UK Government policies on urban front gardens are reducing London’s climate change resilience

In London, front gardens account for 6-7% of total footprint; their average size is 56 m². In 1995, under UK Government planning relaxations, pavement crossovers became permitted development.
This enabled vehicles to be parked in front gardens.
Numbers of hard surfaced front gardens increased rapidly.
In 2008, after severe flooding events, further government regulations were introduced for England.
These required front garden surfaces to be porous but placed no restrictions on how much of a front garden could be so covered.
The solutions marketed since 2008 depend for effective rainwater infiltration on correct installation and maintenance.
In this small-scale case study in Ealing, West London, we have found that, in heavy rainfall, paving sold as ‘permeable’ fails in some front gardens.
Inadequate installation and neglected maintenance may contribute to this.
Under similar conditions, the soakaways sold to render impermeable surfaces porous can fail, particularly if poorly installed or maintained.
Recent government policies on electric vehicle charging have continued to normalise front garden hard surfacing.
This is adversely affecting climate change resilience, contributing to biodiversity loss and makes neighbourhood relations and management more difficult.
As a front garden parking surface, matrix paving offers several advantages and could be less damaging.
We have found 33 flowering plant species growing in an established matrix-paved car park in central Ealing.
The case for regulatory change, incentivising householders to remove hard surfacing and promoting and normalising greener surfaces is briefly discussed.

III International Symposium on Greener Cities: Improving Ecosystem Services in a Climate-Changing World (GreenCities2024)

C.M. Eborall

hard surfaces, paving, permeability, rainwater infiltration, matrix paving, London Borough of Ealing

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2025.1429.55