The Government is to give immediate powers to local councils to stop the building of new homes in back gardens, a practice known as “garden grabbing”.
Between 1997 and 2008 the number of houses built on gardens rose from one in 10 to a quarter of new properties, it is a problem which is acute in many areas including Leeds and Wakefield and now Greg Clark, the Decentralisation Minister, has announced that he wants the trend to stop.
He said that he would change the designation of gardens from brownfield land to make it easier for local authorities to stop unwanted development but that the move would not affect people who wanted to build an extension on their homes.
Mr Clark said: “It is ridiculous that gardens have until now been classified in the same group as derelict factories and disused railway sidings, forcing councils and communities to sit by and watch their neighbourhoods get swallowed up in a concrete jungle. This is just the start of wholesale reform I want to make to the planning system, so councils and communities are centre-stage in a reformed system that works for them, and is not just a tool of top-down policy."
