AN EPIDEMIC of new homes being built in gardens has lead to calls for planners to have more power to stop "garden grabbing".

Statistics obtained by Bournemouth West MP Sir John Butterfill reveal 46 per cent of new homes in Dorset are built on back gardens.

It comes amid concern about the number of flats being built in the area at the expense of family housing. In recent months multi-million-pound Poole homes have been bulldozed for flats, and in Bournemouth family homes in Charminster, Queen's Park and Boscombe have made way for higher-density housing.

Now councillors - and even a local developer - are calling for the government to change planning guidelines that demand high-density developments to meet housing figures, and classify gardens as brownfield sites.

Sir John said: "The loophole has led to mature family homes being demolished and replaced by apartment blocks and car parks covering the whole footprint of the site - house and garden included.

"Any time a council turns these down they are allowed at appeal on the instructions of Mr Prescott. It is disgraceful. These matters should be decided by locally-elected councillors who know what we need. We have lost control to central government and we need to reverse that."

Peter Charon, portfolio holder for housing at Bournemouth Borough Council, said: "Pressure needs to be put on the government to think carefully about those policies. If we could work within a slightly different framework then more planning applications might be refused in the confidence they would not be overturned at appeal."

Ann Stribley, chairman of the planning committee at Borough of Poole, said several refusals of applications for flats had been overturned.

She said: "Those figures don't surprise me in a place like Poole where we are hard up against the green belt."

She added: "We have no real answer to garden grabbing until the government respects local decisions."

Even developer Eddie Mitchell of Seven Developments said the government bias was wrong.

He told the Echo: "It worries me a little bit, being local. We have very few areas which are protected."

He added: "My fear is that in years to come they will be seen as overdeveloped."

The figures were revealed as a Conservative bill to close the planning loophole that defines gardens as brownfield sites comes back to the House of Commons on Friday.