Should exceptionally large council house gardens be used to build more local authority homes?

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

While out walking yesterday, I took a back lane behind some council housing in my area.

Just to describe the area/situation. Council housing is interspersed between older (Victorian / Edwardian) housing in this area. Mainly rows of terraces, but also semis.

I hadn't realised until this walk just how big the back gardens of the council houses around here are. They are enormous. Really really long. When sat alongside the terraces, many of which have small backyards only, the footprint of these local authority homes is huge.

Given the huge shortage of LA housing, and given that the land already belongs to the LA, I think these gardens could be dissected to create space for new LA housing. The cost would be lower because the LA already owns the land.

It just seems to make sense to me. So many people are in desperate need of housing, but will never be able to buy privately. This is a huge unused resource.

how many houses would that actually result in, though? Older style council houses by me have good sized gardens compared to new builds but very few massive ones like you describe. New council housing doesn't tend to be full streets like it used to be, but dotted all over the place. Lots of the houses built in the 30s-60s you are assuming are still council owned could have been bought by now so it might just be one or two additional houses rather than the whole street you're envisioning.

Those houses would also need access - how would the back garden house get to the street? It would also need new plumbing, electricity etc. and would cause huge disruption to the current tenants - while you might be of the opinion that they are lucky to have housing so should just put up and shut up, in reality they are entitled to not have their garden dug up and loud building work going on metres from their home. Some might have disabilities or additional needs that need consideration.

With the benefit of hindsight would have agreed that they would have been better off building 2 smaller houses in the plots available, but in terms of repurposing them now, it seems like an impractical amount of work and expense for a very small amount of extra houses. Considering there are over 1million empty properties in England alone I'd focus on trying to repurpose those (and office buildings, etc.) for housing over that.

Yes, and it's already happening, along with the demolition of garage blocks to build more homes. They are disproportionately more expensive to build than an estate on a virgin site though, due small numbers (poor economies of scale) and access issues.

I'm sure that for a lot of areas it wouldn't be practical @latetothefisting, and I've honestly never thought about it before. But the ones I walked past yesterday could very easily have encompassed another row of houses behind them, with both houses having perfectly acceptable gardens. They have street access because the reason I saw the size of the back gardens is because they back onto a back lane which already has vehicle access.

And obviously, because it's in a residential area, it avoids the issue of trying for planning permission on greenbelt land.

The same thing happened behind another row of houses in my area actually. There is a row of new houses between older ones and the shops. I think they have back yards rather than gardens, so were fitted into an even smaller space.

When we have as many people struggling to be house as we do in the UK, having huge gardens attached to LA housing isn't really adequate use of land. And it's no different to having development of any other kind, whether it be residential or commercial.

Yes they should but so many have been bought.

My bf's relative is trying to sell their ex local authority house and whilst the huge garden is lovely because they work on it all the time, no one wants that now.

My garden is half the size and I struggle with it because I don't like gardening and I haven't got enough time.

I don’t see why people in council houses shouldn’t have lovely big gardens.
Not to mention the nightmare of having a house built next to you and then having (more) very close neighbours.
It’s relevant when building new houses but I don’t think it’s the answer overall. Plus they will all end up being sold off anyway so a very short term solution.

I suspect the reason they have big gardens is in the immediate post second world war period, people would have expected to be able to grow there own fruit and veg, don't forget rationing didn't finally end until 1954 and the wartime doctrine was "dig for victory". The town I grew up in has many Victorian/Edwardian terraces, many built for railway workers, that have small gardens often just a backyard, but when I was a child, there was ready availability of allotments. Unlike where I live now, the waiting list for an allotment is so long they no longer put people on it.

You can't just take someone's garden

I live near a large village where there have been dozens of "infills". Entire housing estates (albeit small ones) have been built in the former back gardens of larger houses. In some cases, the original house was demolished.

It's amazing just how many houses can fit into these spaces. A developer bought a pair of modest, 1930s semi-detached houses that had long gardens (each garden approximately 60 ft wide and 300 ft long. The developer persuaded the owners of a neighbouring (identical) set of semis to sell him 250 ft of their gardens. He demolished the semis that he'd bought and then built a whole street of new houses on (big, detached houses with gardens) on the land.

The lack of council house building isn't to do with availability of the land. If councils were building housing, I daresay your proposal would be considered.

Also, I'd be amazed if many of these nice rural LA built houses with big gardens are still LA owned.

My dad grew up in a council house with a huge garden. His family had a large allotment at the end of it, grew loads of veg.
It was on of a row of houses - the council later took half of the gardens on his row to build more houses at the back of them (there was separate access). So it does happen.

Yes this
most of the ones round our area have been bought (the older council houses) the newer housing association ones built as part of new estates as builders have to have a percentage of “affordable/social” housing are tiny with very small gardens.

Older privately owned homes are the same too they have much bigger gardens.

I live right next door to some 1950s ex local authority terraced properties. They’re all 3 or 4 bed with very long gardens. However, there’s no way that they could be built on as there’s no access to the backs because they back onto a woods.

We're not rural, it's urban although we are only a 5 minute drive to fields.

The houses are a 30 second walk from a local shopping precinct.

That's a different scenario. Safe and lucky for the tenants (if any of them are still LA!). The ones near me have rear access and utilities to the houses that are already there.

You mention that it is Lane access. Would that be suitable? What about things like sewer etc. I would imagine it would be a legal grey area to say to someone in a house oh we are building in your garden. Maybe you could do it if a new person/family was moving in but I doubt you could do it to existing tenants.

Exactly. People on council estates did grow their own fruit and veg and very often kept chickens as well. My grandad lived on a council estate and he, and many neighbours, had excellent vegetable gardens (1950-1960s).

The theory sounds FAB, However I suspect the reality would be harder. Houses need sewers, electric, gas, water access, not to mention broadband, that back gardens don't.

Ridiculous idea. Once again MN thinks the ones with the less should solve the housing crisis.

They have more than any of the private residents in the area. I was shocked at how big the gardens were. Wide and very very long.

And the assumption that LA tenants have less is probably fairly inaccurate. Why would living in a LA home equate to low income?

They’ve tagged another small council house onto a row of them in my area. Can’t do the same to the row above as there’s a huge tree there.

Maybe look up instead of down.

Can't steal something someone owns though. Not sure of the regulations around compulsory purchase orders. Whereas the LA owns the council housing gardens, or at least, the ones not sold off.

I don't like the idea of people being squashed together like sardines. It reminds me of those creepy high rise buildings in China where everyone has a tiny room that barely fits a bed on the floor. Saw them on YouTube. Awful.

Hope the poors are out all summer in their big back gardens