#641: Losing front gardens

This Conversation article revisits a theme which has been the focus for some fieldwork in the past in Ely. I've blogged about that separately.

People have tended to pave over front gardens and drop the kerb to create off-road parking... which then restricts the available on-road parking, which encourages more people to do the same.

Many modern housing developments prioritise off road parking.

This is increasing urban temperatures as the surfaces absorb and retain more heat, and the lack of vegetation reduces biodiversity.

I have a front garden laid to lawn with some pots by the front door. This makes it low maintenance but retains some elements of green space and a permeable surface for rainfall.

The article references an RHS report from 2025 on the loss of gardening spaces and the inequality of access.

This report found:

• The average domestic garden is 244 square metres – that’s nine tenths of a tennis court.
• 19 million trees can be found in Great Britain’s domestic gardens and 50.5 million across all cultivated green space - six times more than London’s entire urban forest.
• Just 0.15% of domestic garden is artificial lawn but this still accounts for 7.5million square metres while artificial grass across all cultivated green space stands at 18million square metres - more than six times the size of the City of London
• More than a third (35%) of domestic gardens comprises lawn, with 25.8% under trees and 11% as flower beds.
• 42% of domestic garden space is paved over (55% of front garden space and 36% of back garden space), reducing gardens potential to cool, capture pollution, support biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, and restricting rainwater absorption by the soil and exacerbating flooding.

To maximise the benefits of cultivated green space and protect them for the future the RHS is urging:

• Policymakers to guarantee “Space to Grow” in all housing and urban planning, so every household has access to a garden
• Homeowners to consider robust planting and permeable paving for front garden driveways to help mitigate flood risk and promote the cooling potential of gardens as well as support biodiversity
• Local councils to ensure diversity in tree planting, prioritising those species that will respond best to climate change
• Developers to design gardens with water channelling, capture and storage facilities to help future proof them

Gardening is certainly a popular activity, both to do but also to go to see. There were massive queues in the local area where I live due to the RHS Sandringham Show: an expansion on the previous Sandringham Flower Show.