If you are one of the many people who have been driven (pardon the pun) to ripping up your lawn turf and replacing it with a concrete or tarmac driveway, it may interest you to know that this activity has lead to an increased risk of home flooding in areas where flood water is already a problem.
The reason for this is simple. Lawn turf is a very effective way of absorbing, filtering and releasing water back down in to the water-table at a steady but continuous rate. This means that at any one time, your lawn not only acts as the perfect place for you and your children to relax and play, it serves as an important part in the mechanics of natural water management.
Clearly no-one blames those who require parking space. At a time when increased parking restrictions and residential parking schemes have been implemented across various parts of the UK, it is understandable that public parking space is at a premium – and premiums usually mean someone has to spend more money. In difficult financial times, money is not so readily available and of course many look for ways to save money.
However, there are alternatives that can give you a hard standing front garden, whilst still retaining what some environmentalists would consider an essential part of urban flood management.
Firstly it is possible to retain your lawn turf whilst only using enough hard tarmac, stone or brick for your car wheels to sit on. If you think about it for a few seconds (this is about as long as it should take), for the entire area that your car takes up on this earth, it is only four small narrow points that touch the ground at any one time. And with the functionality of the steering wheel, you could drive your car accurately over a small area of ground without the need to tarmac an entire front lawn.
There are also alternative hard core products and techniques that can be used which are porous and will enable adequate water absorption and release back into the water table in a controlled way, helping prevent flooding at home and in the water drainage system. Such hard core products can include brick or stone based products that have been manufactured especially for the job.
Many people might simply want to revert the decisions made by past owners or themselves and opt to re-lay their lawn turf so that an original lawn can be enjoyed by all at home in the way that they used to be.
