YOUR BACK GARDEN ISN’T

GREEN ANYMORE!

How many people realise that their own little corner of England, the back-garden, is actually classified as a brownfield site?

And how many home owners are now using this classification to support their plans to sell off parts of their gardens to developers who promptly put in extra homes and flats on these green urban lungs?  The problem has been highlighted by Conservative MP Greg Clark who has introduced a Private Member’s Bill to remove gardens from the definition of brownfield sites.  More people are looking out of their kitchen windows and seeing pound signs sprouting among the lupins and dahlias.   In some cases the neighbours object; in others they join forces and sell off larger chunks which were originally part of adjacent properties.

Nature is the loser in all this.  Birds disappear, trees and shrubs ripped out and the effect causes lasting damage which, in the long term, makes urban living even more stressful for all of us.  

But the Government have set a target of 200,000 new homes a year to try and reverse the chronic housing shortage  - yet only 160,000 were completed last year.  So the spiral of house prices is fuelled and first-time buyers find it even more difficult to get on the first rung of the property ladder. This is just another threat to the environment.  As Gordon Brown takes office takes over and promotes his intentions for overhauling the planning system, so the creeping threat which has long been feared in villages and towns across the country has now taken root in our back gardens.

Yes, we need more homes – but not at such a high environmental cost.  The older Victorian and Edwardian homes that provide character to many towns in England are also blessed with larger than usual back gardens.  Should they be sacrificed as well by a crazy quirk in the planning system?