It’s rare that a parish council decision causes an outcry that permeates the upper echelons of Westminster. However, Stoke Gifford Parish council in South Gloucestershire hit the headlines when it voted to charge Parkrun for the use of Little Stoke Park early this spring. The council has stuck to its guns, though, and continues to do so, even after securing £750,000 to upgrade facilities at the park and ‘increase sports participation for the local community’.
A run for their money?
While a ‘right or wrong’ judgement on the Stoke Gifford case is elusive, it reflects a much wider national quandary. There’s never been a greater need for the facilities green spaces provide; and yet the money to fund parks day to day is in ever shorter supply, putting expenditure under close scrutiny. This gives rise to an interesting ‘parks problem’.
On the one hand, credibly quantifying the wider benefits of parks and related activities (e.g. the avoided costs of implementing conventional flood management techniques, health benefits from having space to exercise and cleaner air) can be difficult, especially for the smaller urban green spaces that are perhaps most at threat. This makes the value for money case for specific parks challenging – although Parkrun itself was lauded for its public health, community wellbeing, and volunteering benefits, the last of which alone was estimated to be worth £27,800 annually to Little Stoke Park. Significant effort would therefore be required to develop, and then implement, a “payment for ecosystem services” approach to each and every park.
On the other hand, however, is the far more interesting question of the distribution of costs and benefits. While the benefits of using parks may be widely, if unevenly shared, the costs burden currently falls (rather heavily as it turns out) on austerity-hit councils, especially in urban areas, and therefore on local taxpayers. A key argument in the Little Stoke Parkrun case was that the high volume of “outsider” Parkrunners were crowding out locals, while creating damage that locals had to pay for. A related argument can be made in favour of taxpayers who choose to make little or no use of parks – they effectively pay for benefits that others receive, although they may simply value the fact that the park is there.
That there is a funding gap for parks is not in question; rather, the question is how should we fill it?
They paved paradise…to save paradise?
Some have suggested that councils should share the load with other public institutions. Recognising financially the ecosystem services that parks provide could make them self-sustaining, and even provide a rationale for developing more green spaces.
The NHS, for example, will pick up a lot of the costs if councils close down parks and air pollution worsens or people exercise less. But though the rationale is sound, it seems far-fetched in practice. The NHS’s well-publicised financial problems make it an unlikely source of additional or alternative resources. Water companies might be another option, but few urban parks will be on a scale where they offer large enough water management benefits to warrant significant financial support.
A fork in the path: difficult choices lie ahead for the UK’s parks. Photo: BlondieISFC (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0), via Flickr.
This funding question has become sufficiently pressing to prompt a DCLG inquiry into the impact of reduced local authority budgets on parks and the associated threat to their existence. Some local authorities, such as Bexley, have found a simple solution: selling parks for development. The attractions are clear. Some costs are eliminated at a stroke, cash comes in and the area gains new shops and houses. However, choosing valuable sites is controversial. The temptation is to protect the biggest, most-used parks, but some argue that smaller sites can be just as vital, if not more so, to community fabric and the maintenance of a green network. But how do we value this? The first prong of the parks problem rears its ugly head….
Commercial developments, concessions and events have also emerged as new funding streams. When parks are closed off for ticketed events, however, or when they generate noise and litter from concerts or carnivals, it makes them less accessible and less effective at providing the public benefits they have historically offered. Similarly, caps on footfall, bookings for space, charges, and fines all deter people from using the services parks are meant to provide, and run counter to the stated goal of most parks – namely, to increase public access. Too much oversight can even result in people abandoning their local parks for, dare I say it, greener pastures. If parks aren’t well used, it makes the case for future disposal harder to resist.
Kids’ pay grounds
Nesta’s Rethinking Parks Programme attempted to address the problem in an innovative way, exploring new business models for the maintenance and development of green spaces without compromising access. Behaviour change, mandatory levies and modifications to existing funding streams were all explored. Yet there has been little uptake of these ideas, partly because of a lack of political will, but indirectly, I suspect, because of a lack of public support. Parks seem to be viewed as part of the British identity, and a citizen’s ‘right’. Attempts to convert this right into a responsibility have often, in the short run, raised more questions than they answer.
Take, for example, Bexley’s consultation last year on the disposal of the first four of 27 proposed sites, which included this rather ominous question:
“If you do not support the redevelopment of any or all of these sites, please indicate which of the following options you prefer:
- Substantial reductions in grounds maintenance, which would result in unmaintained parks, the removal of children’s playgrounds and the loss of sports pitches.
- £1 million reduction per year in spending on other Council services.
- A Council tax rise of more than 1.99% (subject to a local referendum)”
This suggests that opposing redevelopment at any of the four sites necessitates accepting one of the rather dire consequences. While desperate times may call for desperate measures, it remains unlikely that the fate of Bexley’s sports pitches and playgrounds will be secured (or indeed sealed) by whether 0.07 – 1.81 ha. of green space is sold or not. Indeed, there was no clear commitment to use the proceeds to support other green spaces, (e.g. by creating an endowment fund for parks), as this article reveals.
Green at the end of the rainbow
Ironically, parks are not treated as what they are widely recognised to be – vital infrastructure that should meet planning and design standards, and require maintenance. The definition of ‘public park’ and the regulations governing them (aside from those related to National Parks) are varied and incoherent, with requirements for council parks strategies and budgets often ambiguous and poorly monitored. Maps of green spaces and registers of ownership and their current state are lacking, or inaccessible. While I do not believe it is the responsibility of councils or central government to fund all parks, regulating them and fostering good management through the provision of accurate information should be.
Existing parks must be viewed as a part of a wider green space network. The increasing burden of footfall in parks in recent times may in part be attributed to a lack of other green places to go, which would suggest the need for a per-area-percentage-of-green-space target for local authorities. If such a target were implemented, potential approaches to expanding and enhancing provision of high quality urban green space might include:
- Accessible green roofs, and other ‘living’ features in new developments, such as green walls, either as a statutory requirement or incentivised through the planning system;
- mandating provision of and implementation of existing design standards for school and hospital grounds;
- encouraging the reinstatement of vegetated front gardens where these have been paved over;
- seeking the development of high quality off-road walking and cycling routes as ‘linear parks’ as part of a wider ‘green network’; and
- installing benches, swings and slides in green ‘islands’ to encourage the use of perhaps otherwise ‘unloved’ spots.
There is no shortage of potential options, but selecting the right one requires careful consideration of their suitability to different contexts in order to avoid negative outcomes, especially in areas which already struggle economically. Ultimately, the inconvenient truth is that if we want parks, someone needs to pay for the benefits they provide. Whichever way we seek to do this, there will be winners and losers, and balancing such considerations is fundamentally a matter of political decision-making. However, in these times of straitened public finances it is important to try and look beyond the short term.
Once lost, publicly accessible urban green spaces are almost impossible to replace. Their contributions to the wider ecosystem and the quality of life of those that use them are subtle – but in the words of Joni Mitchell, “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”.
Additional research by Damian Hughes.
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