It has been announced this week within a new Tory policy that back gardens are no longer going to be classified as Brown Field land. The immediate impact of this is that it will be much harder for developers to demolish family homes in large gardens and replace them with blocks of flats or high density housing developments. In my opinion this is a policy that should be congratulated. Garden grabbing should be stopped, thus enabling existing homes to enjoy the space within which they were built, instead of the land being given over to homes that huddle together in little hutches in former back gardens or on the sites of old gas works. Conservation of greenbelt/agricultural land should always be retained in its existing use wherever possible, but one must also remember that much of our wild life enjoys back gardens, many of which have been decimated over recent years. This move by the Government is a positive step to improve the environment in which we live as we don't all want to live in homes at high densities. I am quite sure that it is the preference of all of us to live in a property with some garden/ privacy and in order to do this, the Government now needs to look at loosening some of the restrictions on building in the countryside. This of course will take time to implement and will also need to be done carefully through the local planning system but this has to be the way forward in order to stop this overcrowding of town centres and the loss of many large old houses in substantial gardens which are not Listed.
