Embargoed to 0001 Saturday December 27
More people are paving over their gardens to create a patio or parking space or simply to cut back on maintenance, a new study has found.
Research by insurance firm LV= showed that the amount of green space being paved over was equivalent to almost two car parking spaces per house.
A poll of more than 2,000 home owners and a study of official housing surveys found a growing trend to pave over a garden, with half saying they wanted to create a patio and others wanting a parking space or planning to cut back on garden maintenance.
The report warned that houses could be left more vulnerable to flooding if lawns are removed by paving or concrete because hard surfaces cause water to build up rather than soak away.
Selwyn Fernandes, managing director of LV= home insurance, said: "Surface water flooding is a growing problem for home owners, particularly those living in built-up areas where there is less green space.
"By replacing flowerbeds and grass with materials like concrete and asphalt, water cannot be absorbed by the ground and this leads to surface water flooding."
The research showed that a third of home owners had paved over a portion of their garden, with almost one in eight of those doing so in 2013, 2% higher than in 2012.
ends
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article