Parks are much smaller in modern housing developments and the decline is making people feel cut off from nature and threatening their mental health, according to analysis of government data.
Developers have cut the amount of green space to cram in more homes, causing the average size of the nearest park for those built in the last decade to fall by 30 per cent since the 1990s and by 41 per cent since the 1930s.
The closest park in neighbourhoods dominated by housing built since 2009 is 36,200m2, or about five football pitches, compared with 51,400m2 in areas of 1990s housing and 61,500m2 for 1930s housing, the analysis of ONS data by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) think tank found.
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