What do you have in your front garden? Flowers or a Ford? Rhododendrons or a Rover?
It seems that more and more Brits are ripping up their lawns and paving over their garden to give themselves somewhere to park their cars. I must admit that my initial reaction is to be unsure whether this is a visual improvement or not.
I used to park my car on the street but I have been away from the UK from the UK for a while now and here absolutely no one does this. It seems a bit strange to me now when I watch Mr Bean or something equally high brow and I see so many cars parked on the street. It makes the streets seem a lot narrower and it just looks so insecure.
Millions of Gardens Paved Over
Now a good old RAC Foundation study has revealed that an astonishing 3 and a half million gardens have been ripped up and turned into gardens in the last 10 years in the UK. Maybe I need to start watching more modern TV programmes to see what a difference this makes.
The report confirms that the amount of front gardens which are concrete parking spaces is enough to make another 72 Olympic Parks. It seems that we can expect to see the number of garden parking spaces to keep on climbing from now on as well.
Of course, leaving aside safety and aesthetic qualities, a simple lack of space is a good reason why so many people now need park in their garden rather than out on the street like in the old days. Back in 1950 there were only 2 million cars in the UK, while the figure is now at 28.5 million and is expected to rise to 32 million in the next couple of decades.