Back gardens housing new homes

Permalink: Back gardens housing new homes
by Kay Murchie

Figures released by the Green Party’s Darren Johnson, who chairs the London Assembly’s environment committee, has established that over 1000 new homes are being built in London’s back gardens each year.

The back gardens are classed as previously developed and are therefore counted as brownfield sites and so can be constructed on.

However, it is feared that the shortage of grass and soil could make London vulnerable to flooding because rainwater is stopped from absorbing into the ground which can cause subsidence and, therefore, affect an entire street’s property prices.

Furthermore, parking spaces in London are at a premium, approximately 12 square miles of front gardens are now concrete allowing room for a car.

This will put immense pressure on London’s insufficient Victorian sewerage and drainage system resulting in more localised flooding and flash floods sending raw sewage into the Thames.

Mr Johnson said the figures are a shock, everyone knows there is a need for new housing in London but building in back gardens is not the answer. Records have only been kept since 2004/05 but since then the go-ahead has been given for 3,525 units to be built on back gardens.

Mr Johnson added that back gardens must be protected by re-designating them as Greenfield, this will allow councils to reject applications in back gardens, remove the temptation from homeowners to sell their back gardens and push developers to make use of brownfield land like abandoned former industrial sites and warehouses.