Browse Sections

• Magazine 
• Food and drink

Weather

A bit of rain

3 day forecast

What's this?

• Email
• del.icio.us
• Digg
• reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon
• Newsvine
• Google Bookmarks
• Netscape
• Technorati
• Windows Live
• Yahoo! MyWeb
• Ma.gnolia

The garden grabbers move in

ENGLISH country gardens have become the latest battleground in the property war.

Squeezed by the green belt and restrictive planning laws, developers have turned their attention to the green lawns of south Manchester and Cheshire as they hunt for plots to build new homes.

"Garden grabbing" - the practice of building on sections of gardens or replacing traditional family houses with lavish modern properties - is a controversial subject that divides residents, planners, developers and homeowners looking to make a quick buck on unused land.

On the one hand it replenishes the current housing stock, provides space for new homes and protects the green belt - with gardens classed as "brownfield sites".

But residents often complain that developers use loopholes to build overbearing properties, diminishing the character of an area, demolishing period examples and generating access and traffic problems.

Wayne Rooney and girlfriend Coleen McLoughlin went down the garden grabbing route. The Manchester United striker and chief WAG angered local heritage types and councillors in upmarket Prestbury by demolishing a 1930s house and replacing it with their own whopping £3.5m dream home - a three-storey mansion with neo-Georgian pillars, six en suite bedrooms, an indoor swimming pool, a hot tub, a cinema and a study.

Architect John Fallows, of Davyhulme-based firm Fallows Gowen Partnership, says where once applications were submitted to councils to build flats on former gardens, now knocking down an older home and replacing it is much more the norm.

"John Prescott's house-building moratorium in the North West means you can't increase the density of plots," says Mr Fallows. "But we're dealing with about four inquiries a week about replacements, with people asking what is possible and what can be knocked down.

"The way we live has changed and people want properties fit for 21st-century living, with more focus on the kitchen/breakfast/snug area and less on the lounge and even less on the dining room.

"There are probably more than 40 such projects going on around the area and we're talking about multi-million pound, top-end properties. We're currently working on up to about 20.

"There's a huge shortage of land, it's like gold dust and people just can't find plots."

In fashionable areas such as Alderley Edge, Wilmslow and Didsbury, an acre of land can go for as much as £1m and is often more sought after than the property that sits on top of it.

But while replacement properties like Rooney's might attract a few protests from councillors and remain hidden behind high fences, in popular suburban areas, like Didsbury and Withington, where space is more at a premium,the objections are more heartfelt.

Withington MP John Leech is involved in a national campaign against garden grabbing, which now accounts for 15 per cent of new housing.

"The scale of inappropriate windfall development in areas like south Manchester is irreparably damaging the character and cohesion of neighbourhoods," he said in support of an another MPs unsuccessful attempt to have the practice outlawed last year.

"It is essential that back gardens are reclassified as green belt as opposed to brownfield or `developed' land. Communities, through their locally elected councillors, should have the final say in deciding on appropriate development in the area."

Several local projects have been abandoned after collective action from residents, councillors and local civic groups.

Withington residents David and Sue Neesham enlisted the help of Cllr Alison Firth, local civic societies and Manchester Council in their bid to stop a five-bedroom managed property being built in a back garden on Brook Road.

David says: "The application has been withdrawn but we're now waiting for the developer to come back and take a second bite at the cherry.

"We lived in Fallowfield for more than 20 years and the area has been raped and pillaged by developers so that its character has now completely changed. It's very difficult to stop these developments.

"Our local councillors have been very supportive but it takes a lot of time and effort and it seems that all you can really do is influence the plans. My advice to residents is to get together as many people as possible, including councillors, and to contact local civic societies.

"We're not against change but it's the density which causes a problem, particularly with parking and also the utilities. Developments of flats around here have affected the water pressure."

Manchester Council now seeks to prevent "inappropriate developments in gardens where their development would harm the character of the area". It has had considerable success, even when developers have appealed to the Secretary of State.

Current planning laws forbid high-density developments in some areas but problems arise for residents when the density of dwellings is far lower than the threshold.

Exceptions can also be made for affordable housing for local people, houses for farm workers, granny flats and replacement houses. New housing in listed buildings may be allowed where the new housing is the only way of saving the building and councillors will also scrutinise schemes that would bring wider community benefits.

While they prove unpopular locally, the fact remains that nationally there is a drastic shortage of accommodation and new homes and land. More than 80 per cent of the population lives on just 10 per cent of the land, so the alternative to garden grabbing is encroachment on the green belt or more city centre flats.

Mark Evans, his wife Samantha and their three children moved into a new house in Hale Barns last year. They bought a property with about a third of an acre of land for £850,000, demolished it and built a new home for £350,000.

"It was a stressful process but then anything to do with property usually is," says Mark, who is director of Trafford Park-based property company MDA. "It is very difficult to find land. We chose the area we wanted to live and it took us two years to find a suitable plot.

"Basically, you've just got to drive around looking, knocking on local doors and keeping in touch with local agents."

The five-bedroom and four-bathroom home is now worth more than £1.5m.

"Fortunately, we carried on living in our own house around the corner while the build went on.

"Everyone wants their own space but there's a shortage of decent detached properties with gardens and this is a way of providing more."

What's this?

• Email
• del.icio.us
• Digg
• reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon
• Newsvine
• Google Bookmarks
• Netscape
• Technorati
• Windows Live
• Yahoo! MyWeb
• Ma.gnolia