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.

No. Extremely large private houses with extremely large gardens should though.

There might be a reason why that strip of land has been left undeveloped. It could be unstable due past mining or need to be left undesturbed due to historic toxic landfil.

Also, all people have the need for a certain amount of space and light and if everything was bricked-up and paved over there would be less space for wildlife and we would have increased risk of flooding.