Peacetime standards make tiny carriers impractical

Why could the Royal Navy build small wartime escort carriers but not a viable sub-10,000-ton peacetime carrier?

Wartime escort carriers accepted merchant-hull standards and emergency compromises that a peacetime warship was expected to avoid.

British trade-protection carrier studies struggled to produce a viable ship below 10,000 tons under military construction standards. Wartime escort carriers accepted merchant-type hulls with a flight deck added. Urgency made rapid construction worth compromises that a normal peacetime program would reject. The apparent change in feasibility therefore depended on different construction requirements as well as the need to get ships into service quickly.