YOU demand: Save our Parks
Army of readers and experts back campaign Minister pledges £1m but we say: it’s not enough
THE Government l ast night ordered local councils to stop selling off parks and green spaces as an army of readers, experts and celebrities backed The Mail on Sunday’s Save Our Parks campaign.
Communities Secretary James Brokenshire hailed the campaign and announced £1 million would be spent on establishing new ‘pocket parks’ in urban areas.
But he stopped short of meeting our demands and also angered council chiefs by appearing to pin the blame on them. The row came as: Our campaign secured its first victory by forcing councillors to reconsider plans to build on a park in the Devon village of Westward Ho!
Hundreds of readers inundated The Mail on Sunday with letters and emails detailing the threat to parks in their area;
Celebrities led by Alan Titchmarsh, Julia Bradbury and Dame Joan Collins rallied behind the crusade.
Responding to the crisis, Mr Brokenshire said the Government was ‘giving councils over £200 billion until 2020 and the freedom to spend this on meeting local priorities. That includes the vital work of maintaining local parks’.
He urged local authorities ‘to act in the best interests of their local community’, adding: ‘Of course we recognise the financial pressures facing councils and we understand they have been making, and continue to make, extremely tough choices.
‘I would hope and expect them to address those issues of most concern to the public. Local authorities must not use the need to manage their finances prudently as an excuse to sell off green spaces.’
Furious councils hit back last night. Gerald Vernon-Jackson, chairman of the Local Government Association’s culture, tourism and sport board, said: ‘Councils want to do everything they can to keep their parks and green spaces open and available to communities.
‘Facing a funding gap of nearly £8 billion by 2025, councils need the Government to urgently address the future sustainability of local services before they are reduced further or stopped altogether.’
And Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive of the charity Keep Britain Tidy, warned that the £1 million ‘pocket parks’ plan was insufficient. ‘What is needed is significant and sustained investment,’ she said.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh said ‘destroying our parks is not just short- sighted, it is plain wrong’.
Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid demanded that officials stop concreting over green spaces, and Julia Bradbury, presenter of ITV’s Britain’s Best Walks, said: ‘If we lose our parks, it will take decades or even centuries to reclaim them and all the benefits that they offer society.’
Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, the former Paralympics star who is now chairman of health body UKActive, backed our campaign, saying: ‘The attack on our open spaces poses a major threat to the health of future generations.
‘And the deterioration of our parks that The Mail on Sunday’s campaign highlights is a national disgrace.’
Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield said saving parks could help to combat Britain’s obesity crisis.
She said: ‘The Mail on Sunday is right that more needs to be done to save our parks from redevelopment or disrepair. We need to do all we can to get more young people outside playing and being active.’
A recent report by UKActive found that just a quarter of boys and fifth of girls complete the recommended 60 minutes of activity each day. Experts believe that the health benefits from parks saves the NHS £111 million a year, while the charity Fields In Trust says parks provide £34 billion in health and social benefits.
Readers across the country fighting to save their local parks and green spaces said our campaign had given them renewed hope and a voice. They include users of Wandle Park in Croydon, South London, who fear it will become a ‘no go’ area after the council axed its park keeper.
In Liverpool, tens of thousands of campaigners are fighting plans to build luxury properties on the 94-acre Calderstones Park. And i n Deptford, South- East London, protesters have pledged to sit in front of bulldozers at Old Tidemill park, where developers want t o buil d more t han 200 homes.