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SAVE OUR BACK GARDENS FROM PROPERTY DEVELOPERS

By Cllr Clarence Barrett

The recent trend for property developers to focus on back gardens and green corridors for development is a real concern to all of us. This practice owes much to the last conservative Government who first classified back gardens as 'brownfield' land and then to Labour who put the definition into planning rules.

Developers realise the profitability of building on ‘back gardens’ rather than, say, a disused chemical works as the infrastructure of roads and services are already in place and by building small plots it avoids much of the criteria to include affordable homes.

Whilst our back gardens are given the same status as an old industrial estate, so it leaves local planning authorities with little room for refusal in respect of proposals from property developers.

At the current rate of development, it is estimated that green space the equivalent of 2,755 Wembley pitches will be wiped out by 2016.

In order to protect our back gardens and green corridors from this erosion, the government should change existing planning policy and reclassify our back gardens as Green Belt land.

If you would like to register your support for reclassifying our back gardens and green corridors as Green Belt land, then click on the following link to sign our petition -

http://www.gopetition.com/online/13041.html

 

18.12.07