England’s Garden Loss Map
The East Midlands is losing its gardens
Between 2014 and 2022, the East Midlands lost more than 2,700 hectares of residential garden space, an area larger than 3,800 football pitches. This map shows how that loss is distributed across every local authority district in the region. Darker shades indicate higher proportional loss. Derby sits above the national average at 8.4%, reflecting a construction boom that has steadily eaten into back gardens across the city.
Click any district to see its county breakdown. The pattern is consistent: urban fringe areas where housing development pressure is highest have seen the steepest losses, as gardens are built over for extensions, driveways, and infill housing.
Matt Jones, Derby Driveways Direct:
“Twenty years ago, a front garden was standard. Now I quote driveway jobs every single day and half my customers haven’t got a flower bed left. I’m not complaining — it keeps me busy — but when I drive through some streets, it genuinely looks grey from end to end. No grass, no hedges, just tarmac and block paving. I’ve done it to hundreds of gardens myself, and you do think about it.”
Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Land Use Change Statistics (England), based on Ordnance Survey data. Latest published data: 2022. Representative estimates at local authority level.
30,757 Hectares of English garden gone
Not all garden loss is the same. This graphic breaks down where England’s 30,757 lost hectares actually went between 2014 and 2022. New housing (extensions and infill development) accounts for the largest share, but driveways and hardstanding together represent more than a quarter of all losses. That figure aligns with what contractors across the country have observed: demand for paving and hard landscaping has grown substantially over the past decade, driven by the rise of off-street parking, low-maintenance preferences, and permitted development rights that make front garden conversion straightforward.
That’s an area more than twice the size of Derby city itself. Here’s where it went.
Matt Jones, Derby Driveways Direct:
“The driveway figure doesn’t surprise me at all — that’s my bread and butter. But what people don’t realise is that every driveway I lay used to be a garden. That’s not abstract. That’s a lawn that absorbed rain, a hedge that gave nesting birds somewhere to live, a bit of green that cooled the street down in summer. I’m good at my job and I’ll keep doing it, but I understand why the environment people are worried. The gardens aren’t coming back.”
Sources: MHCLG LUCS P350 residential land use transitions. Proportions are cumulative estimates for the 2014–2022 period.
Garden loss across the UK, 2014–2022
Garden loss is not a uniquely English problem. This map shows England’s nine regions alongside estimated figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, shown with a dashed border to distinguish them from the MHCLG-sourced English data. The South East and East of England have lost the highest proportion of garden space, driven by sustained housing demand and high rates of permitted development. Click any English region to explore county-level and local authority breakdowns. Devolved nation figures are national estimates derived from separate land use surveys and are not directly comparable with English regional data.
England’s South East and East of England have seen the highest rates of residential garden
loss.
Hover over any region for detail.
England: MHCLG LUCS (official). Scotland/Wales/NI: estimated from respective national land use statistics. Dashed outlines indicate estimated data.
Where is garden loss worst?
The national average masks enormous variation. England lost 6.99% of its residential garden space, but that figure ranges from under 5% in parts of the North East to well over 9% in some southern commuter districts. The pattern broadly follows housing pressure: areas within an hour of London, Birmingham and other major employment centres have seen the steepest losses, as homeowners extend outward and developers squeeze more units onto plots. What the drill-down reveals at county level is that loss tends to cluster, a few high-pressure districts pull the average up, while neighbouring rural areas remain relatively unchanged.
Garden loss, in other words, is not evenly spread. It is concentrated in precisely the places where land is most valuable and development pressure is hardest to resist.
Start at national level, then click any bar to drill down to regional, county,
and local authority level. Use the breadcrumb trail or Back button to navigate up.
Matt Jones, Derby Driveways Direct:
“Derby’s changed more than most places, I think. The city’s grown, the houses are closer together, and people need somewhere to park. Planning used to push back on dropped kerbs — now they just wave them through. I’ve personally converted probably 400 front gardens in Derby in the last ten years. Multiply that by every contractor in the city and you start to understand why the streets look different.”
Source: MHCLG Land Use Change Statistics. England only. Data: 2014–2022.
Every city ranked: who’s lost the most?
The cities that have lost the most garden space are not always the ones you would expect. London boroughs feature prominently, but so do mid-sized commuter towns and regional centres where housing development has accelerated in response to demand spillover from larger cities. Derby sits above the national average, a pattern contractors in the area will recognise. What the table also shows is that raw hectares lost and percentage lost can tell very different stories: a large city may lose thousands of hectares in absolute terms but remain below average proportionally, while a smaller town with intense development pressure can lose a far higher share of its original garden stock. The towns near the top of this table are, effectively, a map of where England’s housing crisis has been felt most acutely on the ground.
All UK cities with populations above 50,000, ranked by percentage of residential garden
space lost since 2014. Search by name or filter by region.
Figures are representative estimates calibrated to MHCLG published regional data. Population figures: ONS 2021 Census. Data covers England only.