WE LIVE in an ever-changing world, with divorce rates up, youngsters returning home after being at university as they cannot afford to get on to the property ladder, and an increase in people choosing to live alone.

Last week, the Office of National Statistics announced that the proportion of children living in lone-parent families in Great Britain more than tripled between 1972 and spring 2006 to 24 per cent, and the number of people living alone has more than doubled since 1971, from three million in 1971 to seven million in 2005.

The knock-on effect this has on the housing market is a requirement for smaller, more affordable housing and goes hand in hand with the fact that two-bedroom homes are now the most common new build in England, rising from 25 per cent in 2001/2002, to 42 per cent in 2005/06, with a shift away from building houses to building apartments.

This rise in two-bedroom homes is not only in recognition of our changing society, but is also due to pressure on developers to meet Government guidelines which encourage higher density housing to maximize the use of land, particularly in city centre locations.

These guidelines have been encouraging higher density development for several years, and the construction of flats is an efficient way of using land for house building.

Kent itself has seen a significant growth in apartments, particularly in its town centre locations.

Surprisingly, this is producing an eclectic mix of owner occupiers who are choosing an apartment lifestyle.

It’s not just young bachelors, but professional couples, young families, retirees and down-sizers who are buying apartments, ensuring that there is a healthy balance of different people in our town centres, and a constant hub of activity and life within them.

So is the detached family home set to become a thing of the past? I certainly don’t think so; there is still a high demand for detached homes and developers are still building them, but it’s rare to see large schemes of just detached houses.

The majority of new developments, such as Bellway’s, Linden Fields in Tunbridge Wells, or George Wimpey’s Furfield Park in Maidstone, incorporate a mix of both apartments and family homes, so young and old, singles and families live in one development, creating a sense of community.

* Paul Hogarth is Partner and head of new homes sales and marketing in the South East for Knight Frank.