The end of the private back garden? AIBU to think this is a crap idea?

[2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney]

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/architects-hope-to-tear-down-garden-fences-of-englands-future-homes/ar-BB18huJd

Reported in the Guardian this morning. The shortlist of developers drawn up to attempt solve our housing crisis by new design
includes the idea of communal back gardens that have to be booked in advance to use privately!

Oh yes I can see that going down really well on Mumsnet future AIBU

"My next door neighbour overstayed their time"
"I hate sharing and want peace and quiet"
"Cynthia has just repotted all my begonias"
"Can I put a swing up in the communal garden, the neighbours are complaining"

AIBU to think that this is just a really crap idea?

They would have to supply some communal laundry area as well then to hang out washing. I can see some clothes going missing too! I will bet it is only male architects who thought of this. Some squares in London have private gardens which have to be maintained by the owners paying a fee, but I still would want a private space where I could semi naked sunbathe without offending anyone.

I live in main door flats in a cul de sac with all communal grounds it works really well for the most part and it's great for the dc to have the space to run around and play together. Everyone has their 'bit' outside their home but technically anyone can use it. It was amazing over lock down where dc could play but still maintain a distance when that was a requirement. No one has to book to use it though. The only downside is when I want to sit out and read etc i usually end up surrounded by a load of chatty dc not belonging to me. Communal gardens are actually incredibly common here within the many tenement blocks also so it's rather the norm. Few people have private gardens. I can see how it would be viewed by people in more suburban or rural areas but for many city dwellers it wound either be the norm or better than the nothing they are used to.

My garden is just over 100ft long. My neighbours have the same size garden. Council houses
There was another thread about a woman trying to sell her £1mill flat with a balcony
Don’t come the ‘poor people get forced into tiny houses’ shit
I don’t deny that these houses will likely be on the cheaper end of the scale but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the only option poor people get

This is really getting old now.
The plans do not specify gardens ‘over 100ft long’
I don’t understand why poster after poster keeps talking about big communal spaces.
The plans are not talking about big communal spaces! Or private balconies with a big communal space.
The plans specify one ‘courtyard’ (tiny) garden to 4 houses!

Toomuchtrouble4me

They do seem to work very well for rich people I see no reason why they couldn't work just as well for less rich people.
Honestly, the picture some posters have painted of the poor is disgraceful. You won't be able to leave furniture out, things will get stolen, even child abduction has been mentioned. I refuse to believe poor people would behave do differently (worse) from rich people.

@Borderstotheleftofme

My garden is just over 100ft long. My neighbours have the same size garden. Council houses There was another thread about a woman trying to sell her £1mill flat with a balcony Don’t come the ‘poor people get forced into tiny houses’ shit I don’t deny that these houses will likely be on the cheaper end of the scale but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the only option poor people get

This is really getting old now.
The plans do not specify gardens ‘over 100ft long’
I don’t understand why poster after poster keeps talking about big communal spaces.
The plans are not talking about big communal spaces! Or private balconies with a big communal space.
The plans specify one ‘courtyard’ (tiny) garden to 4 houses!

I didn’t say anything about the communal gardens being 100ft long. I said that my personal private garden is that size and are the gardens of my neighbours, who are council tenets. However you can buy a flat with little more than a balcony for £1mill in London.

Near me a flat with only a balcony costs more than a house with a garden. Comparable areas and standard of building.

The ‘poor people don’t get big gardens’ jazz is getting old.

If everyone shares a garden with less fences boundary hedges and trees wildlife will have no chance. Gardens will be busier than ever. Ecologically totally crap.

@Tiredwiththeshits

If everyone shares a garden with less fences boundary hedges and trees wildlife will have no chance. Gardens will be busier than ever. Ecologically totally crap.

That is a very good point. Areas of just grass in constant use are no use to wildlife.

They do seem to work very well for rich people I see no reason why they couldn't work just as well for less rich people.

Because we aren’t talking about large communal gardens, we’re talking about something the size of a standard garden being shared between four houses!

The reason large communal gardens can work well for rich people is that money is spent to achieve that. It isn't because you're innately more awful if you're poorer, it's because throwing resources at things makes them more likely to work. That's why people do it.

Those elaborate communal gardens in South Kensington and Edinburgh are tended by staff to maintain and manage them. This is much less likely in a small courtyard space shared between half a dozen households.

Where I live in Sheffield, lots of us have shared back gardens - usually across every couple of houses in a terrace. Sometimes rows of 4.
People just look after their bit . It is not often problematic at all.
I would prefer a totally private garden but it is not too bad.

How absolutely ridiculous!! I doubt they'll sell many if they go ahead with this pathetic idea!!!

@Clearaschristal

How absolutely ridiculous!! I doubt they'll sell many if they go ahead with this pathetic idea!!!

They'll sell to BTL landlords who'll rent them out. Just the same way that BTL landlords snap up unpopular properties in rows of old terraced houses with only a back yard and then fill them with people straight out of prison (as they've done in loads of seaside resorts!), and other desperate/homeless people. The people ending up living there won't actually want to be there, but will have no choice due to the very limited rental market.

You are not being at all unreasonable to think that is a really crap idea. As people have already pointed out, there are parks, woodlands etc for public use

Parks and woodlands a bus ride away are not somewhere children can play within sight of your kitchen window.

gardens in general should be private spaces for the house that comes with them

Why? Because you want one and we all have to be a hive mind?

Communal gardens are not new, lots of people with actual experience of them at all levels of income have spoken positively. It seems to be predominantly people who have never experienced them who are utterly horrified by them and fixated on one aspect of one design concept out of many.

This is my thinking too badbadbunny.

I think the BTL market has been or is in the process of being tightened up.

It's been made less attractive to smaller investors in particular because you can no longer deduct the mortgage for income tax calculation purposes, but of course that's not applicable if a BTL LL owns outright.

This just shows that we haven't learned lessons from the past.
I used to live on an ex-council estate, built in the 1960s in a semi-rural/poor public transport area.
Must have seemed very forward thinking at the time.
It was built off the main road with no car access to the houses just footpaths and steps. Large communal garden at the front. A car park at one side - big enough for 10% of the houses to own one car (it was the 60s! cars were a luxury) .

All the houses were in small blocks of terraces, they did have back gardens, originally open plan with one shared path leading to the main road. The paths ran along the back doors - right past the windows. Over time people moved the paths to the bottom of their gardens, then they put fences up. And so they didn't lose any garden they put gates in the fences. Although in theory the middle houses had open access at the rear it was awkward for them to use it..
As for the communal garden at the front, it was sloped and landscaped not suitable for playing balls games etc. We gained nothing really from it and it actually caused me a bit of a panic.
We had a bit of a problem/idiot neighbour, who one year decided to let fireworks off at home. They gathered their extended family together and realised they didn't have enough space at the back to let them off safely. So they gathered at the front of their house to let them off in the communal garden....right next to the footpath.
We'd been to an organised firework display. Once we got onto the estate I let my 5 and 3 year run ahead (remember no cars!), I rounded the corner and (thankfully) it took me a few seconds to realise what was going on and I didn't immediately yell at them to stop and (again thankfully) they were running quite fast. They were a few feet past when the fire works went off...still too close but just a nasty scare, no injuries.
I am pretty sure my neighbour wouldn't have let fireworks off on the footpath on the road, but this was in the shared garden so he had every right ...( I was took shocked/upset to say anything, he never apologised just carried on setting the rest off....if anything I got the vibe he was pissed off with me putting a damper on his fun).

Communal gardens are not new, lots of people with actual experience of them at all levels of income have spoken positively. It seems to be predominantly people who have never experienced them who are utterly horrified by them and fixated on one aspect of one design concept out of many.

Again you are confusing a park, with restricted access to the local and sold as their "shared private gardens" as there are loads in London - and the luxury is to keep randoms out...
or a shared garden in a block of flats

Squeezing housing onto plots too small and removing private garden is a really shitty idea.

Most people have two or more cars now, builders are allowing for parking and reducing garden space, or people don't want large garden space anymore perhaps?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53111217

This happened in Glasgow during lockdown and now the tenement flats have a fairly sizeable space (a whole block) to share rather than tiny pockets of their own garden. You should note that it would have been a shared garden between individual tenements.

people don't want large garden space anymore perhaps?

I am not sure that's true.
There are quite a few houses around here who have been massively extended so lost a lot of garden. They are harder to sell as buyers are expecting a garden to go with the size of the house.

The lockdown has confirmed the demand for big garden, but that demand existed before already.

We lived in a flat with shared gardens. You weren't allowed to hang your washing out and they were overlooked from all sides, so you had no privacy out there at all. Also awkward for access. Is why we bought a house.

Our neighbours have dogs. Their lawn is trashed and I'd be very pissed off if we had to share with them. (Not to mention the fact that they leave them out all day.)

No way. I'd rather pay less and have no garden at all than have to share one with neighbours (who could be lovely, but could just as easily be selfish or annoying or outright frightening). Miserable!

The idea of having to book time in "my" garden is awful, too. At least with a public park, you're free to go any time you want!

I live in a tenement flat with a shared garden. We have a door out to the garden and we're the only ones that actually use it. Occasionally others put out washing but that's it. We cut the grass and keep the garden looking nice and everyone is happy. I'm really aware though that it's not actually my garden and I dread new people moving in and starting to use the garden which they are perfectly entitled to do. I'd much rather have my own space.