YP Letters: Flood risk begins in your own front garden

LEEDS City Council leader Judith Blake rightly highlights the importance of tree planting and natural flood storage to provide flood protection, in her comments on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee report (‘Report calls for overhaul following Yorkshire floods’, The Yorkshire Post, November 2). I do hope that this will include measures to halt the destruction of the existing natural flood protection provided by our front gardens.

I am sure that the council is aware that Leeds was home to one of the pioneering studies demonstrating the flood risk associated with paving over front gardens. In 2008, a study into the extent and impacts of hard surfacing of domestic gardens showed significant increases in imperviousness with 75 per cent due to paving of front gardens.

The authors predicted this would cause an increase in the frequency and magnitude of flooding in the area.

The impact of this goes far beyond increasing flood risk, with environmental and public health effects such as the creation of urban ‘heat islands’, and destruction of habitat for animals and insects.

Tighter planning regulation with proper enforcement is needed to stem this wanton destruction.