Greening a grey village

In recent years there has been an increasing trend towards householders choosing to create impermeable front gardens to accommodate cars and other needs. These are gardens that have had all the greenery removed and replaced with hard surfaces which does not allow infiltration. The NW project ‘Unpave the Way’ seeks to address and raise awareness of the impacts that this can have on flooding. In recent times that became a costly business doe one household in the village who had garage adjoining their kitchen and a resin drive.  Water flooded do the hill where they lived up the drive and through the house.  Impervious drives increase the risk of surface water flooding.

Unpave the Way aims to educate and inspire householders to include permeable driveways, consider the use of sustainable drainage components (SuDS), collect and store rainwater for reuse, and to encourage climate resilient planting schemes into their front gardens.

According to the RHS

25% of houses in the UK have impermeable front gardens

Tarmac does not make a difference

WRONG !!! It increases the flood risk as there is cumulative pressure being placed on highway draims and sewer infrastructure, as well as watercourses, which leads to more incidences of flooding. Many people in the village complin about the highway drains – many of these are causing it. Impermeable front gardens increasing the volume and speed of surface water run off during rainfall, meaning that more surface water, that would otherwise naturally be soaked up by greenspaces, is being discharged into drainage and sewerage systems. This can increase flood risk for householders, neighbours, and communities.

Removing the greenery stops natural infiltration of both water and pollutants allowing the pollutants to flow into highway drains where they are not naturally leached into the soil and dispersed.

Destroying biodiversity

Having a greenspace increases the amount of wildlife in the garden and the neighbourhood. Removing this destroys the habitats and feeding grounds for wildlife, leading to species decline.

Why are people removing their front gardens?

These are some of the reasons that people have given in Great Eccleston

• Creates a low maintenance space
• Vehicles are getting larger  garages become too small and on street parking becomes an issue.  
• 
• Electric cars demanding a charging point attached to the house. 100 drivers interviewed said they would remove their front garden as they had a n electric car. 
• Demand for off street parking
• I won’t get flooded attitude
• Its cheaper to tarmac