People living in three small towns in Brabant may find themselves having to pay higher taxes if they decide to pave over their gardens, the AD said on Tuesday.

The towns of Aalburg, Werkendam and Woudrichem, which are being merged to form a single local authority area in 2019, have drawn up joint policy on dealing with water and drains. Their plan includes basing waste water taxes on the amount of tiled outside space a property has.

Tiling over gardens stops rainwater seeping away, causing flooding and other problems. The local waterboard has for years tried to encourage locals to replace tiles with plants but now the councils plan to go one step further, the paper said.

By linking the amount of tax to the amount of tiles, householders will become more aware of the need for earth, the officials say. Much still has to be decided, such has how the difference should be calculated and what the fees should be.

‘It is not going to happen immediately because there are still problems to solve,’ Aalburg alderman Pim Bouman told the paper. ‘First of all, we need to measure all the tiled areas. And then of course, people make changes and may take their tiles away. So we have to work out how to keep the information up to date.’