My blog this week is really an update on what’s coming up in our industry and some thoughts regarding concerns facing us all moving into next year.
On Thursday this week (21st October) I will be attending the Amenity Forum conference at the Pirelli Stadium, home of Burton FC. Always a great conference with plenty of interesting speakers, this year’s final presenter will be Karl McDermott, head groundsman at Lord’s. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there?
Also, a reminder for you all to come and meet myself and the rest of the team from TurfPro and our sister title Service Dealer, at this year’s GMA Saltex at the NEC on the 3rd and 4th November. We have a stand at F109 so please call in during the two days of the show.
Parks excellence
As a Green Flag judge I was pleased to see the announcement that the Green Flag Award was presented to 2,127 parks and green spaces across the UK. It's another record-breaking year for the scheme which sees parks in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland meet the international quality standard.
Alongside the parks flying the Green Flag Award, 349 spaces have achieved a Green Flag Award Community Award and 115 a Green Heritage Site Accreditation.
As the scheme marks its Silver Jubilee, four of the seven parks that received their first Green Flag Award when the scheme was launched in 1996 and have flown it every year since – Worden Park in Lancashire, Cockington Country Park in Torbay and Queen’s Park and Highgate Wood in London.
They are joined by parks and green spaces as diverse as the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, Scottish Power Renewables Whitelee Windfarm, Belfast Botanic Gardens and Bwlch Nant yr Arian in Ceredigion.
Green Flag Award scheme manager, Paul Todd said, “I would like to congratulate everyone involved in the 2,127 parks and green spaces on their achievement. To meet the requirements demanded by the scheme is testament to the hard work of the staff and volunteers who do so much to ensure that their site has high standards of horticulture, safety and environmental management and is a place that supports people to live healthy lives.”
While on the subject of Green Flag, I along with some other parks professionals will be talking about the state of public parks at this year’s GMA Saltex show. There is now plenty of evidence about the value of these public open spaces and what they bring to communities. A key issue facing parks managers and local authorities is securing the relevant funding to continue to maintain and manage them. For far too many years we have seen a spiral of decline in their management, mainly due to budgetary cuts and the fact that they are not recognised by government as a statutory service.
In total there are 398 principal (unitary, upper and second tier) councils in the UK – 24 county councils, 181 district councils, 36 metropolitan councils, and 124 unitary councils. There are around 11,000 local councils in the UK, from town councils to parish councils. These councils, along with several trusts, charities and other organisations, manage between them 27,000 public parks across the country and employ a significant number of professionals to manage and maintain them within such service areas including streetcare, waste services, leisure services, community services, neighbourhood services and cultural services. It is now a rarity to find an authority that retains its distinct ‘parks service’ as it has most likely been absorbed into a wider departmental structure. Yet public perception is very different, with many still perceiving that ‘parks departments’ exist.
Future of the sector
Over the last 20+ years, there has been a significant reduction in the number of professionals dedicated to the management of parks and green spaces. Headlines such as ‘last of a dying breed’ have been seen not only in the trade press, but also in mainstream media. For me, along with many more ex and current parks managers, there is a real worry about the future of parks.
However, a recently formed organisation aptly named The Parks Management Association, set up by Paul Rabbits, who chairs the organisation, has as its sole purpose the promotion and support of parks managers and parks operatives.
Having spoken to many parks professionals and indeed many other horticultural and sports turf professionals, there is a worry about the future recruitment of new blood to come into this diverse industry. I have been lucky to have dedicated myself to the sector for over 50 years and still find it a wonderful, stimulating industry to work in.
To become a parks manager, or indeed hold a senior manager’s post in our industry, there is generally a requirement to have had some working life experiences of the job. There’s not many high-profile grounds managers / head greenkeepers in post who have not worked on the tools.
Back in my day we had parks apprenticeship schemes that ran for five years, enabling you to acquire the skills and experience required to become a professional horticulturalist.
However, apprenticeship schemes are few and far between now and finding the right training provider / college course to suit your employers’ requirements is now often becoming more and more difficult.
Many professional sports clubs and golf courses are finding it difficult to recruit with one of the main stumbling blocks being pay and working conditions and the fact that Generation Z do not want to work long physical hours. Even with basic qualifications the pay scales are generally between £18-22k not what you would call a living wage by today’s expectations.
I personally think we are going to struggle to entice a new generation of horticulturalists, gardeners, and grounds professionals in the coming years due to the reason mentioned above. There needs to be a shift in attitudes, and we need to promote the many other benefits that come with working in our industry as well as finding a way of increasing pay and improving working conditions.
