Front gardens disappearing under hard surfacing has reached epidemic proportions in the London Borough of Ealing (as in many other parts of Britain). It has become a serious environmental and social concern. 

Paving and concreting front gardens causes flooding, water and air pollution, hotter streets, dangers to pedestrians, increased pressure on roadside parking, destruction of green and pleasant residential roads, upset neighbours, community tensions and many other problems.

To see the scale of the problem, in 2005 Ealing's Local Agenda 21 Front Gardens Project conducted the first ever comprehensive survey of the amount of front garden hard surfacing in an urban area in Britain.

The survey results shocked many people, yet are no real surprise. We found:

• a quarter of the borough's 74,300 front gardens are completely hard surfaced - no vegetation at all
• a further fifth of front gardens in this borough have nearly all (90-99% of their area) hard surfaced
• well over half of the borough's front gardens have 70% or more of their area under hard surfacing
• the average front garden in the borough has 68% of its area covered in hard surfacing.

This website explains more about our research and results, the many problems caused by front garden hard surfacing, why it's happening, the latest legislative position, what (little) is being done about it, what more could be done and how you can help.

There are also links to other research, reports and information.