THERE are bigger issues around, but let's push on. This week I am parking myself in the nation's front gardens.

According to warnings from Government advisers, too many front gardens are being replaced by concrete and cars.

A number of issues run off from this flattening of our front gardens, but what mostly runs off is water. Nowhere else for it to go, you see.

The Environment Agency is said to be worried about the modern trend for gardening in concrete, which it believes could leave our cities more prone to flooding.

There is a passing irony in such concerns arising just as our television screens were filled with alarming pictures from Cornwall, with vehicles being tossed around in a torrent of water like so many Matchbox cars.

Removing gardens in towns and cities is said to increase the threat of flooding during the thunderstorms we have experienced recently, something I know all about, having spent last week on holiday with Mr and Mrs Noah.

Apparently, front lawns provide a natural sponge for urban rainwater, allowing excessive rainfall to disappear gently, rather than pushing it off into the road so that the kids can get out their surfboards.

There is something to be said for the concrete garden. It reduces the likelihood of Alan Titchmarsh popping round to admire the beautiful blooms of the perennial oil stain.

No need to get out the lawnmower either, although some of us have front gardens that aren't big enough for a lawn, even if our small space does accommodate many plants, all known to me by their proper names, such as "Isn't that the tree-shaped thingey my mother gave you?"

Despite my attempted levity, I can think of nothing more depressing than streets full of concrete or Tarmac car parks where front gardens should be. Well, I'm sure I could think of something more depressing, but I want to discuss gardens here.

There can be few more down-heartening urban sights than a car shoved up outside a house where the garden used to be. In parts of some cities, most gardens seem to have been turned into private car parks.

How dispiriting - endless streets of houses with cars nosed up to the front doors.

I'm with the man from the RHS who was quoted in one national newspaper as follows: "It used to be somewhere you were proud of; it reflected status and that you were a respectable, law-abiding person."

This may seem to be a big claim for a small garden, but how much more uplifting it is to walk down a street in which all the front gardens are bursting with plants, flowers, grass and assorted gifts of nature.

All right, in built-up areas there will be other gifts too, such as discarded beer cans or litter dropped by those too moronic or rude to find a bin or even a pocket.

A street full of small, colourful gardens is a pleasure - and, more tellingly, a communal pleasure. The well-flowered front garden is agreeable to the owner and to anyone walking past, offering up colours and shapes to the eye; it makes an area a more pleasant one in which to live.

As I said earlier, this isn't a huge issue, but it is an important one, speaking as it does of a careless, scruffy, insular society, in which where we park our blessed cars is more important than anything else.

Parking in cities is a problem, I know: if you're not being fleeced for the privilege by the council, some passing yob is scrutinising your car, or scratching it.

But surrendering our precious strips of green to cars shouldn't be the answer.

There should be a better way to park the 32 million pieces of expensive tin that we drive around in.

Any suggestions?

Updated: 09:59 Thursday, August 19, 2004