and couples, when insulated properly.
All over our cities, we have high concentrations of semi-detached homes in estates. Most have perfect sized gardens to accommodate such a one bedroom pod pad, with kitchenette, shower and living space, all of which can be assembled in a day. Potential host homes also have side passage access.
If a garden unit’s income were treated in accordance with the Rent a Room scheme, families which are currently reluctant to share the immediate home with strangers would embrace the Becksian pod pad concept.
The presence of thousands of self-contained units in back gardens would free students from rack renting on-campus schemes, make for cheaper rents for couples and singles and provide new income streams to boot for ordinary citizens with a back garden space going spare.
We read this week that one of the new funds purposely assembled to cash in on the rental crisis has made €120m profit in the last year on its units. Why shouldn’t ordinary home owners earn too?
Minor alterations to planning, a set minimum standard and a tweak in existing tax rules would be all required. There are tens of thousands of spaces available and as many families likely willing to take out a credit union loan to raise €30k/€40k to build one. It would pay for itself in four years. Thousands housed without the taxpayer spending a penny and money for the squeezed middle into the bargain?
If the garden cabin is good enough for Brooky and the Becks, why can’t we take a shot at it for the housing crisis? And bend it like the Beckhams? Innit.
Brooky Becks decided to take his Instagram off public access when it hit 11.5m followers