Dundee has highest proportion of homes without gardens in Scotland

DUNDEE has the highest proportion of homes without a garden in Scotland – with more than one fifth of addresses having no access to private outdoor space.

As households face lockdown measures restricting them to their own properties, data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed the areas where residents suffer the most from a lack of garden.

Doing the weeding or cutting the grass has been shown to have a positive effect on wellbeing and mental health campaigners reacted to the statistics by calling for more action to give people access to green spaces.

When broken down by local authority area, Dundee City topped the league table with 21% of addresses lacking a garden – almost double the Scottish average of 11%.

Dundee was followed by Glasgow City and then Argyll and Bute where both council areas recorded that 19% of homes don’t have a garden.

Argyll and Bute had a high percentage of homes without a garden, despite being a rural area.

But the local authority’s closeness to the countryside was reflected in the average size of garden, which was found to be a spacious 783 square metres.

That contrasted with t he 235 sq m gardens in Glasgow and 286 sq m in Dundee.

The areas that were most generous in terms of outdoor spaces included Aberdeenshire, Moray, the Western Isles and Fife where just 9% of homes did not have a garden.

In Highland, 12% of homes did not have a garden, just a little less than Angus (13%) and Perth and Kinross (14%).

Toni Giugliano, senior policy manager at the Mental Health Foundation, said more should be done to help those without gardens.

“Staying as active as possible, both indoors and outdoors, during Covid-19 will help give us structure and reduce stress but research suggests that physical activity in green spaces has greater positive effects on wellbeing compared to physical activity indoors,” he said.