Baroness Fookes
Main Page: Baroness Fookes (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I declare two non-financial interests: first, as co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Gardening and Horticulture Group and, secondly, as a very long-standing member of the Royal Horticultural Society. It has been on this call for about 10 years to my knowledge, but it has stepped up the campaign in light of the increasing worries which have been so ably set out by the noble Baroness. We owe her a debt of gratitude for raising it at this point and bringing it to the attention of everybody who may read this debate but, above all, that of Ministers, from whom we look for some action.
I am all for planning controls, but we have those already. My worry is whether they are enforced and whether there are the staff to carry out all the detailed inspections that would be necessary. I am not sure what offence might be committed and therefore what penalty would be incurred and whether it would be sufficient.
I looked up one or two statistics and was horrified to discover that in London the loss of front gardens is equivalent to 22 Hyde Parks—Hyde Park is enormous. That gives an idea of the scale of what, as the noble Baroness rightly said, seems very small and inconsequential to the individual householder who thinks that he will do a little bit of concreting-over to place his car there. I gather that in the north-east of England, research carried out by the Horticultural Trades Association and the RHS found that nearly a quarter of gardens had been completely paved over, with the inference that many more were largely paved over. So we certainly have a problem.
I will not rehearse the very fine points made by the noble Baroness in her opening speech, save to say that there are some other worries. One of those, particularly in places such as London where there is a lot of clay soil, is that the temperature-enhancing effect she described causes a problem with subsidence. This was pointed out by the manager of Halifax insurance services, a person who should know that this can cause serious problems. It is a very real worry for householders if anything goes wrong with the stability on which their homes are built. That is yet another reason for being concerned about this.
My own feeling, as a very keen gardener, is that we should be encouraging people to take steps to work in another way so that they have room both for their car—that is the predominant reason for this happening—and for a little bit of garden as well. The Royal Horticultural Society has been very good about describing the various ways in which this could happen. It starts, very sensibly, by suggesting that a person who wants to make hardstanding for a car should look at their garden, decide where the car needs to be and work from there in order to put the hardstanding—ideally with a permeable membrane or surface—where the car’s wheels are actually going to go. This is particularly relevant in very small front gardens. Then they can have ground between and beyond the wheels that will take small plants and make it very much more attractive.
There was a wonderful example of what can be done at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, where great attention was given to a delightful front garden, complete with space for the car. It used quite a lot of Welsh slate—which allowed water to sink through, which is so important—but with very attractive plantings put here and there where the car was never going to go. It takes some imagination and some thought but if the Royal Horticultural Society and the Government were to approach it from this angle, we would be far more likely to get results than from a simple crackdown, which people may well resent and which may well not be enforced. I hope that anyone in government listening to this will try to suggest this as a co-operative way forward—I sum it up as more carrot than stick.
It is also true that we need to preserve wildlife, particularly the bee population. Those who are interested in agricultural matters will be aware that there are some real problems with declining bee populations, which has a massive impact on crop growing. Gardens, including back gardens, are a massive resource for bees and other pollinating insects. Again, gardeners could be encouraged, by choosing plants carefully, to grow flowers that will last a long period of time so that insects are able to pollinate over a much longer period. They could also choose plants that are simpler in their structure so that it is easy for bees to pollinate. I am not sure my noble friend sitting next to me would agree, because it is always exciting for breeders to develop more and more exotic flowers that are more complicated in their structure, but we know that very simple flowers make it very much easier for the bees to pollinate.
That would be an added bonus. There is also a bonus for householders. There seems to be plenty of evidence that houses with front as well as back gardens, and that look attractive and are in tree-lined streets, are very much more likely to sell at a good price than those that are completely concreted, grey, dreary and altogether miserable. It would certainly influence me, and I think that it influences a lot of people. So I believe that we can sell this to the general public by saying, “You will, in all probability, enhance the value of your property if it is nicely presented”.
I am sure, too, that local authorities, as well as central government, can be of great assistance in this. I looked up on the internet—via the wonderful Google—and saw that Richmond upon Thames Council has some very good advice on how to enhance properties and on what it would look for, in which it sets out good standards rather than just a series of prohibitions. If more town councils were minded to take that attitude, I am sure that it would be for the better. I agree that Richmond is a very salubrious and attractive area, but if that council sees fit to do it, how much more important it is for perhaps less well-endowed towns and cities to do the same.
Last year I went with the All-Party Gardening and Horticulture Group to see how the City of London is dealing with all sorts of odd spaces, as well as the more major ones. It was quite surprising how it had used all sorts of strange little bits of land to put down trees, shrubs, flowers and so forth, making it much more attractive. It had even made a most attractive little park at the side of St Paul’s Cathedral, where there had been a rather gloomy old car park. So it is possible for local councils and city councils of all kinds to set a good example. People tend to follow suit. Just as we find that where people are allowed to litter, more litter goes down, so it works in reverse: if you have good examples all around you and the neighbour down the road is doing very well, it is far more likely that we will get a far better landscape in which people will be far happier living and working.
There is good medical evidence that people’s health and well-being are greatly improved when they are in happy, green surroundings. If that is not enough to convince people that this campaign is well worth pursuing, I shall be very disappointed.