Bill postponement will lead to more garden devastation

Garden Organic, the organisation behind the Save Our Gardens campaign, has warned that over 200 acres of garden space will be wiped out in the time that it takes the much-awaited Land Use Bill to be returned to the House of Commons for its postponed second reading in October.

The bill was due to be read in mid-June but was postponed after the Parliamentary session was timed out due to discussions on other agenda items over-running. The Land Use Bill calls for the removal of gardens from the definition of Brownfield land, a legal loophole that property developers across the country are exploiting at an alarming rate via a process called ‘garden grabbing’.

Garden grabbing is a practice where property developers snap up large detached houses with large gardens, knock them down and then squeeze a small estate of new homes onto the same plot. The practice is reaching epidemic proportions in suburbs across the country, eroding Britain’s green spaces and creating housing density in urban areas.

“The postponement of the bill is of great disappointment to everyone involved in the Save Our Gardens campaign, as well as residents up and down the country who are currently fighting the greed of property developers in their neighbourhoods,” said Dr Susan Kay–Williams, chief executive of Garden Organic – the UK’s leading organic growing charity behind and the driving force behind the Save Our Gardens campaign.

“The figures go to show just how fast gardens are being swallowed up by property developers hell bent on making a fast buck. In recent weeks we have seen flash flooding right across the country, mainly in urban areas. It’s no secret that gardens play an important part in helping to soak up rain water but if we continue to cover gardens with concrete and tarmac, then rain water simply has nowhere to go.”

The Land Use Bill returns to the house for its postponed second reading on 19 October. Ahead of this date, Garden Organic is encouraging the public to write to Housing Minister Yvette Cooper to call for an end to gardens being defined as brownfield and to close the legal loophole which allows garden grabbing to happen. A downloadable letter template is available from saveourgardens.org.uk.

Earlier this year, Garden Organic predicted that green space equivalent to 2,755 Wembley football pitches would be wiped out by 2016 if garden grabbing is allowed to continue. It also discovered that almost a quarter of new homes built in the UK are erected on land that was formally a garden and that the average plot size is shrinking by almost three per cent per year.

The organisation has recently set-up an online gallery for residents and communities across the country to share their experience of garden grabbing and how it affects the communities in which they live. Images and experiences can be shared and viewed by visiting saveourgardens.org.uk. Visitors to the site will also be able to sign the Save Our Gardens petition which, to date, has over 4500 signatures.