From these seeds, we’ll grow together

FROM ancient village greens to the great public parks bequeathed to us by the Victorians, we’ve always treasured the opportunity to come together with friends and neighbours in parks on our doorstep.

The benefits they offer for our mental and physical health, for helping us connect with nature and each other and as beautiful, relaxing places cannot be overstated.

With three daughters of my own, I have spent many an hour at my local park, as I did as a child with my parents.

Some are serene, some are noisy; some are magical wildernesses, others planned and manicured.

That’s why the MoS’s Save Our Parks campaign is so important.

And why I’m determined to play my part in championing parks and green spaces, no matter how small, as part of my mission to nurture places that inspire pride, community spirit and belonging. I am therefore delighted to be awarding £1.35 million of funding to 68 projects across England as part of the Pocket Parks programme, taking the total we’ve backed to 352.

This will see community groups from Northumberland to Cornwall transforming small parks and plots of land that have fallen into disrepair and bringing them back into use. Many of these imaginative schemes combine an impressive commitment to boosting biodiversity and wildlife with improved facilities and better access.

I hope to see for myself the difference they can make when I visit

Waterloo Millennium Green in London – a once-spartan short-cut for locals that’s now a popular Pocket Park. As well as striving to improve the skills of those who look after our parks and developing new models for managing and funding them, we’re exploring how our green spaces can help us address the great challenge of climate change.

Parks and gardens make up around half of all usable green space that’s publicly accessible in this country, a remarkable legacy of our forebears.

They’re peculiarly British, from bandstands to bowling greens, and their existence reflects the national obsession with gardening we inherited from the Victorians.

But they can also be part of our response to the challenges of today. Whether we’re talking about harnessing wind and solar power to generate energy, planting more trees and wildflower meadows to maximise carbon capture, linking parks to create more walking routes or using them for events like Parkrun to get us fit and healthy, it’s clear that our green spaces can be as much about the future as they are a product of our past.

We are committed to making it easier for communities to take back control of valued assets through new initiatives such as the £150 million Community Ownership Fund which will help protect and maintain cherished spaces such as the village pub or community centre.

I want to give people the power to ensure that the places they live in reflect the area’s unique character and culture, are more beautiful and, yes, are greener. Out of the smallest Pocket Park can grow the seeds of something we all need and value – a sense of space.

That’s why I also want to see the re-greening of our cities, with lowcarbon homes built as the norm within five years and all streets to be lined with trees in new developments. If that means signing up to be a ‘Tree Angel’, which this paper’s sister daily is commendably campaigning on, then so be it!

I’m determined to help ensure that we pass on our parks and our planet to the next generation richer in biodiversity, more beautiful and more well- loved than when we inherited them.

This can sometimes seem like a challenge that’s simply too big and beyond us. But, as Pocket Parks show, there is no such thing as starting too small.

Places that inspire pride, community spirit and belonging