W hen my parents-in-law, M&R, first moved into their 1930s semi several decades ago, all the houses in the cul-de-sac had front gardens. Birds frolicked, bees flower-crawled and butterflies butterfluttered. Lovely. Then a neighbour applied for a dropped kerb so he and he alone could park a car right outside his sitting room. The council thought this was a good idea, then so did a few more neighbours. Soon half the homes had chosen tarmac over wildlife and from there, as available street parking dwindled, the fait was well and truly accompli. Today there are only three front gardens left on the whole street, one belonging to M&R. What had once been a colourful patchwork of micro-wildernesses in suburbia is now a grey, butter-flutterless car park.

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