LOOMING DEVELOPMENTS: Garden- grabbing may be essential in areas where housing is hard to come by. But I live in underpopulated Lincolnshire, where plenty of houses are for sale, yet, when gardens are developed, it’s usually to provide upmarket, not affordable, housing. How about some incentives for people who do not turn their gardens into building sites? Garden-grabbing is also a disincentive to anyone, like us, looking to buy a house with a larger plot to cultivate — we can end up paying building land prices for a garden — and if our neighbours have similar- sized gardens, we must expect that eventually we will have developments looming over our garden.
Michael Stocks, Cherry Willingham, Lincolnshire ()

OVER THE BORDER: It’s not only English counties that are plagued by garden-grabbing. In our village in north Wales (Gorsedd near Holywell, Flintshire), all new housing developments have gone up in former gardens. To compound matters, most of the developments so far have been in the council’s designated “conservation area”. So not only do we lose garden space, we also say goodbye to our conservation area.
JD Jarvis, Holywell, Flintshire

NOT THE SOLUTION: While I recognise the need for more homes, garden-grabbing is not the solution. There are an estimated 300,000 empty homes in the country, many derelict eyesores that could be used as a first stage in the home-build battle. Greater local authority powers to restrict and monitor new-builds would help, too, as would transparency in reaching planning decisions and a rethink on second-home ownership. This latter would be a hugely controversial debate, but one that needs airing, especially as many local authorities say it is the biggest obstacle to first-time buyers getting on the property ladder.
Name and address supplied

CHRONIC SHORTAGE: When are homeowners going to wake up to the fact that we have a chronic shortage of housing in this country, especially in the southeast? Apart from denying first-time buyers the opportunity to own a home, the undersupply of new housing restricts the local economy and could lead to a collapse in the value of the property market.

If people accept that additional housing can benefit a region, we have two choices: build on the green land surrounding towns or infill available space within existing settlements.

Infilling is the more sustainable method. The energy of protesters should be directed not at the principle of redevelopment but at the quality of the development proposed. We need high-quality design, and a government that recognises that density should be determined as the number of bedspaces per hectare, rather than dwellings per hectare (which has resulted in the oversupply of flats).

If we don’t fight the prospect of redevelopment but strive for sensitive planning of these sites, we could transform our settlements into areas that remain attractive but are inclusive of all types of household, from first-time buyers to sheltered housing. This could create towns and villages which are more practical, and sustainable, places in which to live and work.
Ken Thornton, Abingdon, Oxfordshire

COMPLETELY BIASED: Why does Home continue to take the corner of the Nimbys? As the director of a southeast-based housebuilding firm, I felt the article was completely biased and anti-development. It will damage the reputation of the housebuilding industry and will strengthen the case of the middle-class Nimby who objects to any development as a matter of course.
Chris Moore, Charles Church

Related link:

The rise of the garden grabbers

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