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Lambeth Liberal DemocratsNews, views and contact information for the
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Garden Grabbers Outlawed
June 14, 2010 4:17 PM
A number of Lambeth residents will be delighted to learn that the new Coalition Government has announced a curb on property developers and the practice known as garden grabbing.
One of the least popular outcomes of the previous Labour Government's wholesale relaxation of planning legislation, the designation of ordinary homes with gardens as previously developed land and therefore in the same so-called 'brownfield' category that was originally meant to restore derelict industrial plots, meant that developers were able to exploit this loophole to build high-density blocks of flats on plots with modest homes that featured large gardens.
Many critics felt that the resultant alien forms of high-density dwellings had destroyed the character of many streets outside of conservation areas as canny developers cherry-picked prime residential sites. In some areas this had a disastrous domino effect, as developers were able to buy-up blighted neighbouring properties to assemble even larger plots.
Developers were quickly attracted to garden grabbing rather than regenerating redundant old industrial sites because the land was often cheaper and they did not have extra costs of renovating Victorian factory structures or clearing contaminated sub-soils.
In a densely populated inner London area like Lambeth, green space is at a premium - and large swathes of North Lambeth actually have a deficit of green space even by the Council's own definition - so private gardens give some welcome relief to the built environment, provide small green pockets where a hugely diverse variety of flora and fauna flourish, counter and improve high pollution levels, and provide natural run-off areas for surface water.
If nothing else, the changes will allow a welcome respite in the current rush to build on almost any plot however unsuitable it may be and where proper facilities for rapid localised increases of population do not accompany such speculative development.
With greater powers now being given to local authorities to decide on local need and circumstances comes the hope that the natural environment also now figures in the housing equation.
If Labour Lambeth can also manage to let the disgraceful number of empty properties it has allowed to moulder or become squatted over the past four years to those on its shockingly high housing waiting list then, maybe, some of the pressure will be relieved to build ever higher density and largely unplanned homes in some of our leafier enclaves.