The most spacious areas to own a property with a garden space have been unveiled in a new study – three of the top five are in the South West of England.
The cost of homes for first-time buyers has reached unprecedented levels, making it challenging for people to meet the soaring mortgage expenses. Nonetheless, for numerous families, the presence of a garden space is a crucial factor in determining the location to start their new life journey.
Due to this, MG Timber and Online Marketing Surgery have created the Garden Space Report which ranks areas in United Kingdom based off their outdoor space area, revealing the best areas to buy houses with a garden.
Key Findings:
🏡Cornwall is the best area to buy a house with a garden space as they have the highest private outdoor space with 103,535,976m2.
🏡 The City of London is the area in the UK that has the lowest amount of home private green space with only 380m2.
🏡Three of the top five areas with the highest green space are from the South West of England and four of the five areas with the least garden space are in the London area.
🏡South East of England is the highest region for outdoor space with 1,213,603,579m2 and the North East of England is the lowest garden space region with 213,865,110m2.
🏡Great Britain has a total of 6,770,160,237m2 green space area.
Top 5 areas to buy a house with garden space (m2)
- Cornwall – 103,535,976m2
The county on the southwestern tip has the most home garden space in the United Kingdom with a massive 103,535,976m2. This is significantly higher than any other area, with them having over 15,000,000m2 more green space area than the second ranked place. The current population of Cornwall is 572,010, which is the 5th largest authority in England.
- Wiltshire – 87,565,954m2
Another county in the South West of England is on the list, with Wiltshire having a garden space area of 87,565,954m2. The latest Census shows Wiltshire to have a total population of 510,300, an increase of 8.4% from 470,981 in 2011. Swindon and Trowbridge are the two largest settlements.
- Dorset – 74,818,900m2
With a population of 379,584, Dorset is the third county with the most home green space at 74,818,900m2. The most popular towns in the area are Poole, Weymouth and Swanage due to their sandy beaches.
- Birmingham – 71,740,420m2
Birmingham is the highest populated area on this list, with 1,141,186 people living in the city, only below London. They also have one of the highest amounts of home green space in the country, with a total 71,740,420m2 area.
- Shropshire – 68,912,080m2
Shropshire rounds out the top five list, with the area having a home green space area of 68,912,080m2. Like Birmingham, Shropshire is in the West Midlands region and has a total population of 323,600.
Top 5 areas with the least home garden space (m2)
- City of London – 380m2
There might be no surprise with the City of London having the lowest amount of home garden space with just 380m2. This is significantly lower than any other area, with it being over 400,000m2 less than the second lowest place. With it being the capital of England, it’s dominated with service industries so green areas in the centre would be less to come by.
Photo taken by Joshua Ng.
- Isles of Scilly – 438,206m2
The archipelago off the Cornish coast ranks as the area with the second least home green space with a total area of 438,206m2. This area has the lowest population in the whole list with only 2,054 people.
- Westminster – 716,766m2
The Greater London borough of Westminster third for the least amount of home green space with 716,766m2 total area. This is the home of much of British Government, including the House of Commons. Also, the total population in this borough is 204,300.
- Tower Hamlets – 855,432m2
Tower Hamlet is another London borough that is situated on the north bank of the River Thames. Like the other areas in London, Tower Hamlet has one of the lowest home green space areas with an 855,432m2 area.
- Kensington and Chelsea – 971,252m2
The final area on this list is Kensington and Chelsea, an inner London Borough. This area has a home garden space area of 971,252m2.
Top 20 areas to buy a house with garden space (m2)
| Rank | Area | Garden Space Area (m2) |
| 1 | Cornwall | 103,535,976 |
| 2 | Wiltshire | 87,565,954 |
| 3 | Dorset | 74,818,900 |
| 4 | Birmingham | 71,740,420 |
| 5 | Shropshire | 68,912,080 |
| 6 | Highland | 65,521,111 |
| 7 | Aberdeenshire | 61,829,210 |
| 8 | Cheshire East | 59,674,455 |
| 9 | Leeds | 57,691,085 |
| 10 | East Riding of Yorkshire | 53,916,008 |
| 11 | Cheshire West and Chester | 50,312,746 |
| 12 | East Suffolk | 48,740,809 |
| 13 | County Durham | 46,935,687 |
| 14 | Castle Point | 46,532,625 |
| 15 | Wealden | 46,452,986 |
| 16 | Herefordshire, County of | 46,039,978 |
| 17 | Northumberland | 44,442,982 |
| 18 | Sheffield | 39,851,566 |
| 19 | Fife | 39,189,095 |
| 20 | Carmarthenshire | 37,411,793 |
Top 20 areas with the least home green space (m2)
| Rank | Area | Garden Space Area (m2) |
| 1 | City of London | 380 |
| 2 | Isles of Scilly | 438,206 |
| 3 | Westminster | 716,766 |
| 4 | Tower Hamlets | 855,432 |
| 5 | Kensington and Chelsea | 971,252 |
| 6 | Islington | 1,205,022 |
| 7 | Hammersmith and Fulham | 1,520,100 |
| 8 | Camden | 1,719,218 |
| 9 | Hackney | 1,978,745 |
| 10 | Southwark | 3,364,092 |
| 11 | Lambeth | 4,276,354 |
| 12 | Merthyr Tydfil | 4,316,403 |
| 13 | Harlow | 4,533,999 |
| 14 | Hyndburn | 4,592,727 |
| 15 | Wandsworth | 4,639,493 |
| 16 | Gosport | 4,751,793 |
| 17 | Haringey | 4,815,655 |
| 18 | Blaenau Gwent | 4,916,354 |
| 19 | Stevenage | 4,957,304 |
| 20 | Adur | 5,095,973 |
Methodology:
We used data from the Office for National Statistics around access to gardens and public green spaces in Great Britain. We download the recent ‘Access to garden space, Great Britain’ dataset and it pulled out the data for every area in the United Kingdom in an Excel spreadsheet.
From all the data registered, we pulled out the ‘private outdoor space total area (m2)’ section in the ‘Housing’ tab to find the places with the highest and lowest amount of home green space. This sorted the list from highest to lowest to create the rankings.
To find out the population of each area in both top five lists, we used data from the 2021 Census report which is the most recent publication on the population of each place in the UK.
