In response to Mr Hamilton (Letters, May 10), our letter about gardens (April 29) was not an attempt to "mislead" anyone at all.

It is a fact that "gardens are easier to concrete over than they used to be" due to the new planning regulations which classify gardens as brownfield sites.

This being the case, council planning committees which decide planning applications are no longer expected to view gardens as entities which should be protected.

Our letter focused on the general impression this Government gives, by seemingly having us believe gardens are a luxury of the past which future generations can ill-afford to enjoy.

We are effectively being told houses with gardens should always be sold to flat-building developers instead of families who desire a garden.

If we keep getting rid of gardens to build properties with no garden, we will see a huge diminution in garden space available.

In times of such alleged prosperity, should we not be enabling as many people as possible to have their own garden, for themselves, their children and their pets to enjoy?

Would this not be a defining image of the so-called "Opportunity Society" Tony Blair claims he is trying to build?

Doubtless the new communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, will dismiss our views as nimbyism rather than take them seriously.

We just want Ms Kelly and her party colleagues to, for one moment, consider the proposal that rapid building is not the only solution to a very complex housing problem.

For a start, there are hundreds of thousands of disused properties in England which desperately need to be brought back into use.

And there are hundreds of businesses which are desperate to loan or sell off surplus office space.

Could we not at least look at making more efficient use of existing building stock before bulldozing our gardens into the dustbin of history?

-Councillors Oxley, Cobb, Barnett, Brown, Kemble and Young