One in ten do not have access to a garden

ONE in 10 families in Leicestershire has no access to a garden during lockdown.

Analysis from the Office for National Statistics has revealed that 10% of homes in Leicestershire have no access to a private or shared garden - affecting 45,388 families across the area.

The figure ranges from 7% of households in places like Oadby and Wigston, to 14% of homes in Leicester.

The variation is due to a greater density of flats in cities such as Leicester - where more than one in every four homes is a flat.

Flats are far less likely to have a private or even shared garden, with 47% of flats in Leicester having no access to one, compared to just 2% of houses.

Where there is a garden available for flats in the city, there will typically be three flats sharing it, on average.

The analysis also looks at garden availability at a neighbourhood level - areas with a population of around 7,200 people.

It shows that in one part of Leicester, 84% of households don’t have access to a garden.

Again, this is because most of the homes in the neighbourhood are flats. There is also variation in the average size of private outdoor space available across Leicestershire.

While homes in Melton typically have a garden that is 463m2, that falls to 166m2 in Leicester.

That compares to a national average of 333m2 across Great Britain.

Meanwhile, families living in areas that are less likely to have a private garden tend to be more likely to live close to a public park.

Parks and playing fields could be seen as especially valuable to those without access to a private garden, but some have closed temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic with people failing to maintain social distance from one another.

Nationally, one in eight households in Great Britain (12%) has no access to a private or shared garden - 3% of houses and 34% of flats.

White people are twice as likely as Black people to have a private garden, even when comparing people of a similar age, social grade and living situation.

People in semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations, casual workers and those who are unemployed are almost three times as likely as those in managerial, administrative, professional occupations to be without a garden.

Meanwhile, older people - at greater risk of severe illness from Covid-19 and advised to stay at home as much as possible - are among those most likely to have access to a garden.