Garden space comes at a sharply different price depending on where buyers live with London showing by far the widest gap in the cost of private outdoor space according to new research.
The study, by outdoor living specialist White Stores, compared average house prices across 340 UK local authorities with Ordnance Survey data on typical garden sizes, revealing stark regional contrasts in what homeowners pay per square metre of outdoor space.
London recorded the biggest disparity, with a price gap of more than £10,000 per square metre between its most and least expensive boroughs.
Kensington and Chelsea emerged as the priciest place for garden space in the UK, where an average home costs £1.18m but offers just 96.7 square metres of outdoor space. This puts the value of garden land at £12,252 per square metre.
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At the other end of the London scale is Croydon, which offers the most garden space for money in the capital. Average homes there provide 257.9 square metres of outdoor space at a cost of £1,582 per square metre, still leaving the borough well outside the UK’s cheapest areas overall.
The East of England recorded the second largest regional gap. Cambridge topped the region with garden space costing £2,122 per square metre, while Castle Point in Essex was the cheapest, at £268 per square metre, reflecting significantly larger average garden sizes.
Newcastle upon Tyne had the highest garden costs at £1,209 per square metre.
By contrast, the North East was the most balanced region. Newcastle upon Tyne had the highest garden costs at £1,209 per square metre, only around double the cost in Northumberland, where buyers pay £617 per square metre for much larger plots.
The cheapest garden space in Britain was found in Na h-Eileanan Siar in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, where typical homes offer more than 1,000 square metres of outdoor space at a cost of just £135 per square metre.
Emily Anne-Musk (main picture, inset), Buyer at White Stores, says: “Access to a garden is a non-negotiable for most people when buying a home, but it’s unlikely they are aware of the actual value of the land.
“The analysis shows the average cost of garden space in Great Britain is now £823 per square metre. Whatever you pay for it, the desire for outdoor space is universal and making that space your own is one of the real joys of homeownership.”
