Public Places
Football pitches reverting to long grass regimes in a Manchester park “ 92 I PC APRIL/MAY 2015
Departments were previously
encouraged to create visions for their green spaces, along with strategies,
management plans and policy
aspirations. These are being hurriedly dumbed down or jettisoned in a bid to cope, and we have rapidly changed from an era of improvement and achievement back to managing decline
the political agenda and funding priorities. Along with the legacy of the now-discredited Compulsory Competitive Tendering regime, the lack of a central, co-ordinating, authoritative body for open spaces was cited by many as a major reason for the decline. There was, then, an Arts Council, Sports Council, Countryside Commission, etc. but no ‘Parks Council’ or ‘Open Spaces Commission’. A brave Government decision was made in 2003 to create a new department in the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) to be called CABESpace, which would champion and promote the parks and open spaces cause. The next few years saw a parks
renaissance in many cities, towns and boroughs. National Lottery funding, the English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, the success of the Green Flag Award, the growth of Friends of Parks Groups, the creation of Greenspace and their joint training programmes with CABESpace, all gave parks and open spaces managers and staff some assurance that, at last, the importance of public open spaces was recognised at the highest level. Greenspace helped to co-ordinate an association for parks sector professionals called the Institute of Parks and Green Spaces (IPGS) which provided a regular magazine, e-newsletter and website forum to support and inform those who joined it. It seemed, at that time, that the campaign to show how green spaces contribute to health and wellbeing, tourism, inward investment, placemaking, liveability and quality of life, biodiversity, climate amelioration, urban drainage, community spirit etc. had been won and the need for them to be recognised as national treasures, despite their current condition, had finally been recognised.
Then along came the recession, starting in
late 2008. The regime of austerity in Government spending saw non-statutory services, such as sports, recreation and the environment, as soft targets for swingeing budget cuts, often euphemistically termed “efficiency savings”. A new wave of deeper budget cuts and outsourcing services to the private sector started, as local authorities desperately sought ways to quickly reduce costs.
A cull of quangos (Quasi Non-Government
Organisations) and other part government- supported organisations, following the General Election in 2010, saw the funding for CABESpace and Greenspace cease. They were wound up and the Green Flag Award only just escaped the axe. This left the green space sector back where it had been ten years before, without leadership or a voice in Government. There was now, quite deliberately, no recognised organisation to champion parks and green spaces at a time when the most severe cut-backs for years began to reduce services to unparalleled levels.
We are, it seems, now heading towards a
future of ever-deepening austerity and unprecedented cut-backs in public spending, and the next few years are likely to see dramatic changes in the way open spaces are managed. Grounds maintenance contractors now openly admit they are forced into cut- throat bidding wars where unrealistic targets are agreed and unrealistic profit margins are accepted in order to win contracts. Many authorities have consulted the public who, unsurprisingly, often see grounds maintenance tasks such as grass-mowing as low priority compared with crime, health, education, social care, etc. but, when confronted with the reality of unkempt grass
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