Victory for the MoS as Government pleges £13m to help Britain’s parks

THE UK Government today pledges a £13million cash injection to help improve Britain’s parks.

In a victory for The Mail on Sunday’s Save Our Parks Campaign, Communities Secretary James Brokenshire has ordered funds be made available immediately so local authorities can buy new play equipment, spruce up tired green spaces and start creating 200 ‘pocket parks’.

Mr Brokenshire said: ‘I want to commend The Mail on Sunday for the campaign to highlight the importance of parks because they are something that certainly matter to me. Our parks are precious and we need to protect them.

‘We will seek to get this funding out quickly to local authorities to give them the boost they need to make improvements to parks.’

Thousands of readers, celebrities and MPs have backed our demand to stop the decline of parks and improve the maintenance of those still surviving.

The £13million package includes £9.7million to ‘maintain, protect and increase recreational spaces’ and £1.2million for a project by the National Trust and the National Lottery Heritage Fund to foster ideas on how better to fund parks.

The ‘pocket parks’ programme, which is seeking to create hundreds of new small parks around the country, will get a further £2.75 million.

Such UK Government initiatives often involve extra funding coming to Scotland via a process known as Barnett consequentials.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Barnett consequentials arising from UK Government funding are not automatically allocated to a specific area and form part of the overall Scottish budget.

‘The people of Scotland will expect their fair share of additional funds as a result of this announcement. We look forward to receiving more information from the UK Government in due course.’