UK’s cherished historic gardens and parks ‘under threat’ from ‘shameful’ Labour proposals.uk
EXCLUSIVE: Campaigners warn that proposed changes by Labour, ostensibly to make new developments easier to approve, threaten the future of cherished green sites.
Painshill in Surrey is one of the historic parks The Gardens Trust has helped save over the years (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Every week Linden Groves visits her local north London park that holds so many memories, from play dates as a child through to lockdowns, parenthood and more recently, marathon training. The importance of nature was instilled into Linden at an early age growing up in the 1970s, learning from her green-fingered grandmother in her garden and memorable trips to places brimming with flora and fauna.
“They mean everything to me,” Linden tells me, explaining how our rich culture of parks and gardens is as quintessentially British as William Shakespeare, cups of tea and fish and chips. Linden is one of the UK’s top garden historians, but now new Labour plans to speed up the planning system threaten to bulldoze some of the very sites she has dedicated her life to defending. She says the thought of this is unimaginable but as we chat, there is one phrase she keeps repeating: “Not on my watch.”
Linden Groves is concerned of the impact the proposals could have (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
“These places, they’re not here by magic, they’ve been carefully created and looked after for hundreds and hundreds of years, and once they’re gone, they’re gone,” she says passionately.
“It would be the equivalent of someone clearing out all of Shakespeare’s manuscripts and burning them because they were taking up space. I think we would look back in time and just feel ashamed of what we’d let our generation do.”
Linden works for The Gardens Trust, the UK’s only national charity dedicated to protecting and conserving the heritage of designed landscapes.
Linden Groves says Britain’s historic parks and protecting them “mean everything” (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
In 2024-25, it made almost 70 critical objections to planning applications, including schemes that would have seen more than 1,100 new homes built or affecting sites it protects.
But The Gardens Trust now warns the UK’s “grown crown jewels” are at risk, due to Labour proposals which the charity believes is aimed at making Angela Rayner’s ambitious 1.5 million new homes pledge more achievable.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG) is launching a consultation on removing a number of statutory consultees – including The Gardens Trust – from the planning process.
Linden says this is “cutting the knees” of the very system designed to protect these adored landscapes, many of which are on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
Campaigners warn Labour plans could put Britain’s historic parks and gardens under threat (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Famous and historic places such as Birkenhead Park on Merseyside, Chatsworth House Gardens in Derbyshire and Highgate Cemetery in London are among the more than 1,700 sites on the register – The Gardens Trust warns that without their expertise, in theory all could be under threat from housebuilders, developers and highway construction.
The home of the famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Royal Hospital, Chelsea, is also on the list. Alistair Griffiths, the RHS’s director of science and collections, said the society is “deeply concerned” by the proposals.
“This decision risks removing protections for the thousands of historic parks, gardens and landscapes across the country at a time when the importance of green spaces for wellbeing, biodiversity and climate resilience has never been clearer,” he says.
“No one is in any doubt that the drive to build more homes is much needed but their creation should not be to the detriment of much treasured green spaces, particularly when there is no national requirement for new developments to include any provision of gardens.”
This sentiment was echoed by Ian Sansbury, CEO of nature mental health charity Mind Over Mountains. “We know both from experience and from the weight of clinical evidence that green spaces are absolutely vital to people’s wellbeing and should be protected,” he explains.
“Not on my watch,” says Linden of the proposals (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
The Gardens Trust’s role as a statutory consultee costs the taxpayer less than £44,000 per year. It says that if it did not carry out this work, the cost to local authorities to plug the gap could be more than £30 million.
The charity’s chair John Watkins said no other body can offer what The Gardens Trust does, warning removal of its statutory consultee status is “potentially devastating for the conservation and use of parks and gardens nationwide”.
“Local planning authority resources relating to the historic environment is extremely limited, especially in relation to parks and gardens,” he explains.
“If they make planning decisions in a vacuum of information about the impact on parks and gardens then the result is likely to be poor quality development and missed opportunities to make the most of the nation’s ready-made green infrastructure, which is an irreplaceable resource.
“The loss of our input into planning decisions will lead to an increased lack of understanding of key issues by the planning authorities and that lack of understanding will, over time, increase the risk to many valued public parks and treasured designed landscapes throughout the country.
“The Government is rightly focusing on building much-needed housing but it needs to also focus on building communities which embrace green spaces, instead of destroying them.”
The stunning Painshill welcomes around 250,000 visitors per year but was previously in a poor state (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
The Gardens Trust helped to save Painshill in Surrey (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
One garden the charity helped to save is the stunning 18th-century Painshill in Cobham, Surrey, which is perhaps most famous as the filming location for the Netflix show, Bridgerton. Today, Painshill is at the heart of the local community, welcoming 250,000 visitors a year.
But in the 1980s, it was in a poor and neglected state and risked being lost forever until The Gardens Trust stepped in. The charity helped restore it to its former glory in what was the UK’s first major reinstatement of a historic landscape.
Michael Symes from the Painshill Trust describes the restoration as “pioneering”.
“[The Gardens Trust] had techniques from 1981 which had never been used for garden restoration in this country before,” he explains.
“Field archaeology, tree surveys, things like that. It was all because of a network of who were the experts and who were the knowledgeable people. The Gardens Trust is a great assembly of all these people.”
Michael Symes paid tribute to The Gardens Trust and their expertise (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Painshill has become an important part of the community since it was saved in the 1980s (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
The Gardens Trust has representatives in dozens of local communities across England and Wales.
Shadow MHGLC Minister Paul Holmes warned Labour’s proposals risk creating “resentment”.
“I support speeding up the planning process, but this must not come at the expense of local voices in the process,” he says. “There is a severe lack of detail in the plans so far. But what we have seen so far transfers too much power from the townhall to Whitehall and silences elected local councillors. Shutting local people out in favour of top-down housing targets is not the way forward. All that will build is resentment.”
For Linden and the small team at The Gardens Trust, the plans risk undoing everything it has stood for since it was established in 1966. She says the thought of history being built over is “shameful” and refuted suggestions the charity is slowing down the planning system, claiming it only makes objections in “really serious” cases.
Britain is “famous and envied across the world” for its parks and gardens, Linden Groves says (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
She warns of “poor decisions” if the charity’s statutory consultee status is removed.
“The UK is famous and envied across the world for the parks and gardens that we have because they’ve been created by really smart, clever people over hundreds and hundreds of years,” she says. “We’re famous for that and famous for how well we’ve looked after them, understood them and made sure they’re conserved and that society can move on taking these places with it, rather than building over it.
“There’s a real danger that the Government could end up, with the best intentions, building loads and loads of really needed housing, for example, but just because they don’t have the expertise, building it slightly in the wrong place, maybe slightly the wrong height, slightly the wrong design.
“We could end up with a lot of housing but in a really low-quality environment without the green space that we need to enjoy our lives.”
Linden Groves warns the proposals could be felt for centuries to come (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
It’s not just humans who could be affected by this, Linden says, warning of a “massive” impact on biodiversity. She believes if the charity was to lose its right to be part of the planning system, then it wouldn’t just be felt in the years to come but centuries down the line.
“It would be the kind of thing that people in hundreds of years’ time will really look back and think, ‘Do you remember that change? That was when things started to really go downhill in terms of quality of life’.”
Sport England and The Theatres Trust’s roles as statutory consultees could also be affected by the proposals.
An MHCLG spokesperson told the Express: “We will deliver 1.5 million homes while protecting green spaces, but we know that councils and developers report that the statutory consultation system is not working effectively and can stifle rather than facilitate sustainable development.
“That’s why the Government will reform the system to ensure it is sensible, balanced and does not create unintended delays, so we can build the homes people desperately need and deliver our Plan for Change.”
