When I came to live here many years ago it was a most beautiful estate, with neat gardens usually consisting of a lawn with flowers, shrubs and ornamental trees. In Spring the display of colours with the greenery was quite breathtaking.

The trend now of modernising the garden and widening the drives is an excuse to rip out the lawns and borders and replace them with block paving and gravel/pebble beds.

The end result is sheer ugliness and a downward slide to a very unsightly neighbourhood. Not only does it devalue particular houses but there is a knock-on effect for the immediate neighbours and the estate itself.

The comparison to what is happening to large city estates is an obvious one and represents a gloomy outlook for those who take a pride in their gardens.

The situation is not yet completely out of hand — there are still some very nice gardens and their owners are to be congratulated.
Some would argue that this trend reduces work commitments but in my experience it is the younger element which is largely responsible, and is indifference or laziness the real reason?

If this is not bad enough, some residents are failing to maintain the low walls bordering the pavements. This, together with widening the access drives, means that these walls are either not replaced, leaving an ugly gap, or horror upon horror, being replaced by a wooden fence.

And what about the environmental effect? Not only is it (literally) less green to remove these gardens, but it represents — to use a modern expression — a negative carbon imprint, and more importantly, if affects wildlife, birds in particular. Gardens with lawns and shrubs supply birds with insects, berries and fruit, whereas gravel is just gravel — ugly and uncompromisingly negative.

So far as I am aware, the Council has no power to intervene, but I am sure the original planners and builders of Kirkhill estate would be horrified at what is happening.

A RESIDENT
Name and address withheld by consent