Tom Brake Fights to Keep Back Gardens

9.58.05am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 27th Jul 2007

From Left to Right, Stuart Wood, Mary Varrall, Julie Morris, Leslie Coman, and Tom Brake, hand in back garden petitions

On Wednesday afternoon, (25th July at 3pm) Tom Brake, MP, handed in petitions to the Department of Communities and Local Government, Eland House, Bressenden Place, with Leslie Coman, Liberal Democrat candidate for Christchurch and East Dorset, Julie Morris, Chair of the Campaigns Committee of Epsom & Ewell Liberal Democrats and Councillor on Epsom & Ewell Borough Council, Mary Varrall, who owns a garden design company, and Stuart Wood, Rother District Councillor (Bexhill Old Town Ward).

"Hands Off Our Back Gardens" is a campaign led by the Liberal Democrats to stop the Government from treating back gardens as "brownfield sites" for infill development. Petitions were signed on the "Hands Off Our Back Gardens" webpage (http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/backgardens), on leaflets distributed by the Liberal Democrats, and through volunteers collecting signatures in local high streets.

Tom Brake said of back gardens, "The Lib Dems have published a Bill in Parliament calling on the Government to protect back gardens and parkland from over-development. These local green spaces should be treated as the important "greenfield" sites they really are - not as old industrial sites as the Conservative and Labour Governments have labelled them."