It’s the season to protect our parks

For many, spring is a time for new beginnings: when the flowers start to bloom and, as we emerge rejuvenated from the gloom of a cold, hard winter, our thoughts inevitably turn to spending more time outdoors in our local parks and green spaces.

Here at Groundwork we’re asking people to think about their own urban oasis, what makes it special to them and urging them to love it or lose it. After all, details are already emerging of next year’s local authority budget figures and cuts to the maintenance of parks and outdoor spaces are the reality.

In the northwest, Liverpool Council has agreed a £6.1m cut in parks spending over the next two years. Just down the M62, Manchester Council plans to cut around £1.4m from its parks budget over the next two years in an effort to find total savings of £110m.

This picture is reflected elsewhere: Birmingham Council has agreed an annual parks spending cut of £180,000 until 2014, while Suffolk Council has agreed to cut almost 60% of its £717,000 parks budget.

So where is the money going to come from for green space maintenance? As any self-respecting parks manager will tell you, it doesn’t grow on trees. The government is continuing to say that it shouldn’t be from them, that the state needs to shrink. There is an implicit suggestion that the money should be found elsewhere, yet no indication as to where.

We don’t want green infrastructure to slip off the government’s agenda (love it or lose it!). Reflecting on this dilemma reminded me of the issues we faced back at the very beginning of Groundwork’s origins 30 years ago.

There was enormous urban tension in 1981, and when the then secretary of state for the environment Michael Heseltine went to Toxteth to get a sense of what was going on, he found deprivation in spades, indeed some would say he found slums. Manufacturing was in decline, and leaving a mess behind.  Unemployment was rife and, to boot, people were living in the shadow of asbestos-ridden factories. Not a tree, a patch of grass or a safe outdoor place for children to play within sight.

Out of this, the first Groundwork Trust – Groundwork St Helen’s – was born. The vision was to give the urban fringe, where the disused factories were sitting, back to nature wherever possible and to connect it to people living nearby and the people living nearby to it.

Green spaces are as vital to all of us now as they were then, and if we lose them then we not only renege on the progress that’s been made since those days of the early 80s, but we also increase the risk of the urban heat island effect, biodiversity loss, and a decrease in public health and wellbeing. We will lose a key ingredient in the Big, or if your prefer Good, Society.

I’m pleased to report that despite the rush to make significant savings, there are lots of examples of local authorities responding imaginatively to the cuts scenario.

In Bury, for example, Groundwork is partnering with Bury Council to support the Pimhole Regeneration Action Group: a community group that takes ownership of local problems and challenges – crime, the fear of crime, traffic related issues and environmental problems. Our emphasis here is on ‘enabling’ and not ‘doing’.  Over the past two years the group has transformed from a very small representative group into one that is fully constituted and achieves weekly attendance of up to 40 people.

This is very much in keeping with a recent joint report by CLES and Groundwork, which found that preserving public green space is crucial for stimulating social action and realising the government’s vision for the Big Society. Organisations such as Groundwork act as crucially important catalysts to social action in deprived communities; raising the local capacity, passing on skills, knowledge and understanding; motivating and sustaining interest and activity, supporting local people to address the problems they identify and helping them take control of local public spaces.

The report concludes with an analysis of the people who will get involved in bringing about improvements in their own neighbourhood – and why: enter the Narcissist; the Altruist; the Reluctant; the Hunter; the Escapist; the Gardener; the Searcher and the Escapist. Although it’s a bit of fun, these categories show that the reasons people choose to get involved are as varied as the green spaces themselves.

So, spring has sprung – let’s hope it inspires lots more creative thinking in order to ensure that each of us is able to blossom into playing a full and active role in the preservation of our own urban oasis.