UK gardens deliver large-scale benefits – new HTA report

The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) has published a new report on the benefits delivered by private gardens in the UK, highlighting the important role of landscapers who help create these spaces.

The Value of Gardens represents the first attempt to quantify the economic, environmental, and social contribution of the UK’s 22 million gardens, which cover an area equivalent to one-fifth of Wales and comprise 74% soft landscaping and 26% hard landscaping.

For instance, the report suggests that for every additional square metre of garden space, an extra £2.01 is spent on plants and other products supplied by the environmental horticulture industry.

Moreover, the HTA’s modelling shows that creating well-sized gardens for each of the government’s planned 1.5million new homes would deliver an additional £64billion in consumer spending as well as more green jobs and tax revenues.

In terms of environmental impact, the report says UK vegetation provides around £547million worth of urban cooling services annually, while 50% of consumers claim to feed, watch, or encourage wildlife in their gardens.

Gardens were also found to have a big impact on health and wellbeing, with 91% of UK adults saying green spaces make places pleasant to live in and 85% saying access to these spaces is important to them.

Based on these findings, the HTA also makes several policy recommendations in its report, for which BALI offers its own broad support:

• Creating a Government Office for Green Spaces to formally recognise the value of gardens.
• Ensuring there is a minimum of 29.5% garden density in all new housing developments.
• Unlocking biodiversity net gain and planning barriers for horticulture businesses to deliver green growth.
• Recognise the role of horticulture in climate change resilience, through supportive R&D, technology, regulation and policy for the sector.
• Reframe action around reacting to drought as water resilience with industry grants and public messaging that doesn’t penalise gardening.