Saving local gardens

An issue I predict will become massive in the coming years is the loss of green space in urban environments like Putney's. In the past 20 years, two thirds of front gardens in London have been paved-over. Just think about that stark statistic for a moment.

Throughout the constituency, concern has been growing about the loss of front and rear gardens due to three factors:

• Turning front gardens into hard standings to park cars on
• Excavating basements, which also involves the loss of a large chunk of front and/or rear gardens
• The more recent phenomenon of residents with large gardens selling off chunks to build new homes on

Pressure from all three of these factors is certain to grow as the credit crunch reduces the likelihood of people to be able to move home, and financial pressures encourage us all to look at new ways of utilising our assets to make more money.

This isn't exactly a new issue: residents on the Dover House Estate in particular have been concerned about the loss of front gardens for several years now and basement excavations have been increasingly common throughout the past decade.

You may have seen London Mayor Boris Johnson recently discover the wonder of roof-top gardens, as if they're something he's invented. They're important; and they'll become more so, but they're no compensation for that two-thirds loss of front garden green space.

But what does this really matter? There's actually a really serious consequence to this loss of garden space - and not just some aesthetic impact that cutting down a few trees and bushes and concreting over some lawns will have.

Over the past three or four years, parts of the constituency - including Roehampton, the parts of Southfields alongside the Wandle and parts of central Putney - have all been affected by flash flooding caused by sudden very heavy downpours that the drain system locally can't cope with. Gardens help drain this water away. Without them, the impact of flash flooding worsens - and bear in mind that ours is an area liable to flooding from the Thames, Wandle and even Beverley Brook. And because ours is a hilly area, those who live at the foot of hills have to absorb the cascading water pouring down upon them as well as their own share of heavy rainfall.

People have a right to expand their living space within reason. But I am against allowing front gardens to be turned into car parks and back or side gardens to be sold off to cram another unit of housing into our already densely populated community, however much a nice little earner that may be for the landowner.