Nick receives the petition from local residents in Ruislip

25 July 2007

Last week Nick Hurd presented his garden grabbing petition to Parliament. In a fantastic response to his online and paper campaign, more than 1,800 residents of Ruislip-Northwood signed up to ‘Stop the Garden Grab’.

The petition stated that with Britain’s gardens under increasing threat of destruction, local opinion is increasingly being disregarded and communities are left powerless to prevent gardens sold off to inappropriate and unpopular developments.

Each large development has a significant impact on the local community, including the loss of precious biodiversity, the increased strain parking and traffic flow and the resulting change in the fundamental character of neighbourhoods against local wishes.

Nick Hurd said:

“I wanted to show a strong signal to this Government that the views of local people should not be dismissed. We have all seen the damage that inappropriate development has been done to the character of roads in the constituency like Ducks Hill Road in Northwood and Kingsend and Pembroke Road in Ruislip.

“The Government should bring forward legislation to give stronger protection to gardens in planning law and to allow elected local councillors to have greater discretion to protect the character of local neighbourhoods.