My Garden

Loss of front gardens

Last post 17-03-2006 9:17 AM by stevew. 4 replies.

• 21/02/2006 09:56 PM
  stevew Location: Joined on: 16 Feb 2006 Posts: 408	Reply | Contact Wondered what people think about the constant reports in gardening media about the effects of diminishing front gardens as in being replaced by paved or tarmac areas for off street parking, and also the effects of water run off

• 22/02/2006 10:18 AM

  In reply to

  sue1002 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Joined on: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 5,200

  Reply | Contact Yes, a lot of people seem to be doing away with their front gardens, it nearly happened to us a couple of years ago. My car is usually parked on the drive and the OH used to park his on the street outside, and after a spate of vandalism in this area, he had his front and rear screens smashed in, we looked into removing the fence, putting in another driveway, but when we found out the council wanted £520 just to extend the dropped kerb we were not prepared to pay it. So now my car gets parked on the grass when he is home and I got to keep the front garden. sue1002

• 22/02/2006 10:32 AM

  In reply to

  miranda Location: Oxfordshire Joined on: 17 Nov 2004 Posts: 2,977

  Reply | Contact I've seen some very sad excuses for front gardens, where people have made 'low maintenance' gardens which are little more than a stretch of gravel with a Cordyline (or some like thing) plonked in the middle. When we first moved here, it was suggested by a couple of people that we make more car parking space by using existing garden. That part of the garden wasn't much cultivated at the time, so I suppose they thought it would make sense. We didn't, and have kept the garden intact. I'm very glad of that because the plants that we've put in attract a lot of birds and the area is also used by frogs. I think that even tiny spaces, like front gardens, can be both beautiful to us and extremely useful for wildlife. I have only to look down on one small area of our front garden to see how much time the birds spend in it. If we paved it over, all that would be lost, which would be a great shame. I'm not a religious person, but do feel that paving over areas that can be beautiful and support so much life is both irresponsible and sinful. This is especially so when many gardens are so small to start with.

• 22/02/2006 01:52 PM

  In reply to

  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743

  Reply | Contact I agree 100% it is sinful to remove front gardens a couple of years ago the local council offered to drop the kerb at the front of my house free of charge so i could create off road parking, needless to say i told them where to stick their offer! . Sadly in this area 14 people agreed to the councils bribery and have converted their gardens to driveways, and of course a couple of folk have the gravel and obligatory cordyline stuck in the middle like a pea in a drum. The road at the front of my house is a single lane and the council say they want to improve safety by creating off road parking, my argument is if cars are parked in the lane then people will have to slow down to a safe speed to pass them! It will be a cold day in hell before my garden is made into a driveway.Never!!!. people sholud drive with more consideration and park sensibly within the rules of law, i dislike pushy motorists who speed up behind to try and intimidate you to go faster, it just makes me slow down more and if they wish to pass it's up to them but we have so many horse riders on the lanes around here if only people would slow down, any way back to the thread, i think it is environmentally detrimental to replace front gardens with driveways it is short sighted of the people who do it and of the local authorities do the drains ever get their capacity increased to compensate for the blatantly obvious increase in surface water? i bet they don't! so all the people who convert their gardens should fork out more money to the water company to pay for all the damage this excess water does and it also deprives the flora and fauna around about from it's vitally needed water, yes very short sighted to cover land in concrete and tarmac and selfish and ill mannered. digger

• 17/03/2006 09:17 AM	In reply to
  stevew Location: Joined on: 16 Feb 2006 Posts: 408	Reply | Contact I was reading in last weeks garden news where loss of back gardens to patios, summer houses, decking, etc is having an effect on sparrows....when the young hatch the parents are having difficulty in finding large quantities of insects to feed them and a number are starving