[Don_1 (OP)]

The government are bringing in laws to make it necessary to obtain planning permission before having your front gardens paved.

See this clip from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7607736.stm

Regardless of whether this will alleviate flooding problems or not, which I accept it may, how will local authorities know if someone has hardlandscaped before or after the regulations come into force? Has Big Brother been watching us?

[Bored chemist]

Nosey neighbours will grass on you.

[RD]

how will local authorities know if someone has hardlandscaped before or after the regulations come into force?
Has Big Brother been watching us?    

Try putting your address into Google Earth, you may be able to see your lawn.

[Don_1 (OP)]

I don't know how often Google Earth is updated, but I did take a look.

I could see my neighbours red Renault Laguna, which he sold about a year or so ago, on his drive!

While you can see the difference between green lawn and stone, you cannot tell the difference between cemented slabs, for which planning permission will be required, and gravel laid on porous lining, for which planning permission will not be required.

[DoctorBeaver]

Nosey neighbours will grass on you.

Is that supposed to be a pun?

[Make it Lady]

Before google earth, a helicopter would fly over each region and take arial shots that would be kept on record until the next time the photographs were taken. I think the shots were done every three years but I'm not sure. We were told we had to take down a summer house as it had no planning permission. We were allowed to keep it if we could find evidence that it had been up for a certain number of years so we went to the library and found pictures on record.

[chris]

That sounds pretty harsh to force you to remove a summer house. Unless it was Brighton Pavilion (though not now!) why were they so fierce about it? Or is the property and grounds listed?

Chris

[Bored chemist]

Nosey neighbours will grass on you.

Is that supposed to be a pun?

It wasn't deliberate.

I think that the clue to how are they going to enforce this is in the fact that they are talking about front gardens. You can see them from the road- you don't need a helicopter or Google earth.

[techmind]

The government are bringing in laws to make it necessary to obtain planning permission before having your front gardens paved.

For many urban areas of the UK (and certainly the suburbs of north London), this is a case of the government closing the stable door long since the horse bolted. In one area with which I am familiar, possibly 70-80% of driveways have been covered with a substantially non-porus surface (for reduced maintainance and car-parking) over the past 15 years. The local authorities have also been complicit in replacing grass verges and shrubbery with tarmac.

Out in the country, a greater proportion of people still seem to have more of a sense of aesthetics and the time to tend a garden.

I suppose there are parts of the country which now are in the state north-London was a decade ago, so the new law may make some difference I guess.