Time to park the double garage, says green guru
BUILDING homes with double garages for more than one car is old-fashioned and may harm the environment, a Government adviser has warned.
The cities of the future should not be filled with two-car homes, according to sustainability expert Stefanie O’Gorman, who said construction of houses with double garages drove her ‘bonkers’.
She said that to help ensure families don’t need more than one car per household, neighbourhoods should be planned to provide amenities such as shops and schools close by so they don’t need to travel too far and can go on foot or by bike.
Speaking at Edinburgh Science Festival, Miss O’Gorman, director of sustainable economics at civil engineering firm Ramboll who has advised the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on green spaces, said: ‘Whole communities being a certain number of people with a certain number of cars is just not acceptable any more.’
Speaking afterwards, she added: ‘Designing new homes with double garages doesn’t consider the social and cultural changes taking place as we adapt our lives to live more sustainably... we can’t afford for everybody to have two cars.’
Responding to her comments, the AA’s Luke Bosdet said many families ‘need two cars’, and double garages ‘avoid paving over flowers and grass’ and ensure ‘streets are not filled with cars parked up on pavements’.
He added: ‘There is a wider problem – to find affordable housing, people have to live further out... and then they need their cars for daily trips.’ Britain has an estimated 11million garages, but an RAC study last year suggested more than half did not have cars in them – twothirds using them for storage.
Miss O’Gorman, who also advises the Scottish government on climate change, further called for communities to be designed where people could stay their whole lives.
The talk also discussed a return to renting colour televisions and sharing power tools.