Huge tracts of UK green space lost in five years to development

Nature and farmland equivalent in size to that of the New Forest - 604 sq km (233 sq miles) - was lost to concrete, bricks and mortar in the UK between 2018 and 2023, according to an investigation by the Guardian and European partners.

- Pamela Duncan Zeke Hunter-Green Sandra Laville

In the same period the loss of some of the most protected and special natural areas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, known as national landscapes, reached 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles), equivalent to 1,680 football pitches of natural land.

The analysis the outcome of a cross-border project by the Guardian, Arena+, the Norsk institutt for naturforskning (Nina), the Norwegian broadcaster NRK and nine other news outlets in 11 countries across Europe - estimated that natural areas equivalent in size to Cyprus were lost across the continent in the same period.

Britain was among the countries to lose the highest proportion of green space compared with its geographic size. It ranked fifth. The findings underline the tension and economic trade-off between environmental loss of natural capital from development and economic gains of residential and industrial development and their value to GDP.