The Round Hill Society

Garden Grabbing and The Coalition

Chapter 4 of the final coalition agreement: The Coalition: our programme for government - Thursday 20 May 2010 12:00 promises to give Councils new powers to stop "garden grabbing".

The relevant section of the document reads:

"We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils, including giving councils new powers to stop ‘garden grabbing’."

These new powers may come too late to dissuade members of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee from granting both greenfield development and garden grabbing at the meeting on 9th June 2010 which will decide the outcome of Carelet’s proposal (Application Number: BH2010/00083) to erect 6 three-storey houses on land to rear of 67-81 Princes Road Brighton.

Note that Carelet's main freehold is a greenfield site (a plot of previously undeveloped land with no house within the freehold). The west end of their application site includes the bottom half of the garden at 67 Princes Road, a separate freehold (with a house within the curtilege) also purchased by the developer. The garden of this domestic freehold extended right down to Network Rail’s Coastways Railway land before the developer grabbed the bottom half of it to claim more space for an unsuitably tight proposal.

Why garden grabbing is detrimental to local communities The previous government announced that 60 % of all new housing is to be built on "Brownfield" sites, but each year as many as 20,000 of these brownfield site homes are actually being built in back gardens. Councils have got very demanding housing numbers which they've got to try to achieve. The planning guidance nationally puts Brownfield sites top of the list for housing development.
Why garden grabbing makes it more difficult for those in need of “affordable homes” to get on the housing ladder
Garden grabbing is favoured by developers since they have no obligation to provide any affordable accommodation if they are proposing fewer than 10 units of accommodation.

In the past, Housing Ministers sometimes argued that increasing the supply of private market housing has the knock-on effect of easing the housing crisis.

However, in resorts like Brighton, popular with buyers from all over the world as well as with property investors who already have at least one home, increasing the residential population can be disastrous for those hoping to get onto the housing ladder. Extra private market housing requires new shops and additional services. This multiplier effect increases the pressure on land and helps house prices to escalate.

It is relatively easy for builders to meet (former deputy Prime Minister), John Prescott’s challenge of erecting a house for £60,000, if that sum covers the cost of construction alone. It is the price of land in areas where it is in greatest demand, which pushes up the selling price of the house to four or five times that total.

As land in Brighton and Hove becomes even scarcer and the pavements of our shopping centres even more crowded, it becomes horribly expensive for the Council to purchase space to meet the infrastructural needs of a larger city population. All residents pick up the bill in the form of higher Council tax - the privilege of living in a popular resort.

While it is easy for a company to increase the supply of umbrellas in response to growing demand, the supply of land remains finite.




This page was last updated by Ted on 06-Jun-2010