Recently I spent a wonderful week in Scotland staying at Laga farmhouse on the shores of Loch Sunart near the village of Glenborrodale close to Ardnamurchan.

Whilst there I had the opportunity to witness some breath-taking scenery, visiting the Isle of Mull and Sanna Beaches. 

Loch Sunart near Laga 

The following photographs sum up the beauty of our UK landscape, and reminded me of what a wonderful country we live in – reaffirming my belief we should take more care and be aware of what we have on our own doorstep. All too often we are too busy working and do not notice the beauty or importance of our own local landscapes.

Rocky outcrop Glenborrodale 

Continued investment

This was made apparent to me during a recent Green Flag judging visit to Haden Hill Park, Cradley Heath in Sandwell.  

Haden Hill Park is a historical Victorian landscaped park with a Victorian Mansion and Tudor Hall. The landscape offers stunning views of the surrounding area. The park is a popular venue for historical local events and environmental activities. It has children’s play areas, a bowling green, some ornamental lakes and formal garden areas.  

Haden Hill Park 
  

Haden Hill Park lake Cradley Heath  

This park, like many local authority parks and public open spaces, provides valuable opportunities for the local communities to enjoy - however, we can only continue to maintain these parks with the appropriate funding. Myself and other parks professionals would like to see parks become a statutory service, with funding being ring-fenced for the purpose of maintaining these important landscape assets.

For the past twenty-six years The National Lottery has invested in the UK’s public parks and urban green spaces. Over 900 urban parks have been regenerated with over £1billion invested by The National Lottery working in partnership with the many local authority owners. The physical evidence of this investment is everywhere to be seen, from replanted historic avenues to restored memorial fountains, from new play spaces to thriving park community cafes. But what impact has this investment had on the people that use parks, how have they benefited and were the National Lottery right to insist that all their funded park projects should also focus on supporting local communities to use and engage with their newly regenerated parks? 

Parks are more than just the green oases beautifying our towns and cities and providing a home for nature. Parks are one of our most used publicly-funded services. They form the heart of local community life, providing space for people to exercise to improve their physical health and mental wellbeing, to play, chat, eat, gather, protest and relax. Parks are essential pieces of community infrastructure. The huge importance of our urban parks has never been more appreciated and understood than it is today. 

Haden Hill Park's bowling green 

Covid-19 has meant that increasing numbers of people have discovered, used and relied upon their local parks and green spaces to help them to cope with lockdown restrictions, although this has also placed more pressure than ever on these vital green assets. 

The National Lottery has a produced a report containing several case studies, demonstrating how essential our parks are and that continued investment in both their ongoing maintenance and the resources needed to help people access these benefits is fundamental. Reducing park maintenance budgets to cover just grass cutting and litter collection, at the very time when use and demand is increasing, is a false economy. 

Also, there is plenty of information about the importance of parks that can be read in the recently published State of Public Parks.

Valuation

To conclude, whether it’s our local park, local sports facility, woodland, pond or canal there will always be a cost for their upkeep. We, along with the current curators and landowners, need to continue to find ways of securing the appropriate funding to ensure these facilities are there for our future generations. 

To help achieve this we need to find more ways of calculating the value of these public open spaces. I personally believe we need to have in place a value chart of what these facilities are worth in terms of their performance of converting CO 2 into oxygen (Carbon sequestration).

Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing, securing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The idea is to stabilize carbon in solid and dissolved forms so that it doesn’t cause the atmosphere to warm. The process shows tremendous promise for reducing the human “carbon footprint.” There are two main types of carbon sequestration: biological and geological.

It is the Biological carbon sequestration that is the key for us. Biological carbon sequestration is the storage of carbon dioxide in vegetation such as grasslands or forests, as well as in soils and oceans.

Keeping natural grasslands and shrub lands intact and healthy will keep that carbon locked below ground, while the grasses and shrubs will continue pulling additional carbon from the atmosphere as they are grown. More information on the potential of carbon sinks can be read here.

I firmly believe our valuable town and city parks and open green spaces are providing an important role in the sequencing of CO2 gases. We just need to be able to measure the value of this process and ensure the maintenance and sustainability of these assets are secured for the future.