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* * * News for 22nd April 2006 * * *

All of Medway: 22nd April 2006

Bulldozer Gardens and Other Green Spaces Are To Go

Deputy Prime Minister changing rules to threaten green spaces including back gardens

New planning rules are being recommended that will double housing density (again!), make it easier for development of back gardens (including compelling the selling-off of long enough gardens for development), and building on Green Belt land ignoring any local opposition.

All this and more has come out of an expensive study by planners and academics: it is costing nearly £2 million of tax money from 2004 to 2008, and seeks to worsen an already bad situation. John Prescott's bulldozers will soon have even more destruction to wreak if these recommendations go ahead, which seems likely.

Back gardens are nowadays already classified in government planning rules as developed land, rather than green sites, which enables statistics to be fiddled to make it look as though development has been mainly on brownfield sites. In reality, it is now believed that no less than two-thirds of all brownfield housing development is on gardens.

Work already completed shows this clearly in case studies of particular areas, so this is not mere theory: specific green spaces are being targeted for development right now.

Just as we thought it couldn't get any worse...