We need to talk about SLOAPs: Sites Leftover After Planning

What It Covers

Soam Deh and Valerie Baron examine SLOAPs (Sites Leftover After Planning) on UK housing estates, arguing these fragmented green spaces represent 30-40% of estate land that could be retrofitted for biodiversity, food growing, and community use.

Key Questions Answered

• •Quantifying wasted space: Desktop research reveals 30-40% of housing estate land sits unused as defensible open spaces between buildings, sometimes totaling the size of a football pitch per estate, yet residents pay management fees just for grass trimming without meaningful purpose or community benefit.
• •Access barriers: Ground floor residents lack direct street-facing doors due to defensible space design, creating inactive streets that feel unsafe, which perpetuates a cycle preventing conversion of adjacent leftover spaces into accessible private gardens or communal amenities that residents could actually use and maintain.
• •Retrofit menu approach: Different sized leftover spaces require tailored interventions—hard standing pavements become rain gardens or linear swales, small square patches transform into mini ponds, creating a connected network of green infrastructure patches and corridors that address flooding, biodiversity, and food security simultaneously.
• •Community stewardship model: Successful projects like Edible Estates in Bankside (thriving 16 years later) and Hammersmith-Fulham's EU-funded climate proofing demonstrate that combining community engagement, local skills training, and resident ownership of design processes creates sustainable management without relying solely on stretched council budgets for maintenance.