The government is making it easier for people to build home extensions without planning permission. You can find an explnation here from the Daily Telegraph and here from the District Council.
However they are adding restrictions of new driveways and hard surfaces for front gardens – for a good reason-
The Government says restricting driveways is necessary to combat the risk of flooding during heavy rain. It says 55,000 homes were damaged during floods last year because of surface water running off driveways. Surfaces deemed acceptably porous include gapped concrete paving, plus some types of asphalt and gravel.
If our planners insisted on developers building lower densisty developments with larger gardens and enough off-road parking in the first place, we would not have such an issue with people paving over their front gardens.
The problem of parking issues has been raised on this website plenty of times, and making it harder for people to increase their off-road parking will not help the situation.
Personally I prefer to see a lawn and some planting in a front garden, it stops the front of your house looking like a carpark. However, to build expensive family houses with only 1 or 2 parking spaces per house is incredibly short sighted.
Hi ST1, this isn’t a new problem – look at terraced houses built during the Victorian era, plenty of those front gardens are hard paved to allow parking. This is a nationwide problem, that has been discussed to death since the flooding last year.
People buy houses knowing that there is a shortage of parking – if people stopped buying houses flats because of limited spacing, builders would have to rethink their plans. Whilst people are buying those properties, where is the incentive for developers to change they way they build and thus build in line with government guidelines.
Corey,
I agree with you up to a point. However, there’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation, where people have to buy what’s on offer, so the developers can get away with short changing everyone over parking. This is where the planning department could help.
I also think that people don’t always realise that there is a shortage of parking at a property, but some may think that they could always get away with over-spill parking in the road outside. Unfortunately, when you try to actually park in the road on a new development, you find that nearly anywhere you park is opposite someone elses driveway, or is too close to a bend or junction.
Then you also get the situation when things change, like building on Read’s Nursery, which took away roadside parking spaces in Downhall Park Way whilst adding pressure on roadside parking requirements by not providing enough offstreet parking in the new houses. The Temple Way flats/Coral development is another example.
Finally there’s the small gardens we now get. I’d estimate that my house and driveway probably accounts for more than 60% of the plot that I own. Developments of flats and associated parking must be even worse. I know that land costs money, but we must be able to work out something better than the current situation.
Corey,
I agree with you up to a point. However, there’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation, where people have to buy what’s on offer, so the developers can get away with short changing everyone over parking. This is where the planning department could help.
I also think that people don’t always realise that there is a shortage of parking at a property, but some may think that they could always get away with over-spill parking in the road outside. Unfortunately, when you try to actually park in the road on a new development, you find that nearly anywhere you park is opposite someone elses driveway, or is too close to a bend or junction.
Then you also get the situation when things change, like building on Read’s Nursery, which took away roadside parking spaces in Downhall Park Way whilst adding pressure on roadside parking requirements by not providing enough offstreet parking in the new houses. The Temple Way flats/Coral development is another example.
Finally there’s the small gardens we now get. I’d estimate that my house and driveway probably accounts for more than 60% of the plot that I own. Developments of flats and associated parking must be even worse. I know that land costs money, but we must be able to work out something better than the current situation.
Until people vote with their feet, and take their mortgages elsewhere, there is no incentive for developers to changes, and let’s face it, we all know from experience that RDC are reluctant to hear what we the people want.
Our property on Temple Way has two parking spaces before our gate (which is why we purchased it) and a further space on the other side of our gate (which we use as a patio). We only too well know the problems with parking, as the house opposite has one parking space before their gate and one space on the other side of their gate (which they use to house the kids trampolene). There are times when the only way we can get off our drive is by shunting backwards and forwards, or driving over our flower bed. Two cars can not pass one another on the entrance to Temple Way, people park there, causing further inconvenience to drivers, and residents. Another example of RDCs planning departments incompetence.
Don’t forget that the government actively encourages developers to provide insufficient parking “to discourage car use”(!!)
What nonsense, people own cars whether they use them or not and need somewhere to store them.
They have forced us to impose maximum parking standards, something I fought long and hard against (without a great deal of success)