land without the consent of the government and contributing county councils. The reorganisation of local government in the 1970s merged the parks departments within leisure services, as was recommended in the Basin Report of 1972. This then led to parks competing with leisure services for an ever dwindling budget - and a budget for parks was not included in the government’s standard assessment. As parks maintenance is not a statutory
responsibility, local authority budget cuts in response to pressure from central government, and the threat of rate capping if they overspent, has often fallen on parks. A further factor promoting the decline of urban parks resulted from the Local
Government Act of 1988. This required all services to be put to tender. Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) meant that, instead of parks departments continuing to be responsible for their maintenance they became the clients.
In general, parks of historic interest
represent 9% of the total number of open spaces and 32% of the total area. The total number of all parks, including recreational areas, exceeds 27,000 in the UK. Estimated number of visitors annually to historic parks is over 296 million, with an estimated 1.5 billion to all parks and open spaces. In 1992 an audit commission sponsored a MORI survey on recreation. It found that, while 46% of people had used local authority leisure centres or
swimming pools within the past 12 months, 70% had used parks, playgrounds and open spaces. Today, local authorities are more ‘switched on’ to the benefits that parks provide. Whilst some still follow the CCT route, many have returned to using their own staff to tend these green spaces. In March of this year, the Government announced that £1 million was to be invested into a UK-wide horticultural apprenticeship scheme, a move welcomed by the Royal Horticultural Society and other bodies.
It is estimated that some eight million people will visit a park on any one day in the UK and it is good to know that, once again, parks and open spaces are high on the agenda once again.
Poster images © and courtesy of London Transport Museum
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