Background
The issue of garden land development has always been hotly debated not only by those living in residential areas but by the political parties. As such it comes as no surprise that the new government has moved swiftly by acting on the Department for Communities and Legal Government (DCLG) paper published earlier this year on inappropriate residential garden development - giving local authorities more power to prevent garden grabbing and overdevelopment by amending its planning policy statement.
The controversy surrounding garden land developments is perpetuated by the fact that there are clear arguments for and against houses and schemes built on such land. Advocates would say that garden land developments contribute towards meeting housing demand in areas which are already populated, and therefore reduces the need to extend development into countryside. The flipside however, is the inevitability of higher building density leading to loss of character and heavier demands on local infrastructure and services.
The DCLG report (“Garden developments: understanding the issues - an investigation into residential development on gardens in England”) published earlier this year found there is no universally agreed definition of garden land. While some local planning authorities (LPAs) have regarded garden land as “brownfield” sites (i.e. falling within the definition of previously developed land), others have not. In practice, only some LPAs have included garden land within their strategic land availability assessments and there has been no systematic mechanism for ensuring these developments contributed towards affordable housing.
Reviewing the minimal amount of information available to it (in the absence of effective monitoring regarding the extent of garden developments), the DCLG report suggested that the issue of garden grabbing was most keenly felt in the south east and major urban areas - where garden developments made the greatest contribution to housing stock, and some significant rural areas.
The report also stated that there is little evidence that the existing Planning Policy Statement 3 (which is the relevant policy statement which underpins the government strategic housing policies and goals, and known as “PPS3”) has had positive effects in enabling LPAs to resist garden development. By treating garden sites as brownfield land, this has in recent years allowed developers to argue a presumption in favour of development (and thereby the grant of planning permission).
Changes to PPS3
The government has made two main changes to PPS3:-
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Private residential gardens are now excluded from the definition of brownfield land. The government has also made it clear that there is no presumption that brownfield land is necessarily suitable for housing development; and
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The minimum requirement of 30 dwellings per hectare has now been deleted so that when an LPA now sets their range of housing densities across their area, they are given more flexibility and more scope to allow for larger family homes.
Conclusion
Back garden developments are naturally favourites with developers since they do not present the same physical issues for the development that “traditional” brownfield sites such as old industrial and contaminated sites would do. To date, there has been a mixed response to the change by the government. On the one hand, environmentalists have welcomed the move (whilst at the same time remaining concerned about the potential impact of the green belt) and on the other hand, the House Building Federation considers the changes unnecessary.
For further information, please contact Joanna.Lee@anthonycollins.com