Green Party

Norwich City Council has backed calls from Green Party Councillors for gardens to be reclassified as green spaces. National planning rules mean that gardens are officially brownfield sites, so Councils are encouraged to allow development on them.

Nationally, 30,000 gardens are being lost to development each year and two-thirds of development on brownfield sites is on gardens. Locally, high housing growth targets are bringing pressure for development on green spaces inside the city and in the countryside.

Adrian Ramsay, Leader of the Green Party City Councillors, whose motion to the City Council was passed unanimously yesterday evening, said: "There are lots of strong reasons for protecting gardens: they can be a haven for wildlife, they are important for residents' quality of life and they aid drainage in the city and reduce the risk of flooding.

"I have been involved in several local residents' campaigns to protect gardens. For example, the Council recently approved a development next to Silkfields sheltered accommodation - on a green space used as a garden by the elderly residents who live in Silkfields. This area was officially brownfield even though it is clearly green. If it was classed as green space it would have been much easier for the Council to reject the development.

"Ideally national planning rules would be changed to reclassify gardens as green space so that Councils could easily turn down applications for developments on gardens where the proposals are unpopular and inappropriate. However, Council planning policies could be improved under existing legislation to help protect gardens. Now the motion has been passed, the Local Development Framework Working Party will be looking into options for how this can be done, such as protecting green corridors within the city."

Full text of the motion

Protecting Gardens from Development

Councillor Ramsay to move:

This Council notes:

Housing growth targets mean that all potentially available land in Norwich, including gardens, is coming under increasing pressure for potential development.
Gardens are currently classified as brownfield sites under planning law but some MPs are already pressing for this to be changed.
This Council believes:

Gardens are crucial to quality of life, biodiversity and a healthy environment in the city and should have a greater level of protection from development.
This Council resolves:

To write to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government requesting that gardens be reclassified as greenfield sites.
To ask the Local Development Framework Working Party to consider how the Council's planning policies can be strengthened under existing legislation to help protect gardens from development.

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