how to create quality parks & open spaces foreword This government continues to believe that the quality of our public spaces has a profound effect on how people feel about their local area. We know that people want to live in places that are clean, safe, more attractive and welcoming. Places that encourage and foster greater social interaction and create stronger communities with a sense of belonging. Neighbourhoods where crime, anti-social behaviour and disrespect for people and the physical environment is not tolerated. Across government we are committed to delivering cleaner, safer and greener communities but we seek not just to repair and build. We work with and for local people to ensure that they have the powers they need to create communities which are thriving, cohesive and sustainable – places with better services and a commitment to building active and democratic communities at every level. I am therefore delighted to introduce updates to our ‘How to’ series of guides. First published in 2005 as part of our ‘How to’ programme, the guides have supported practitioners and local communities to take more effective and innovative action to improve the quality of their town centres, residential areas and parks and open spaces. The revised guides bring together information on the key activities across government that are helping to improve the quality of public spaces and highlight the tools and approaches that are already making a difference on the ground. We recognise that local authorities and their partners can face difficult challenges when delivering change on the ground. A key feature of the ‘How to’ programme is to demonstrate what can be achieved and challenge local authorities to raise their ambitions with the help of government and the support of their peers. These guides showcase a range of examples of where change really has been achieved, I hope these examples and the tools in the guide inspire you to consider how similar approaches might be adopted in your areas. Through the ‘How to’ programme we will continue to work with practitioners in local authorities and other bodies at all levels, to ensure they have the information they need to make their local environment a better place to live and work. By working together we can help create a sustainable community for all. Baroness Andrews OBE Communities and Local Government contents Part 1: Introduction 1.1 Overview 1.2 The challenge 1.3 National strategies for creating parks and open spaces Part 2: Strategic management 2.1 Leading local delivery 2.2 Assessing local needs and opportunities 2.3 Empowering communities 2.4 Creating effective partnerships 2.5 Making best use of resources 2.6 Measuring performance Part 3: Tackling issues 3.1 Creating quality parks and green spaces 3.1.1 Designing-in quality 3.1.2 Meeting community needs 3.1.3 Creating healthy spaces 3.1.4 Creating sustainable spaces 3.2 Maintaining quality spaces 3.2.1 Developing management plans 3.2.2 Managing sites for biodiversity and heritage 3.2.3 Managing cemeteries 3.2.4 Managing risk 3.2.5 Managing litter, other environmental crimes, dogs and other animal fouling 3.3 Encouraging greater use and better behaviour 3.3.1 Promoting greater use 3.3.2 Enhancing access to parks and open spaces 3.3.3 Promoting positive behaviour in parks Part 4: Summary 4.1 Actions 4.2 Powers and tools 4.3 Glossary Part 1 Part 1 Introduction Introduction 1.1 Overview 1.2 The challenge 1.3 National strategies for creating parks and open spaces 1.1 Overview This guide is part of our wider How to programme which provides free events, This guide is for people who want to online support and examples of good improve our parks and open spaces. It is for practice for people who are trying to managers and practical frontline staff who improve public space. There are also guides are involved in planning, designing, on How to manage town centres and How managing, maintaining or using parks to improve residential areas. and green spaces: For more information on the ‘How to’ • Park managers programme and the Cleaner Safer Greener Communities initiative of which this guide • Rangers and wardens is a part, please visit our website: www.cleanersafergreener.gov.uk • Planners • Designers • Landscape architects • Community leaders • Members of ‘friends of’ groups • Voluntary groups • Environmental services teams. This guide gives an introduction to strategic elements of improving parks and green spaces and explains how it is necessary to use a holistic approach to improving these areas. It provides practical options for achieving better services and signposts where more information and guidance are available. Included are: • Policy and factual background to set this subject in context 1.1 Overview • The main issues and the methods available to address them • Case studies to illustrate success. 1.2 The challenge • Good quality green spaces offer a range of social, environmental and economic issues • Following decades of decline, the quality of green spaces is improving, and more people are satisfed with their local park. Why is Cleaner Safer Greener important? The Cleaner Safer Greener agenda recognises that the quality of people’s experience of public spaces has a major impact on their quality of life, affecting their sense of well-being and defining how they feel about the places where they live. It highlights the strong relationship between levels of deprivation in an area and the condition of the local environment, making connections to poor health, crime and the breakdown of communities, and other factors that help sustain poverty. This link is further established as a significant factor in determining improvement or decline of a neighbourhood. Changing this cycle – by improving Cleaner Safer Greener elements within communities – will improve people’s quality of life and provide an opportunity for continued prosperity. Quality green spaces High quality green spaces are of immense value. For the 33 million people who visit them each year, they are places to exercise, relax, play, learn, socialise, rest, walk, cycle, or to use as outdoor classrooms to learn about the natural world. These spaces benefit Since the late 1990s greater priority has the economy, the community and the been given to the quality and future of environment. The benefits include cleaner urban green spaces. There has been more air, healthier local economies, reduced flood investment, more direction and support and risk and stronger communities. High quality an increasing range of good practice. green spaces have been shown to: • Support the local economy, making neighbourhoods more desirable What is green space? • Enhance physical and mental health In this guide, we use the term ‘green space’ to cover a range of managed and more natural • Benefit children and young people spaces which are open to the public. The • Reduce crime and fear of crime guide is not concerned with – although its content could be applied to – the management • Help make stronger communities of rural fields, national parks, or similar open • Help people move around spaces or streets, squares and other hard neighbourhoods and towns public open spaces. Planning Policy Guidance Note 17 (PPG 17) sets out a typology for • Enhance biodiversity and defining open spaces. the environment. • Parks and gardens, including For more information about the value of urban parks, country parks and public space, see The Value of Public Space: formal gardens how high quality parks and public spaces create economic, social and environmental • Natural and semi-natural urban green value, CABE Space 2004. spaces, including woodlands, urban forestry, scrub, grasslands, wetlands, Green spaces are important to everyone – open and running water, wastelands not just those responsible for their quality but and derelict open land all those who want to improve well-being. • Green corridors, including river and However, as shown by the Urban Green canal banks, cycleways, and rights Spaces Taskforce report (2002) the quality of way of parks and green spaces in England • Outdoor sports facilities – owned suffered a period of long-term decline publicly or privately, and with natural throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s, creating or artificial surfaces – including tennis 1.2 Thechallenge a cycle of neglect caused by: courts, bowling greens, sports pitches, • An increasing backlog of repairs golf courses, athletics tracks, and and maintenance playing fields • An uncertain future and policy • Amenity green space – often around framework housing – including formal recreation spaces, domestic gardens and • A lack of good practice village greens • Declining and inefficient use • Provision for children and teenagers, of resources including play areas, skateboard parks, • Falling morale and skills. outdoor basketball hoops, and informal ‘hanging out’ areas and teenage shelters • Allotments, community gardens and urban farms • Cemeteries and churchyards • Accessible countryside in urban fringe areas • Civic spaces, including civic and market squares, and other hard- surfaced areas designed for pedestrians. This guide covers the first nine types of space covered in Planning Policy Guidance (PPG17). Improving civic spaces, streets and town centres are covered in the accompanying ‘How to’ guides on Town Centres and Residential Areas. Emerging trends The National Audit Office study on enhancing urban green spaces (March 2006) and subsequent Public Accounts Committee report (October 2006) showed that the decline in green spaces had been halted, and turned around in many places, and we want to continue to build on this success, embed progress and spread the benefits more widely. For example, the number of Green Flag Awards gained annually in England has risen from seven in 1997/98 to 409 winners in 2006/07 across 167 local authority areas. People have also become happier with their local green spaces – in 2003/4, 71% of them were satisfed with local parks and open spaces – up from 63% in 2000/1.