GARDENS vz CAR PARKS - it's time to stop driving the greenery out of our urban areas
- There are other options! Total paving is just plain lazy and unnecessary. Solid and hard-to-reverse surfacing is actually more expensive. It is perfectly possible to combine planting with car parking. - Increased run-off = more flooding. - Cities are already 'heat islands'. Paved surfaces increase localised heating by acting like a storage heater, heating up and then re-radiating that heat. A bad idea with the climate warming. - Paved over gardens have less resources for wildlife. Completely paved over gardens have near-zero wildlife value. Why are there way fewer Sparrows, Bees and Butterflies ? - What's more attractive for you and passers-by to look at? Plants or a sterile swathe of paving? - Private car use needs to decrease to cut CO2 emissions. Oil production is predicted to go into decline soon. There's often plenty of public transport in cities and suburbia. - Even with alternative car fuels, it's also a land use issue. The country cannot feed itself. Allotment waiting lists are sky high. Is it sensible to turn fertile ground into car parking? - If people want to live in a car park, there are plenty of scrappy ones around they could buy instead! Anyone not wanting the 'bother' of a garden could join a garden-share scheme to let someone else use it instead, or even swap houses with someone who does. - Based on current trends we are still looking at an ever-increasing and very long legacy of these negative effects, since there's no sign of people reversing the process, and most of these trashed gardens are likely to stay that way for years to come.
PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG
- To highlight the negative consequences of turning gardens into car parks, including collateral damage to grass verges
- To flag up alternatives
- To agitate and campaign against turning gardens into car parks
- To seek out and link up others who wish to do likewise
- To bring together resources of use to those who wish to campaign on this issue
- To one day soon get to a point where more car parks are being turned back into gardens than vice-versa
Wildlife recorder and conservationist by inclination, National Election Agent of the Green Party of England and Wales by profession (all comments in this blog are my personal opinions), plant collector and one-time amateur ornamental plant breeder by obsession.
Originally from S.E. London, I lived in Bristol from September 1978 to April 2009, when I moved back to the northern part of Barnehurst (between Northumberland Heath and the Bexleyheath railway line).
I kept in close touch with conservation issues in the area during my time away, especially since 2004 when I began serious recording again after a 20 year break. I am actively involved with Lesnes Abbey Conservation Volunteers and Cray Riverkeeper Volunteers (for whom I am Site Manager for Thames Road Wetland), and have submitted comments and proposals in respect of various Bexley Council planning issues and draft strategy documents affecting allotments, open spaces and wildlife.
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