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European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research - COST Action C11 |
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Problems with Urban Parks in the UK The state of
the Urban Parks and Greenspaces of UK cities has at
last been recognised as a major issue to be
addressed by central and local government . A major
investigation has been underway for the last
year. To help the
group understand the background to the concern
about the decline of the urban park the following
paper, which gives a short overview of the issues,
has been added Anne R.
Beer URBAN
PARKS Feb
2002 A version of
this paper is in press for publication in
Danish The
background to the decline of the urban park in
Britain&endash; the impact of over twenty years of
neglect on the quality of parks and
greenspaces Anne R. Beer,
Emeritus Professor University of Sheffield,
Environmental Planner Introduction This paper aims
to highlight some of the problems that have
occurred in Britain in relation to urban parks and
open space. It looks in particular at what has
happened as ideas about privatisation have taken
hold and local authorities (the agencies
traditionally responsible for looking after parks
and greenspaces) have struggled to meet
increasingly stringent controls on spending.
It is important
for european readers to be aware that there are
substantial differences in the relationship between
local and central government in different
countries. At least since the changes that began to
occur from the early 1980s, when the government led
by Mrs Thatcher was in power, central government in
the UK has taken almost total control of the amount
of money local authorities may raise in taxes and
their spending. In the UK locally raised taxes are
a small proportion of the total tax on an
individual and central government, therefore,
directly subsidises local authorities through
allocating a part of the general national tax take
to them. There is now a very high degree of central
control over how that money may be spent at the
local level and despite government changes this
shows little sign of changing in any way that would
allow a vastly increased expenditure on parks and
open spaces. It is this lack of flexibility which,
in relation to publicly owned open space, has
ultimately meant that all local authorities have
had to cut back the funding available to manage and
maintain them. Some of the
present approaches that are being considered in
Britain for coping with the decline in the quality
of different types of publicly owned urban
greenspace, as well as with the issues raised in
applying the principles of privatisation to such
spaces, are outline below. The present
state of the parks Many of
Britain's traditional urban parks are in a
"disgraceful condition", according to a report
published in August 2001 (1) which had been
commissioned by the DTLR, EH ,CA* (the responsible
central government ministry and the
quasi-governmental Agencies with responsibility
among other things for the historic urban fabric
and the greenspaces on the urban fringe) together
with the Heritage Lottery Fund ( an official body
with responsibility for investing in schemes which
benefit local people by among other things funding
the restoration of historic parks). An audit
undertaken by the Policy Studies Institute for this
report revealed fewer than one in five of all parks
are in good condition. The report concluded that
82% of people in the UK do not now have access to
"good parks and open spaces" and that a total of
£3 500 000 000 (Euros 5 700 000 000) would be
needed just to restore urban open spaces to their
pre 1980 state. It should be noted that by 1980 the
parks and open spaces of British cities were
already viewed by many professionals as being in a
degraded state . It can be argued that the
aspiration to aim for a return to that level would
still not create urban parks of an adequate quality
to support the full range of needs of our expanding
urban populations. The present
poor state of urban greenspace in Britain is now
recognised as being the cumulative effect of 20
years of neglect. A neglect directly caused by the
cut backs in funding at local government level as
central governments sought to reduce public
expenditure. This was linked with the imposition of
a variety of privatisation initiatives all aimed at
reducing the cost to the public purse of a whole
range of tasks previously undertaken by local
authorities including planning, managing and
maintaining parks and other greenspaces.
The 2001 report
recognised that a cycle of decline in the quality
and usefulness of British urban greenspace
prevails. It emphasised that if this is not rapidly
reversed through a new approach, with additional
resources including funding it will be impossible
to reverse and have a devastating impact on the
quality of life in the cities. The DTLR has reacted
by setting up a special high level urban taskforce
chaired by a minister which is presently working on
the issues involved and will be reporting in 2002.
This report is available in full on internet
http://www.urban.dtlr.gov.uk/taskforce/index.htm
Lack of
information about urban greenspaces A decision in
the mid 1990s to allocate funds for the renovation
of historic parks of national importance made the
official bodies involved realise the importance of
having a national picture of the state of the
nation's urban parks. For instance, no consistent
data were available in 1996 when the Heritage
Lottery Fund first started making money available
available to renovate historic (a term which in
this context can be taken to apply to all urban
parks built before 1914 and a few well designed
traditional parks built after that time)..
It is perhaps a
curiously British thing, that many of the early
urban parks, and almost all those now described as
of national or local historic importance, were
areas of land legally given "in Trust" to their
city by their original owners (often wealthy local
industrialists in the late 19th early 20th
centuries). These areas were given in effect as
presents to the citizenry and for their perpetual
free use. This situation has luckily made it
impossible for anyone to propose applying the
principles of privatisation in what might otherwise
have seemed the most logical way &endash; that is
by charging directly for admission and use of
facilities. It is also a situation which has done
much to protect such areas of open land from the
grasp of developers. There is no
accurate information about the quantity or quality
of non historic parks and greespaces in the UK. The
situation is only a little better today since the
publication of the Public Parks Assessment report
in 2001 (1). Prior to 2001 there were no reliable
data on numbers, areas, location or on the
condition of the historic urban parks ( even though
most of them were under local authority control)
and even now the data is patchy and inconsistent.
This situation occurred in Britain mainly because
the provision of parks and open spaces has never
been a statutory obligation on British local
authorities. Any spaces that have been provided and
maintained by a local authority were looked after
on a general assumption that it was a "good thing
for the public" to have parks and recreation
grounds, rather than because of any nationally
accepted "standards of provision". There were many
attempts to draw up agreed national standards from
the 1930s onwards (see National Playing Fields
Association - http://www.npfa.co.uk ) but no
government did more than imply it would be nice if
local authorities tried to meet these in their
planning proposals. The figures on
the numbers of parks produced by various bodies
differ greatly. For instance, ten years ago the UK
Audit Commission estimated the number of parks and
open spaces in UK towns at 34,553, of which 5500
were described as formal Park (a term which perhaps
can be taken to coincide with the present term
"historic park") . A further 17,300 parks and
gardens were identified as being in the ownership
of private bodies. However, another survey by CIPFA
(the Local Authority Accountants) estimated that
there were 123,000 parks. The final agreed figure
is still awaited despite recent efforts to gather
more and more detailed data from local authorities
&endash; a major problem has turned out to be that
if there is no parks department no one seems to
hold the required data. So to make a true estimate
of the scale of the problem is difficult &endash;
one can only say it is massive and that it has been
estimated that 82% of the do no live near good
quality parks. Of the parks in
the 2001 survey (1) 12 per cent were defined by
their managers as in good condition, 63 per cent in
fair condition and 25 per cent in poor condition.
It was further established that the condition of
the majority was in decline. This initial survey
was very superficial and cannot therefore be
regarded as reliable, however, it does confirm the
general impression that the condition of parks is
poor and often worsening and that urgent action is
needed to reverse the present situation. .From this
survey it also appears that the "good" parks are on
the whole getting better while the "poor" parks
worsen as local authorities support "prestige"
sites at the expense of the less noticeable areas
of land. Perhaps a reason that few tourists would
realise the true state of affairs &endash; seeing
only the well maintained sites. Declining
budgets, Compulsory Competitive Tendering and the
impact on greenspaces. Although park
revenue budgets decreased by about 20% between 1980
and 2000 it is now possible to see that dramatic
cuts in parks authority budgets, in real terms
allowing for inflation, also took place in the five
years leading up to the period of the Thatcher
government. There is no doubt that these cuts were
already causing problems for parks maintenance
staff when they were followed by central government
enforced reductions in the period 1979/85. By the
time of the 1989/95 reductions in budgets, the full
impact of CCT (compulsory competitive tendering)
was helping further reduce money available for
parks. Budget cut backs and CCT combined to result
in the destruction of a very high proportion of
parks departments. The result was that staff with
skills in looking after greenspace were subsumed
into other departments or made redundant in large
numbers. By the end of
the 1990s few local authorities had any senior
members of staff with any training in or
understanding of the special needs of greenspace or
parks . So there was no one to argue the interests
of greenspace against other seeminly more important
factors in the internal decision making which is
involved in the allocation of budgets within a
local authority. The loss of skilled parks officers
as well as greenspace workers can now be seen to
have had disasterous consequences for the quality
of the urban greenspaces. This in turn has had a
direct impact on the quality of life in many
cities. A situation which is in direct
contradiction to government's stated intentions to
improve the livability of cities as the focus of
their drive to get more people to live in city
centres and reduce commuting. Much of the
work undertaken in earlier decades by Parks
Department staff has now been privatised. While it
can be argued by accountants that this process did
save public money (which on paper it did); if the
result is such a decline in the quality of those
greenspaces in which the public takes such pleasure
and which they recognise does so much to enhance
the quality of urban life, it is very doubtful that
the result of applying CCT to greenspaces can be
viewed as satisfactory. "Best Value"
criteria have recently bee introduced to support
decision taking relating to awarding contracts
(private or public. This was as a result of
increasing disquiet about the impact of CCT in
relation to a whole range of local authority work -
where the cheapest bid won the contract and quality
depended on how well the tender documents had been
drafted by the local authority staff. Using "Best
Value" in theory gives a chance to take into
account the quality of the end product, the likely
the impact on the users as well as the
sustainability of the work the contractor proposes
to do not just the total cost. The use of the "Best
Value" system for contracts has been viewed as a
particularly important change in relation to
looking after greenspaces. It has, however, not
been in use for long enough to be able to judge its
success in reversing the decline in quality so
visible in so many greespaces. For it to be
effective in relation to greenspaces, high caliber
inhouse staff with a good understanding of the
special needs of greenspaces, their users and their
particular maintenance and management problems will
be needed. A major problem is that the shake-out of
such staff over the last 10 years means many local
authorities such skills. An additional complication
is that there is some evidence that central
government is not too happy about the almost
inevitable increase in costs to the local authority
budgets of applying this "Best value" modification
to the contract procedure, so it remains to be seen
whether this too will be superseded. Renovation
and regeneration of greenspace Different
approaches are being developed for different types
of greenspace. Perhaps the most successful so far
has the work on those historic urban parks
classified as of national importance. Developing
approaches to the renovation of Historic urban
parks The Heritage
Lottery Fund launched the urban parks programme in
1996. Grants totalling £50m (79m Euros) were
awarded during the first three years of the scheme.
It has proved so popular that of the current awards
stand at £230 million. This programme runs
until the end of 2002. It is at present unclear
what will happen next and from which sources
further funding can be expected. Under a separate
scheme, the production of an historic landscape
survey and restoration plan for each of 135
historic parks identified as of national importance
is under way. This is costing £1.6m (2.4m
Euros) of national lottery money. By 2002 grants
have been awarded to 161 parks - on average
£1.4 m (2.2m Euros) per park. The major
expenditure has been on renewing hard landscape
features and the replacement of worn-out buildings
and facilities. Only a small proportion has been
spent on other vital elements such as plant
material, new staff posts and better security. It
should be noted that the Heritage Lottery Fund
monies can only be "unlocked" for use if at least
25% of the sum is raised from local funding which
includes donations by local businesses. To see an
illustration of this process, visit the Sheffield
Botanical Gardens website - http://www.sbg.org.uk.
Developing
approaches to the renovation of the "other" urban
greenspaces It is
particularly noticeable that little money is or has
been available for those parks which are not
defined as nationally or locally significant
historic parks . At present most of these "other"
parks are just being kept as tidy as local funds
allow, many only occasionally have the grass cut
and litter removed. It is these much more common
greenspaces accounting for 90% of all urban open
spaces in terms of numbers of parks that need to be
improved very urgently, but where can the money
come from? It is just such spaces private
enterprise will not be interested in funding
&endash; there is no prestige to be had in such
work. Local people may on occasion come together to
undertake a renovation or restructuring project on
a specific space but research from many countries
has shown that such involvement, which relies on
individual enthusiasm, is almost always
transitory. There is clear
evidence that some local authorities manage their
limited funding better than others &endash; this is
being studied at present by the DTLR Committee on
"Green Spaces, Better Places" ( interim report is
available on internet :
……………….. ) The same
committee is determined to encourage good practice
by desseminating information about what has worked
well in different situations. Their aim is to draw
up Best Practice Guidelines to help local authority
staff and those to whom they sub-contract work on
parks and greenspaces. It is anticipated these will
include: ways of
evaluating the overall quality of provision and the
quality of individual sites help with
developing an understanding of the link between
greenspace with different characteristics and
people's values and aspirations in relation to
them, indications of
how enabling partnerships can be formed,
ideas about how
to create a "shared vision" for the future of a
space, so that it is possible to work towards
agreed goals for the financing and implementation
of a scheme, how to ensure
sustainability in all its aspects is considered in
the planning , design and management of
greenspaces. This includes using the potential of
greenspaces to support an often rich level of
biodiversity in urban areas. Developing
approaches for the decline in quality of London's
greenspaces As two thirds
of the surface area within Greater London's
boundaries are either greenspace or water - London
is one of the greenest cities in the world.
However, because much of this area is now
recognised as suffering badly from decades of
neglect. In 2000 the Greater London Authority set
up a The Greenspaces Investigation Committee to
develop an overview of the present state of
greenspaces in London. The research by this
committee showed that people care about their local
greenspace whether that space is in the form of
gardens, sports fields, parks or nature reserves.
The public was aware of an accelerating loss of
facilities and opportunities to use and enjoy
greenspace, an awareness exacerbated by the fact
that throughout the 1990s developers were
purchasing any corners and areas of greenspace that
they could legally get their hands on - for
instance, in an attempt to balance their budgets
many local authorities sold school playing fields
despite often intense opposition from local
populations. The committee's
research indicated that the public perception of
the deterioration in quality of greenspaces, when
studied as an aspect of user satisfaction was due
to: decline in
quality of open spaces, fear of crime
in open spaces, inadequate
staffing of those spaces all of which
were seen to be directly due to the lack of funds
to look after them and linked to the destruction or
diminution of the mechanisms whereby parks and
greenspace had been looked after in the past - the
Parks Departments. The committee
were amazed to find that even in 2001 no one knew
how much greenspace there was in London - each of
the Boroughs keeping differing records and placing
responsibility for the different aspects of
greenspace planning and management in a variety of
departments. They also identified a lack of data on
the condition of the spaces even for most of those
spaces for which there were records. They also
considered there was too little information on how
each space was used by local communities, who
looked after it and how and who pays for the
maintenance as well as how any necessary capital
works might be funded. The way
forward The enormity of
the task to reverse the decline of greenspaces and
parks in the UK has led to a series of government
and local government initiatives. These are based
on the growing understanding at all levels of
government that there is a need to protect and
defend greenspaces in the city from neglect as well
as development pressures (2). Most of the
initiatives have the brief to look for some way in
which things can be improved without the public
purse having to fund the improvements. As a result,
all the statements produced under these initiatives
inevitably stress that parks cannot be regenerated
by local authorities working on their own - the
capital and revenue funding is not there now and
probably will never be made available. Today, the
pronouncements from these initiatives state:
Whether this
stated ideal is "pie in the sky" or achievable
without the allocation of significant additional
finds remains to be seen. However one thing is
sure, different approaches will need to be applied
in working out how to solve the particular problems
of all the different types of greenspace found in
cities. While the public may, through a range of
financial mechanisms agree to be involved with
managing and maintaining their immediate local
greenspace (that adjacent to their home or their
children's school), and organisations of
enthusiasts may for a short time put the labour of
their members into voluntarily improving public
greenspace; in the end there are massive acreages
of greenspace crucial to people's perception of the
quality of life in their city and crucial to the
enhancement of urban biodiversity for which there
is no body other than the local authority capable
of initiating and doing the work . What happens to
these spaces in this era of privatisation? Will the
present idea that the private sector should be more
involved in the provision of resources, whilst
ensuring that advertising and business promotion do
not intrude on the public's enjoyment of such space
really be implementable? * DTLR =
Department of Transport, Local Government and the
Regions, EH = English Heritage, CA = Countryside
Agency (1) Public
Parks Assessment, 2001, Urban parks Forum, London.
Available on internet:
http://www.urbanparksforum.co.uk (2) Green
Spaces, Better Places &endash; Interim Report of
the Urban Green Spaces Taskforce, 2001, DTLR,
London. Available on internet:
http://www.urban.dtlr.gov.uk/taskforce/index.htm
Now superceded by Green
spaces: better places, published by the Department
of Transport Local Government and the Regions ,
London (May 2002) All rights
reserved - © A.R.Beer ,2002 To add your own definitions or ideas just email Anne Beer. |
Meetings Background Meetings Background |
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