January 25 2010

England’s planning minister John Healy has issued updated guidance to local councils in an effort to protect back gardens from housing development.

Referred to as “garden grabbing” the practice sees developers snap up large detached houses in order to knock them down and develop multiple new homes on the same site.

The practice is made possible via a loophole in the law which classifies garden land as “brownfield”.

Matt Thomson of the Royal Town Planning Institute said: “Councils already have powers that they can use to stop development in back gardens through their local plans.

“Of course, some local authorities might prefer for development to take place on existing gardens rather than green-field land and that decision is rightly for the local council to take."

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