Loss of Front Gardens
The best things in life are free – and surely that includes walking along a London street and enjoying other people’s front gardens. But for how much longer? They are disappearing at an alarming rate. Garden land amounting to 22 times the size of Hyde Park has been lost to car parking. That was the estimate in 2007. The problem is that houses built before World War I (and that applies to most houses in Herne Hill) were not designed with cars in mind.
Next time you walk along a street where the wall or hedge and the plants it used to contain have been consigned to the skip and a hard standing and car put in their place, ask yourself: Does this improve the look or the “feel” of the street? It is obviously convenient to have a dedicated parking space on your doorstep – and it avoids the cost of the Controlled Parking Zone, if you have one, and prevents anyone parking in the street in front of the house (even when your car is not there) – but is there any wider benefit for Herne Hill residents?
At present there is little if anything under the planning rules to prevent the steady loss of front gardens. You cannot add a bay window to the front of your house without planning permission, but removal of a front garden and putting a car in its place is “permitted development”, i.e. no planning permission is needed. That is government policy. Planning permission would be necessary if Lambeth made “Article 4 directions”, but research by the Herne Hill Society indicates that Lambeth have not made any such directions anywhere in the borough, even in Conservation Areas. In contrast, Southwark have done so, to protect the gardens on the Casino Estate.
The Herne Hill Society have recently raised the issue of garden loss with Lambeth, highlighting in particular the long run of front gardens on one side of Fawnbrake Avenue and suggesting the use of Article 4 directions. Lambeth have responded by saying there is nothing exceptional about the street and “no interest of acknowledged importance”. As more and more gardens disappear, their importance surely will come to be acknowledged, except by then it will be too late. Since national and local government seem disinclined to intervene, the decision is down to us. As we look forward to the end of winter, which is the more cheering sight in front of a house – a flowering Forsythia or a Ford Focus?
The Herne Hill Society are interested to know your views on this issue.
